II Elizabeth’s Day
Maître Tabourin’s four clerks, knowing that their chief was lunching in town with a wealthy client, began their afternoon by playing cards. That contempt for the public, which characterizes the small official in France, whether in the service of the state or of a private individual, prevented their stopping or hiding their game when someone knocked at the door.
“Come in,” said Vitrolle indistinctly, unhappy in having no trumps.
But to the amazement of his colleagues, the junior clerk, Malaunay, left the card table to meet the intruder, to whom he bowed respectfully. They understood, however, when they caught sight of Mme. Derize, whose soft, blonde hair, lit up by the rays of the winter’s sun, contrasted with the reddish fur she was wearing. In spite of the weight of her cloak, she seemed very tall. The cold air out of doors had reddened her cheeks. A black hat, turned up at the side, trimmed with a single feather, gave her the appearance of an English portrait. Hearing of Maître Tabourin’s absence, she seemed confused.
“He asked me to come to-day,” she said.
“But he will be back, Madame.”
“Then I will wait.”
They showed her into the little room adjoining his office. And the game continued. When it was over, Lestaque and Dauras, who had won, suggested another. The senior clerk prudently refused, and each one took up a document without enthusiasm. For want of something better to do they talked, paying no attention to the person who was waiting indefinitely. What is more natural than for a client, however charming, to remain in the waiting-room.
“How about our bet?” asked Malaunay.
“What bet?”
“The Derize case. I was the only one who bet on the husband.”
“You were wrong.”
“Well, well, we shall see.”
“We know now.”
Lestaque and Dauras thought little, but at the same time interrupted:
“How far have we gotten with the case?”
“Well,” explained the clerk with an air of importance. “After the petition to the president, a verbal record of non-reconciliation was filed. M. Derize did not appear, and his wife obtained the temporary care of the children, as well as an allowance. We sent the summons last October. M. Derize has not shown his intention and it is now January. The delays for conclusion have expired, and the case is written on the records to go by default. We have evidence which constitutes a written proof. The separation will be given de plano.”
“Has anyone seen that evidence?” asked the junior clerk.
“No. Mme. Derize has it. She does not answer our letters, and the delay in the case is due to her silence. I suppose she is bringing it to us. It is high time.”
Dauras sought the information which Lestaque enjoyed giving.
“And what is M. Lagier doing, M. Derize’s lawyer?”
“What is he doing?” answered Malaunay, expressing envy and admiration on his mobile face. “He is flirting with his lovely enemy. At Uriage they were always together.”
“Yes, but at Grenoble they never see each other.”
“They are keeping under cover. And yet you can believe that Mme. Derize is in no hurry to get her separation.”
“Well, what will she do then?”
“Ah well, she will console herself. Once consoled, she will become reconciled to her husband. It will be a household of four. That is the custom in Paris.”
For the little clerk, dazzled by Paris, was much impressed by its free habits. Always on the lookout for something new, and with his eye fixed on the door, he had only time to whisper “Take care!” to them. The chief entered. M. Tabourin had lunched well—too well, in fact. His face was scarlet, his hair—which he had to dampen a great deal to accomplish such a result—flat. Instead of adopting the new fashion and covering his linen with a high vest, he displayed a shirt front, which he had spotted in many places as a result of his lively excitable gestures. As he was finishing his cigar, he assumed the indifferent air of a man of the world, for the especial benefit of Malaunay, who was watching him carefully; but the first word of the head clerk aroused him.
“Madame Albert Derize is waiting for you in your office.”
“Ah, ah,” he said, “she is making up her mind at last. It is time to get a judgment by default.”
A last hasty puff, and then he disappeared. A few minutes later, someone knocked at the office door.
“Maître Lagier,” announced the junior clerk jokingly.
It was he. They would like to have laughed, but the newcomer knew how to command respect. The clerks restrained their mirth.
“M. Tabourin is here?”
“Yes, sir,” answered Vitrolle. “He is in his office with Mme. Derize. I will tell him you are here.”
“No need to. I shall come back.”
Then he did not care to meet Mme. Derize? Upset in their calculations, the clerks were astonished, when the Chief reappeared opportunely with his client. He showed every evidence of an unpleasant interview. Philippe Lagier, discovered, just as he was leaving, made a hurried movement of retreat and embarrassment which could not escape so keen an observer as Malaunay; but the young woman, after an imperceptible hesitation, came toward him.
“Monsieur,” she said, “I should very much like to speak with you. Will you go a short way with me?”
“Willingly, Madame,” he stammered confusedly.
What had become of that self-possession which had never been known to fail him? Why this emotion on so ordinary an occasion? He recovered his composure at once and bowed to the lawyer and his clerks before he went out with the beautiful Mme. Derize. M. Tabourin had other things on his mind than to observe these fine distinctions. The door was hardly closed when he announced tragically to his colleagues:
“The Derize case has fallen through!”
“How? Why?” asked the clerks.
“Mme. Derize withdraws her petition.”
