III The Plaintiff
An hour later, Philippe Lagier presented himself at Mme. Derize’s house. Would he see her alone or in the company of Mme. Molay-Norrois? He knew it would be almost impossible to convince the latter by arguments predicated upon experience, obstinate as she was, with an unchanging, simple conviction, in an opinion which originated with the austere M. Salvage,—one of those provincial magistrates who have charge of the morals of the community. If she were present, the effect of his efforts would be nil. If she were not, his very cordial relations with the young couple who had often dined with him at Grenoble, and who had entertained him in Paris, made him feel that before the case was opened, he could take this unusual step which he was about to attempt, not as a lawyer—that would have been out of the question—but as a friend. He would make another effort to avert a break, to lay the foundations of reconciliation. Since their quarrel he had been out of touch with the people concerned. Most of his information had really come to him from the petition to the President of the Court: that contained dates and exact facts. But of what use have facts and dates ever been to explain emotions, and how much more truthfully can a facial expression, a word of rebellion, of hatred, or of sorrow, give a clew to these intimate dramas!
As Philippe was gazing from the window at the swift, muddy Isère, he was trying with the habit of mind of a man of business who prepares his plans and forestalls obstacles, to imagine Mme. Derize’s attitude. And he realized that he did not know her at all. The proof of a developed personality is to be able to find immediate answer to the questions raised by circumstances. We easily divine frankness or deceit, tranquillity or anger, nobility or quickness of decision, except in those complex characters which are the result of too much reflection, and such is seldom the case with young people. So, in their many years’ acquaintance, Albert’s wife had told him nothing about herself, not because of excessive reserve, but because he could draw no inference from their conversations which were never deep nor remarkable for their spontaneity, but were, on the contrary, light and frivolous, enlivened by that charm and sprightly ease due to life in Paris. He had sought in vain for a clew to her moral make-up which defied his analysis and on pursuit disappeared as a cloud in the wind.
Mme. Derize came in. She was alone—but at once took shelter behind Mme. Molay-Norrois.
“My mother is coming in. I suppose she may hear our interview.”
“Certainly,” said Philippe, decided to take immediate advantage of the short tête-à-tête, which chance had given him.
There was no time to lose, and yet they began by exchanging commonplaces, which generally precede every argument: preliminaries which seem as indispensable as skirmishes before a battle. She quietly told him of her own and her children’s health, announced her coming departure for Uriage, where she would spend the summer to avoid the heat of Grenoble. He stared at her somewhat rudely and with evident surprise. She was wearing the same appropriate dress of dark purple that he had heard praised at Mme. Passerat’s, of the beauty of which he could now get a better idea. But it was the puzzle of her charming face that he was ardently studying: it revealed no traces of life nor of the sorrow of the past few months. As long as he could remember, he had always seen it as it was now, with high color, pure and glossy as a flower, without a shadow or a line. Even the contrast of her fair hair and her black eyes did not impress him as being unusual, and her mysterious charm for him was the result of expectation, not of the past.
Realizing that she was under observation, she blushed slightly. The blood mounted easily to her cheeks. He explained:
“Your extreme youthfulness surprises me every time I meet you. They surely must call you ‘Mademoiselle’ in the shops!”
This compliment amused her:
“It is true;” she said, “yet I have been married eight years and my children are growing up.”
Philippe Lagier did not add that at every meeting she gave him an almost irritating impression, a complex of vexation, of persistent sympathy, of disdain and of a desire to provoke her: then all these contradictory feelings changed to an indulgence, a gallant instinct of protection which he felt for his friend’s pretty wife.
After these banal remarks, in accordance with his usual way, he began brusquely:
“You have made up your mind?”
“To what?” she asked, although she had understood.
“To a separation from Albert.”
She seemed to be thunderstruck.
“Oh! why not after all that has happened!”
The lawyer at once expressed his point of view:
“A man like him is not to be judged by one action, but by his entire life.”
She noticed that he did not speak of pardon, but of justice, and she mechanically repeated in her surprise.
“His whole life?”
“Most assuredly. I knew him before you did. Did you ever know in what straitened circumstances your mother-in-law was left after the death of her husband? Did Albert ever tell you of her devotion, of the privations which that splendid woman went through to bring him up, and of his industrious youth, so full of effort and so productive at an age when the rest of us are wasting our days? Why did not you go to seek the advice of Mme. Derize?”
