At first they went into society a great deal, and gave dinners.
Then gradually they restricted their goings-out and their receptions, and lived almost alone, saying that they were jealous of each other.
Madame reproached Monsieur with flirting with the women; Monsieur accused Madame of looking too much at the men.
They loved each other much,—that is to say, they quarreled all day long, like a little bourgeois household.
The truth is that Madame had not succeeded in society, and that her manners had cost her not a few insults.
She was angry with Monsieur for not having been able to impose her upon society, and Monsieur was angry with Madame for having made him ridiculous in the eyes of his friends.
They did not confess to each other the bitterness of their feelings, finding it simpler to charge their dissensions to the score of love.
Every year, in the middle of June, they started for the country, Madame having, it seems, a magnificent chateau in Touraine.
The personnel was re-enforced with a coachman, two gardeners, a second chambermaid, and some barnyard-scullions.
There were cows, peacocks, hens, and rabbits. How delightful!
William told me the details of their country life with a bitter and grumbling ill-humor.
He did not like the country; the fields, the trees, and the flowers made him tired.
Nature was endurable to him only with bar-rooms, race-tracks, bookmakers, and jockeys.
He was exclusively Parisian.
"Do you know anything more stupid than a chestnut tree?" he often said to me.
"Take Edgar, for instance; he is a chic man, a superior man; does he like the country?"
I became enthusiastic:
"Oh! but the flowers in the broad lawns! And the little birds!"
William sneered:
"The flowers?
They are pretty only on hats and in the millinery shops. And the little birds?
Oh, don't talk about them! They prevent you from sleeping in the morning. They sound like bawling children.
Oh! no. Oh! no. I have enough of the country. The country is fit only for peasants."
And, straightening up, with a noble gesture, he concluded, in a proud voice:
"I must have sport. I am not a peasant; I am a sportsman."
Nevertheless I was happy, and I awaited the month of June with impatience.
Oh! the marguerites in the meadows; the little paths under the trembling leaves; the nests hidden in the ivies against the old walls; and the nightingales on moonlight nights; and the sweet conversations, hand in hand, on the brinks of wells, lined with honeysuckles and carpeted with maiden's-hair and moss; and the bowls of foaming milk; and the broad-brimmed straw hats; and the little chickens; and the masses heard in the village churches, with their towering steeples; and everything that moves and charms you, and makes an impression on your heart, like one of those pretty ballads they sing in the music-halls!
Although I am fond of fun, I have a poetical nature.
The old shepherds, the outspread hay, the birds that pursue one another from branch to branch, and the brooks that run singing over light pebbles, and the handsome lads, with complexions made purple by the sun, like grapes on very old vines,—the handsome lads with robust limbs and powerful chests,—all these things make me dream pleasant dreams. In thinking of these things, I become almost a little girl again, my soul inundated and my heart refreshed by innocence and candor, as a little rain refreshes the little flower too much burned by the sun, too much dried by the wind. And at night, while waiting for William, becoming enthusiastic over the prospects of this future of pure joys, I made verses: Petite fleur, O toi, ma soeur, Dont la senteur Fait mon bonheur ... Et toi, ruisseau, Lointain coteau, Frele arbrisseau, Au bord de l'eau, Que puis-je dire, Dans mon delire? Je vous admire ... Et je soupire ... Amour, amour, Amour d'un jour, Et de toujours!... Amour, amour!...
As soon as William returned, all poesy flew away.
He brought me the heavy odor of the bar-room, and his kisses, which smelt of gin, quickly broke the wings of my dream. I never wanted to show him my verses.
What was the use?
He would have laughed at me, and at the sentiment that inspired them.
And undoubtedly he would have said to me:
"Take Edgar, now! He is an astonishing man. Does he make verses?"
My poetical nature was not the only cause of my impatience to start for the country.
My stomach was out of order, in consequence of the long period of poverty through which I had just passed, and perhaps also in consequence of the too abundant and exciting food that I was now enjoying, and the champagne and the Spanish wines that William forced me to drink.
I was really suffering.
Often, in the morning, on getting out of bed, I was seized with vertigo. During the day my legs bent under me, and I felt pains in my head, like the blows of a hammer.
I really needed a quieter life, to restore me a little. Alas! it was written that all this dream of happiness and health was also to be dashed.
"Oh! hell!" as Madame would say. _____
The scenes between Monsieur and Madame always began in Madame's dressing-room, and always grew out of trifling pretexts, out of nothing. The more trifling the pretext, the more violent was the scene. After which, having vomited all that their hearts contained of long pent-up bitterness and wrath, they sulked for entire weeks.
Monsieur retired into his room, where he played solitaire and rearranged his collection of pipes in new harmonies.
Madame remained all the time in her room, where, stretched upon a long chair, she read love stories, interrupting her reading only to rearrange her closets and her wardrobe, with rage and frenzy,—such a pillage! They met only at meals.
At first, not being familiar with their manias, I thought they were going to throw plates, knives, and bottles at each other's heads. Nothing of the kind, alas! It was at these times that they were the best behaved, and that Madame contrived to appear like a woman of society.
They talked about their little affairs as if nothing had happened,—a little more ceremoniously than usual, with a little more cold and stilted politeness,—that was all. One would have said they were dining in town. Then, the meal finished, with serious air, sad eyes, and very dignified, they retired to their respective rooms. Madame began again on her novels and drawers, Monsieur on his solitaire and his pipes. Sometimes Monsieur went to pass an hour or two at his club, but rarely.
And they exchanged a furious correspondence, hen-shaped or heart-shaped love-letters, with the transmission of which I was entrusted.
All day long I played the letter-carrier, bearing terrible ultimatums, threats, supplications, pardons, and tears, from the room of Madame to that of Monsieur. It was enough to make one die of laughter.
After a few days, they became reconciled, just as they had fallen out, without any apparent reason. And there were sobs, and
"Oh, you naughty boy!"