Vitrolle, Lestaque and Dauras wore appropriate expressions of despair to fit the occasion. But the junior clerk dared to show unbounded joy and cried:
“I’ve won!”
The Chief, not understanding, stared at him and repeated mechanically:
“Won?”
“Certainly,” explained the clerk insolently. “We had a bet on that case.”
“A bet?”
“It is done in all offices. With nothing at stake what interest would we have in a case? Mme. Derize wanted a separation. Her husband demanded nothing—I bet on him. Nothing has happened—therefore I have won.”
Leaving M. Tabourin perplexed, he turned towards his comrades.
“You each owe me a dinner at a restaurant of my own choice. Three dinners, what luck!”
The others protested. The lawyer, surprised, but greedy, hesitated a second between the desire for an invitation and the dignity of his position. The latter won, and he grew very angry:
“Take care, sir. You don’t treat business matters seriously, and I have already noticed your dangerous inclination to pleasure. Did you not recently win another bet at the Café du Commerce on the longest time one could take to smoke a cigar? The longest time! At your age, I should have understood the shortest. You took more than an hour to do it. It was a sufficient cause, you know, to dismiss you. The interests of a business must be sacred to its employés, and I will not have my clerks betting on the loss of my cases.”
And with this speech, in which he gave vent to his anger (a good thing for him, as he needed some helpful exercise to aid his digestion)—he inconsiderately distributed some work to his mournful listeners.
Saint-André’s Square is two steps from the Quai de la République, where the Molay-Norrois lived. Instead of going toward the Isère, Elizabeth directed her steps toward the park. Philippe Lagier, who was silently walking beside her was surprised.
“Where are we going, Madame?”
“To my house.”
“Then you have left your parents?”
“Did you not know about it? I have taken a flat in the Rue Haxo, almost opposite the Botanical Gardens.”
“Ah,” said he, making no comment.
“I have been very much criticised for it. Still it is better as it is. I see my parents almost every day, but a mother needs a little liberty to bring up her children.”
The park seemed numbed with the cold. Behind the houses, the young elms and plane trees reared their light branches and twigs against the delicate winter sky, so clear and pale. The water in the pond was frozen, and the ice had been broken in one small place to give a little black swan room to swim; but the poor bird, feeling imprisoned, scarcely moved his feet. Near Elizabeth, Philippe remembered the day last summer in this same garden, when before Counselor Prémereux, he had pleaded the cause of passion, against the Molay-Norrois majority.
They scarcely spoke a word, as they walked along the crowded streets which led from there to the Place de la Constitution, out of which branches the Rue Haxo. This square, symmetrical and even, surrounded by office buildings, was almost deserted, and the Rue Haxo was still more so.
“There it is,” she said, as they stopped in front of a tall house of modest appearance near the Boulevard des Alpes, bordered by the grassy slopes of the old ramparts.
They walked up four flights. She preceded him going into her apartment.
“There is no fire in the drawing-room. Excuse my receiving you in this room, Monsieur. It is our school-room.”
It was a work-room simply furnished, with a large ink-spotted table; and its one window overlooking the trees of the Botanical Gardens.
“My children write their exercises here—at least, Marie Louise does, because your godson can only amuse himself as yet.”
She appeared constrained, embarrassed by what she wished to say to him and could not. Philippe Lagier was conscious of it, but could not help her. Remembering the path at Uriage where he had known humiliation and shame, he could not realize that he was again face to face with her. She had tried to smile in saying “Your godson,” which was a bond between them. It was a smile of such distress that he finally concluded to aid her by giving to this conversation the motive it required.
“I have had a letter from your husband, Madame,—from Albert. That was my reason for visiting your lawyer, just now when I met you. His solicitor at Grenoble, Maître Randon, tells him that you refuse every month to accept the allowance which he sends you regularly.”
“That is so.”
“He was astonished and asked me the reason for it, and begged me to insist or to make them prevail upon you to accept it in your own interests, and if you refuse for yourself, then in the interests of Marie Louise and Philippe, who are in your charge.”
After giving this explanation with a severe authority due to embarrassment, he looked at the young woman whose confusion he noted; either coming from the cold air outside to the warm air of the room had caused the blood to mount to her cheeks, or else this flush was caused by the awkwardness she experienced in advance, knowing what her answer must be. Blushing, her eyes filled with tears, she regained her breath as if she were choking, and replied with great effort:
“My husband has wrecked his home himself. He has deprived us of his moral support. From now on, I have decided to dispense with his financial support.
“I will bring them up myself. Later, they can do as they like.”
“It is the tenth month. The lawyer has already received ten thousand francs in your name. He does not wish to keep it.”
“Let him send it back to M. Derize.”
“Albert will not take it back. You know him well. He has pride... like you.”
With a gesture of indifference, she indicated that she had nothing to do with the disposal of the money. However, Philippe Lagier’s answer, that allusion to Albert’s unselfish nature, was secretly pleasant to her. It put an end to the unpleasant memories which the presence of the lawyer would otherwise have awakened. He replied, with a little less assurance:
“May I ask you a question? Do you not need this allowance, which is legal and which you can—which you ought to receive?”