He became more animated than if he were at the bar. It was an indication that he was not unconcerned about her. And if he were interested in her, why this awkward intervention? Our feelings have a singular manner of expression. She lowered her tone of voice and said quite naturally:
“I have my own parents. And then, I have never been concerned in his family affairs.”
She brought him back to the question. He looked at her, her flushed face, quiet and peaceful, her beautiful hair, too neatly arranged, her calm eyes, and the little narrow forehead shut like a forbidden door. And from that moment, irritated by that peremptory tone, and by his memories, he pleaded his friend’s cause, not with his usual weapons; irony, wit and logic, but with sharpness and bitterness, almost with the eloquence which he detested:
“In marriage, he brought to you a name almost famous; it has since become so as a result of his work and his talent which are equivalent to a fortune. It is an unusual opportunity for a woman—for a rich young woman, to enter so broad and varied a life, constantly changing, in touch with all the great minds of the day, and with all the important contemporary events. It is something to excite curiosity and interest wherever one goes, merely to have to open one’s eyes and ears to receive the best teaching: that which comes to us from contact with powerful minds—to be thus connected with all the general life of one’s time. It seems to me there is no fate more to be envied. Most of your friends, I am sure, only vegetate in mediocrity.”
“They have their husbands all to themselves.”
That was quite a feminine answer. “Life in general,” “the great contemporary events,” were words devoid of meaning to her,—even rather ridiculous in comparison with happiness. Elizabeth had not married to help her husband exert an influence, to play a part in his life, but merely in order to find happiness. What did this lawyer mean to convey with all his exaggerated conceptions? And now he was continuing:
“The husband that a wife has all to herself, Madame, is a poor creature. A woman’s life may be complete with love. Men must have other aims. There is none higher than Albert’s.”
“Yes, he is following a fine career.”
Philippe Lagier, in order to hear her explanation, hazarded: “He was more in the public eye, more exposed than others. Perhaps your happiness needed some supervision.”
She bluntly rejected this obtrusive attack.
“I do not accept police regulation of my personal affairs.”
He made a slight movement of discouragement:
“That is not the point,” he said.
She reminded Albert’s friend of the unfair neglect she had suffered: of the position of her family—of her circle of friends, even of her fortune. She had not come to her marriage empty-handed. She was right. This was the consensus of opinion in Grenoble. Albert Derize, of lowly origin and with no money, had made a very good match, so everyone said, in marrying Mlle. Molay-Norrois. The Molay-Norrois have an excellent name and live in great style. It was true she had received as a dowry the sum of two hundred thousand francs, of which one quarter was still unpaid because of her two spendthrift brothers—one an officer, and the other an attaché of an embassy. The habits she had acquired at home permitted no economy either in her dress, in her house, nor in the number of her servants, so that her husband, with his thirty or forty thousand francs’ yearly income, could scarcely keep up appearances in Paris. But it was known that the money for the upkeep of the house came or would come from her: that was an established fact, impossible to deny, and that no matter how many books he published, this would remain unchanged.
Philippe, unconvinced, shook his head. Albert’s fame became a career, and his work an obligation. And he looked almost with irritation at this obstinate forehead, half hidden by that childlike hair, at those eyes, so soft and peaceful, reflecting an ineradicable conviction.
To convince him in her turn, she summed up as a formula a very simple argument.
“I have fulfilled my duties and he has been unfaithful to his.”
Thus stated, the argument was simplifying itself. But the lawyer would not allow it to be so expressed:
“Listen, Madame, it is a friend and a very sincere friend who is speaking to you. I have defended many divorces and separations: and I have never known, never, you understand—that the faults were all on one side.”
He did not add that his experience had proved to him for a long time that security, harmony and the union of a home depended more on the wife than on the husband; she makes or unmakes the family as she does the fortune.
“Faults? What are mine?” asked Mme. Derize, smiling. “I should like to know what they are.”
“I do not know yet. But I am sure that they exist.”
Offended by this insistence, she defied him.
“Really? Tell me what they are.”
He answered her in his own bantering way.
“Perhaps I shall tell you some day.”
He was the first one who did not treat her as a victim, who did not pity her as a brave little martyr, and although she felt this opposition to be friendly, it hurt her. To conclude the conversation, she declared:
“All is over between us.... I do not...”
She stopped short, puzzled by the confidence which came to her lips. What was she going to add? To find out he repeated in an insinuating tone:
“You do not...?”
“I no longer love him.”
“Then you never loved him.”
“What do you mean?”
“To love when someone loves you, when one spares you every struggle, every annoyance, smoothes your life for you like a wide road where nothing stumbles across your way, that is a simple matter! How does one prove one’s love? To love when one is deserted, forgotten, left alone, struggling with every difficulty, or even when one’s heart is trampled upon,—yes, that is indeed to love.”
“That is to lower oneself. I have my pride, my dignity—everyone understands it for oneself in a different way.”
And convinced of her own right, she asked:
“Is this the mission with which my husband has entrusted you?”
Almost roughly, as if he took an unconscious delight in ill-treating her, he answered:
“No, Madame. Albert gave me no mission of reconciliation.”
“Ah!”
“I have another mission to fulfill,” he added without noticing this exclamation which might indicate vexation.
“You are taking a great deal upon yourself.”
As if to accentuate these words, Mme. Molay-Norrois entered the drawing-room. She still had her hat on and was carrying her parasol. Hearing of M. Lagier’s visit, she came in without delay to bring help to her daughter, whom she still treated as a little girl, and all of whose problems she willingly took upon herself. From that time on, the interview was doubtful, but it had to be carried to a conclusion, once it was begun. Philippe, about to give an explanation of his friend’s wishes, realized the audacity, almost the impropriety of broaching this subject directly. However, he decided he would do so. After all he was only an intermediary. Then the circumstances required this solution, which was, after all, the most reasonable. He explained to the two women that separation would necessarily raise the delicate question of the custody of the children.
“Albert shall not take them from me,” said Elizabeth resolutely.
“He will certainly not take them from you. But he wants to have them for several months each year.”
“Several months?”
“Yes. And look at the unfortunate position of those children, to be shared, and to be dragged about in two directions.”
“No, no, I shall not share them. He has forgotten us. Henceforth he can leave us in peace.”
She did not require her mother’s help to defend her rights. Philippe Lagier thought this the psychological moment for presenting the proposition of his friend.
“Despite his sorrow, he will renounce these paternal rights; he will submit to all your demands, but only on one condition.”
“And that is?” asked the women.
“You know that a divorce or a legal separation can easily be obtained without stating the actual reasons, but merely by presenting an insulting letter prepared to fit the case, or to bring about a departure from the conjugal home. It is sufficient that the two parties are agreed, both desirous of avoiding a scandal, and not wishing to furnish food for gossip.”
“What condition?” repeated Elizabeth, who could not imagine.
He leisurely dilated upon the customary precautions.
“It is in a word, mutual consent, which is forbidden by law, but to which jurisprudence closes its eyes. And besides, how can the truth be disputed? In this way the procedure is curtailed and the public loses interest in a case which has become commonplace.”
“Well?” asked the young wife who thought only of her own particular case.
“Well, Albert is willing to accept all the conditions that you think fit to impose upon him,—provided that no name be mentioned at the trial.”
“Ah,” said Elizabeth simply, and her eyes filled with tears. Two seconds later the tears were dried, and the charming face had regained its usual composure, so that Philippe had his doubts about the genuineness of an emotion of such short duration.
But Mme. Molay-Norrois let her indignation have full play.
“The miserable wretch! He is thinking of that creature’s honor!”
And turning toward her daughter, she encouraged her in her refusal.
“You are not to have conditions imposed upon you, you are only to dictate them. The judges, when they hear of your husband’s behavior... will not fail to give over the children to you. How could they place them, if only for a few days, in the care of a man who has remorselessly abandoned them and at present thinks only of his mistress? A bad husband makes a bad father.”
“The judges do not willingly deprive a father of the right to take care of his children.”
“He himself has forfeited that right. Did he raise any objection when my daughter went away? And does he not declare his willingness to give them up forever—forever! if we will protect the honor of this compromised woman? Isn’t that monstrous?”
“You are misconstruing Albert’s feelings, Madame. There are self-imposed obligations which a gallant man cannot fail to meet without losing his self-respect.”
“He has only the obligations of his home,” said Mme. Molay-Norrois.