She explained her situation with simplicity. She had received a dowry of two hundred thousand francs, the interest of which would be sufficient for her. She did not add that her parents had not yet given her the last quarter of it, and that she found her income reduced to six thousand francs a year. Philippe really knew this, but only said:
“It is not the position you are accustomed to.”
The apartment in which she was living was certainly neither like the one in the Rue Bara in Paris, nor that of the Molay-Norrois on the banks of the Isère.
“I shall get used to it,” she said, smiling. “It is nothing. I have no need to wear the garb of a martyr.”
The clothes she was wearing suited her so well, bringing out with such brilliance the beauty of her complexion, that he wanted to protest against this. He had lost the right to do so, and he therefore refrained.
“My children’s education,” she continued, “will suffer in no wise from this reduction. I have promised myself and I shall keep my word. See, I have already begun. I correct Marie Louise’s exercises, and I am teaching her her lessons.”
“You give yourself much trouble.”
“It gives me something to do. One must be occupied with other people when one’s own life no longer has a purpose.”
She had risen. He believed that she was asking him to go. But she opened the drawer of a writing-table and came over to him to give him a packet, carefully folded, which he recognized.
“I asked you to come back with me so that I could give you M. Derize’s note-books. I thank you for having given them to me. I have kept them a very long time, but you did not ask me for them.”
He bowed without speaking.
“And here is the letter which had been sent to him and which I kept without the right to do so. You will return it to him.”
Philippe, dumbfounded, refused the envelope she held out to him.
“This telegram belongs to you. It is your weapon. You cannot give up the possession of it.”
“I have no further need of it.”
“But, Madame....”
“I am giving up my petition for separation. Albert may do as he likes.”
For the first time in this conversation she used her husband’s Christian name. It was the only indication of her emotion.
“Ah!” murmured Philippe, who did not expect this new development. “Does Albert know?”
“I have just told my lawyer. His lawyer will tell him about it in turn.”
“You will give me permission to tell it to him?”
“Certainly.”
After that there was nothing left for him to do but to go. Standing in front of her he did not know how to show her his respect. In the course of this unlooked-for interview, he had constantly looked for an opportunity to ask her pardon. To the humiliation of his recollections was now added that of his inadequacy in a situation in which he most desired to use the resources of his mind. But there was another surprise in store for him. Elizabeth offered him her hand, and with a trembling voice, said:
“I also wished to tell you, Monsieur, that I have forgotten your last words at Uriage. Give me your hand. You had misjudged me; it was my fault. A woman alone has to be so careful. Remain Albert’s friend, and be a little friendly to me, will you? We shall meet seldom. I only remember the truths I heard from you one day, which have made me understand one’s own contribution to one’s unhappiness.—”
Philippe, bending down, kissed the fingers which she gently drew away.
“Madame,” he repeated. “Madame.”
And when he could master his emotion, he said:
“I shall be worthy of your pardon. Ah, if you only knew how I have reproached myself! Now I feel so much younger, so much lighter. Ah, one’s own contempt is hard to bear.”
“Sh!” she said, her finger on her lips as a signal to him not to continue the subject, never to speak of it again.
He bowed.
“Good-by, Madame. You will never have a more devoted friend.”
When he had left, Elizabeth took off her hat and her furs. Her cheeks were burning and her hands frozen. The children, who had been out walking with their governess on L’Ile Verte, were about to return home: she would resume her daily work with them which sometimes made her so tired. She sat down by the fire, leaning against the back of her chair motionless, in that position in which one seeks relaxation after intense fatigue. She felt a great need of rest—of not having to think of or do anything more. Darkness was coming on, but she did not light the lamp. Before her, through the window, she saw the snow of Belledonne on the trees, lit up by the rays of the setting sun, and delicately colored like early spring flowers. Kissed by the sun, the glaciers were melting, and yet, even from a distance in the clear evening light, their coldness was apparent. Despite so many praiseworthy efforts, which seemed to give power to her poor, deserted, young life, she felt the touch of death.
What courage she had used, in order to triumph little by little over her natural indolence, to accomplish so many decisions, even the generosity of which, once they were executed, could no longer sustain her! No reward, no hope would be given her. Far away from her, the one close to the other, Albert and his mistress were freely enjoying their love. However, they would know her greatness of soul, her pride, her new and difficult life. She would force them to remember. During that very day, had she not shown of what she was capable? Did Anne’s biography, which had been kept with so much admiration, contain a finer page? This comparison with her rival in exciting her jealousy and poisoning her wound, had given her a little energy. Her children, who came in in the semi-darkness to kiss her, aroused her from her torpor. She thought that Albert’s mother would approve of her, would thank her, and, in this unaccustomed activity which had demanded of her sluggish youth a display of strength, the use of which she now understood, she found, despite so many causes for despair, that wonderful peace in fatigue which healthful exercise gives to the body. And this new sensation came as a surprise and a relief to her.