Philippe, addressing Mme. Derize, read a brief excerpt from one of Albert’s two letters.
“And suppose it were from tender memory, from pious deference that he refused to dispute with their mother about the care of the children? Suppose he evidenced thereby hiss continued affection, his confidence? As to the allowance which he means to give them, he begs you to fix the amount.”
As he concluded this sentence relating to the financial advantages, to which she had never as yet given a thought, the young woman gave expression to her revolt:
“It is not a question of that,” she said decidedly.
Somewhat surprised at this disinterestedness, which was diametrically opposed to all her preceding answers, Philippe insisted upon another argument:
“Of what advantage would a scandal, at the hearing, be to you? What benefit could you gain by it? Are you not satisfied that the separation will be pronounced in your favor and that the arrangements are in your hands? Think it over, if you care to, for several days, before making a decision which may be so serious.”
Elizabeth looked at her mother as if to beg for her advice. Her smooth forehead was lined with a little vertical wrinkle between the eyebrows. Her entire face, her body, was tense with an effort of abnormal will, entirely out of keeping with the pretty childishness of the face and the accustomed carelessness of her movements. She did not wait for Mme. Molay-Norrois to give her advice.
“It is quite decided,” she said. “I refuse. I will not lie. I will tell the whole truth: so much the worse for those whom it strikes.”
“Quite right!” agreed her mother, not without secret remorse, for she paid no heed to the remonstrances of M. Molay-Norrois, who, since his daughter’s return, had tried to dissuade the two women from any public scandal. But she was one of those good, loving honorable women, who are controlled by the ardor of their feelings.
Philippe Lagier expected this reply. The turn of decision and frankness in the young woman did not displease him, but on the contrary, seemed to be a change worthy of attention. She rejected all compromise, not because of revenge and hatred, but because she judged the results of the separation to be less important than the separation itself. There is no safer code of morals than the truth; but how difficult to follow, and—still more—to accept! Being neither complex nor meditative, Elizabeth judged it simpler to abide by it: at least she chose it of her own accord, without submitting to any outside influence.
“Besides,” added Mme. Molay-Norrois, “M. Salvage has promised us that the separation will be granted very quickly without investigation.”
“That will depend,” objected the lawyer, “upon the document in your hands of which I know nothing.”
“The document?”
“Yes, the letter to which allusion is made.”
Elizabeth blushed as if she had been discovered, and felt obliged to give an explanation:
“It is a telegraphed letter. During Albert’s absence, at his request, I opened all telegrams to inform him of their contents, but never letters. He had asked me to do this for him ever since we were first married. It is true that for a time I had not done so. That day he was impatiently waiting for some proofs which did not come. He had gone out. I was to telephone to him if they came. I thought that the telegram referred to them—it was chance. That was how I came to know—”
She wished to convey the impression that she did not watch over her husband’s correspondence and that all spying would have been unworthy of her. By the expression of her face, even more than by her words, one would know that she was incapable of such a rôle. As a result of this attitude of loyalty, her youth assumed a more direct charm.
“Will you show me that letter?” asked Philippe, who, prompted by curiosity or sympathy, was going somewhat beyond his mission.
“But... why?”
“I shall read it sooner or later. If you will tell me what is in it, I shall be the only one to pay any attention to its contents before the case comes up. Otherwise, it will lie about in lawyers’ offices. I have come here as a peace-maker, not as a lawyer. I remember our friendly relations. And if circumstances condemn Albert unreservedly, I shall request him to select other counsel.”
“No,” replied Elizabeth, touched. “You are his friend; it is right that you should defend him. You have already begun to do so. When you came in I was preparing to send you this letter. The lawyers have twice requested me to show it to them. Now I have no more secrets; my life is exposed to the public—it is all the same to me. I will go and get the letter for you.”
But it was the life of another that she was exposing. During her absence, Mme. Molay-Norrois confided to Philippe that she wished to take her daughter away to Uriage as soon as possible, since the mere prospect of the trial depressed her, and the children needed to be in the country. When he asked for the little girl and for his godson, her unfriendly expression changed, and her face was lit up by one of those kind grand-motherly smiles, which, as a result of much association with children, restored a little of her confident simplicity.
“Here, read it quickly,” said Elizabeth, handing him an envelope which her fingers scarcely held, as if they were in contact with a flaming torch.
“He was asking for the children,” explained her mother kindly—“Where are they?”
“In my room. Will you go and get them, Mamma?”
Philippe understood that no one else was to be present while he was reading the letter, and he was glad of this tête-à-tête with his former sweetheart.
Anne de Sézery, Elizabeth Molay-Norrois, figures of his youth, which still continued to affect him through the life of Albert Derize! What had become of the young girl of Saint Ismier, so baffling in her strange changes of mood? As she had come in the morning, so now again she came to his memory—the narrow golden eyes, the mouth with its drooping corners, which wore an expression of expectancy and of weariness. But on this face time must have left its trace. He looked at the writing and recognized it, although it was stiffer, firmer, with sudden flourishes and unfinished letters. And without stopping, he read the eight pages of foreign paper which crackled under his fingers like dead leaves under the foot which crushes them.
“PARIS, this Friday.
“Was it yesterday evening that you left me, my friend, my lover? It seems to me so long ago, and you see I am coming to you first. I am so much in dread now of all the minutes which pass so quickly, adding to my years, and will so soon carry away my youth with them. When I was a young girl—very vain of having attention paid me—and you came to Saint Ismier, I sometimes tried to be a little coquettish just to please you. It is not natural to me, and I understand the art so little, that I did not make a success of it. At that time you did not guess my affection, did you? It outdistanced yours by ten years. From afar and when you knew nothing of it, it was with you. Ah! if love could but give us the power to do away with time! But when one is loved, does not that serve to make one forget unpleasant days? Since I said good-by to my old Sézery home, which was sold, to my lands, to my trees, I have hardly known any but unpleasant days. Standing on the bridge of the boat which took me to England, I leaned over to look at the water, and the water seemed to carry away all my dreams. I felt as though I were casting my heart to the depths. What pride was required to live my humble life! And how hard I worked (I am afraid now that it may have worn me out and turned you from me)—to acquire a proficiency in the subjects which gave me the opportunity to meet you again. How I love to recall that meeting! It was just a year ago. You had come to London for that History Congress. Do you remember our visit to the Tower? I can still see the block where the Queens Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard were beheaded. You were revivifying those poor dead creatures, and I too was coming out of my grave: I can confess it to you to-day. A man who is able to reanimate to so great a degree the past, stones and even hearts, must live very intensely.
“However, a month later, when I settled in Paris to receive the little legacy from my aunt which restored my independence, I made no effort to see you again. I was too much in fear of your indifference and my own recollections. Then Summer separated us, and I wished to free myself from the emotion which was constantly deepening and which threatened to absorb me. But you came back in the Autumn. It is a season so restless, so transitory, that each day seems to be filled with importance. It is then that one’s soul is full of anguish, at the same time declining and expectant. One feels as if dying slowly, with the hope of being reborn. As for me, I have never been able to be happy in Autumn; now, especially, when I am beginning to understand the inevitable frailty, the precariousness of youth which is vanishing.
“How could I have refused when you offered to show me an unknown Paris, the historic Paris where phantoms still abide? When I was quite little, I loved the portraits of my ancestors at Sézery; and for the pleasure of knowing fear, I imagined that they were coming back at night. Oh, our wonderful walks along the quays, in the hot sunshine, or in those little streets which you know, where you called up for me ghosts of the past! And St. Germain and Malmaison, and Chantilly that we visited in late Autumn, when the forest has lost its foliage, and one sees so far into its depths and into one’s heart as well. Each one of our walks meant another bond to draw us together. No doubt they gave added zest to our instincts for research, to our intellectual life. Often (do you remember?) we investigated one by one those marvelous hypotheses which give us our desire for eternity. But it was for love that we were both eager. And I, I continue to tremble. Your life, you told me last night, could no longer exist without mine. But mine belongs to you for as long as you will. May it glide softly into yours without ever harming it! Without taking it, let it be of service to you. If you knew! I have no more confidence: it has never been very powerful in me, and these last ten years have killed it. I no longer believe in the happiness I can give, and I would offer my life for yours. Direct my weakness, my love: I feel so old and so young at the same time, and I love you.
“ANNE.”
A business man is always somewhat skeptical about the sentimentality of love letters. From the facts which are an integral part of almost every brief, he knows with what euphemisms or what lack of perspective they are worded. But Philippe had been too often to the Château in former days not to recognize the candor of the young girl in this tone of passionate exaltation and anticipated discouragement. He only divined in her a more intense melancholy, like a latent languor. Her eyes must be less golden, her mouth more drooping, her body more slender. In a word, she must have partially lost her physical charm, which explained her unanswerable fear of the future, and Philippe was sufficiently cruel to rejoice in all those pictures which made her less desirable.
Madame Derize reappeared first with her two children. The invisible comparison was greatly to her advantage. Thus framed, and with all the attraction of her youthfulness, he thought her singularly powerful.
“You have read it?” she asked when he had kissed Marie-Louise and his godson, little Philippe.
“Yes, Madame, but according to this letter she was not his mistress.”
She was dumbfounded at this interpretation.
“Do not trifle with me: it is unkind.”
Guided by his professional skill, he had discovered an argument which he explained, not without having protested against her intentions:
“Oh, Madame, I am trying—despite you, despite Albert—to find a way of avoiding this separation. It seems to me that had you wished to do so, you could easily have triumphed over your—your rival. This letter speaks only of an intellectual attraction. The scenes to which she alludes only pertain to impressions of historical places, and are the expressions of a certain mental exaltation.”
Without any definite purpose, Mme. Molay-Norrois returned. Some people have this privilege. Elizabeth gently requested her to take the children away. Marie Louise, who resembled her father, with dark eyes like his, ever in a state of eager curiosity, her features rather pronounced, was looking at Philippe and listening to him attentively, while her mother feared the precocity of this little girl, who since their departure from Paris, had often asked rather embarrassing questions. As to the little boy, plump and fair, he was obstinately tugging at the tassel of a cushion which he hastened to pull off, so as to carry something away with him.
Once more alone with the lawyer, the young woman replaced the letter in its envelope.
“Now that you have read it, the solicitor will have no further use for it. Shall I refuse to show it again until the trial comes up?”
“That would be better.”
So the elaborate plan arranged by the clerks in the office of M. Tabourin was frustrated. Without the knowledge of their chief they had demanded twice in an official capacity the letter mentioned in the petition, merely for the purpose of convincing themselves.
Then Elizabeth made a self-accusation of being only an ordinary woman, of not having “a soul at the same time declining and expectant, a soul of Autumn” and of being unable to understand psychological subtleties. Unaccustomed to irony, she did not hesitate to set it aside:
“Besides, Albert himself did not deny it.”
“Ah, how did he defend himself?”
“He did not defend himself: he accused me.”
“You?”
“Yes, he had that audacity. He complained of I do not know how many imaginary miseries which he tried in vain to enumerate. And when I asked him ‘What was lacking’ he answered: ‘To you, nothing; to me, everything.’ Those were his absurd words. And when I threatened to go away with my children he did not even try to keep me back. Do you understand now that everything is over between us? To-day he is living with that woman, whom you are asking me to spare. She is almost old, almost ugly: let him keep her. As for me—I want to hear nothing more about it. It is over forever, yes, forever. You must not speak of it again.”
She shed a few sincere tears, enough to show herself to be in the right, but not enough to spoil her complexion. But this exact number was not calculated. Her self-love suffered as much as her love. He guessed this and looked with more interest at her little smooth, mysterious forehead, shaded by her well-dressed hair; at her beautiful eyes and all the lavish youth that even sorrow could not change. His consolation was expressed in the force of his final effort at persuasion; and when he had taken leave of Mme. Derize and Mme. Molay-Norrois, who had at once returned to her daughter like a faithful bodyguard, he did not compliment himself on the somewhat awkward manner in which he had fulfilled his mission. He could only await his friend’s arrival to tell him of Elizabeth’s attitude. Anne de Sézery was to be put upon the rack and exposed to the public. Elizabeth Derize would justly obtain her separation; that was already settled.
As he was going along, he met the little clerk Malaunay on the quay of the Isère and did not notice him. But the latter, who knew the house and willingly sauntered about, took advantage of this meeting to congratulate himself on his farsightedness: he raised his head with a triumphant air; inhaled the evening air which, at this hour, was growing cooler, and said to himself:
“It is quite evident: he is deceiving his client. Wasn’t I right to bet on the husband?”