III
Marie’s friend was an old maid of about forty years, mysterious, full of ideals with which I had lost all sympathy long ago.
She was my wife’s consoler. In her arms she wept over my dislike of her dog. She was a ready listener to Marie’s abuse of matrimony, the slavery of women.
She was rather reserved and careful not to interfere; anyhow I noticed nothing, for I was completely preoccupied with my work. But I had an idea that she was in the habit of borrowing small sums from my wife. I said nothing until one day I saw her carrying off some of the table silver with the intention of pawning it for her own benefit.
I said a word or two about it to Marie, and gave her to understand that even under the dotal system this sort of comradeship was very unwise. She never dreamed of helping me, her husband and best friend, in this way, although I was in difficulties and worried by debts.
“Since you listen to such proposals from strangers,” I said to her, “why not lend me your shares? I could raise money on them.”
She objected, arguing that the shares had fallen so low as to be practically valueless and consequently unsaleable. Moreover it was against her principles to transact business with her husband.
“But you don’t object to a stranger, who can give you no security whatever, who lives on a pension of seventy-five crowns, per annum! Don’t you think it wrong to refuse to help your husband who is trying to make a career, and provision for you when you have spent your own money, not to mention the fact that your interests are identical with his?”
She yielded, and the loan of three thousand five hundred francs, or thereabouts, in doubtful shares, was granted.
From this day onward she looked upon herself as my patroness, and told everybody who cared to listen that she had safeguarded my career by sacrificing her dowry. The fact of my being a well-known writer before I had ever set eyes on her was quite lost sight of. But it was bliss to me to look up to her, to be indebted to her for everything: my life, my future, my happiness.
In our marriage contract I had insisted on settling all her property on herself, partly because her financial affairs were chaos. The Baron owed her money; but instead of paying her in cash, he had guaranteed a loan which she had raised. In spite of all my precautions I was requested by the bank on the morning after our wedding to guarantee the sum. My objections were so much waste of breath; the bank did not look upon my wife as responsible, since by her second marriage she had again legally become a minor. To my great indignation I was compelled to sign the guarantee, to put my signature by the side of that of the Baron.
In my perfect simplicity I had no idea of what I was doing. It merely seemed to me that what every man of the world would have done in my place, was the right thing to do.
One evening, while I was closeted in my room with a friend, the Baron called. It was his first call since our wedding. My predecessor’s visit seemed to me in bad taste, to say the least of it; but since he did not mind meeting me, I pretended to be pleased to see him. When I accompanied my friend to the door, however, I did not think it necessary to introduce him. Later on, my wife reproached me for the omission, and called me unmannerly. I accused both her and the Baron of tactlessness.
A violent quarrel ensued, in which she called me a boor. One word led to another, and certain pictures were mentioned which had once belonged to the Baron, but were now decorating my walls. I begged her to send them back to him.
“You cannot return presents without hurting the giver,” she exclaimed. “He doesn’t dream of returning the presents you gave him, but keeps them as a proof of his friendship and trust.”
The pretty word “trust” disarmed me. But my eye fell on a piece of furniture which awakened unpleasant memories.
“Where does this writing-table come from?”
“It was my mother’s.”
She was speaking the truth, although she omitted to add that it had passed through her first husband’s house.
What a strange lack of delicacy, what bad form, how utterly regardless of my honour! Was it done intentionally so as to depreciate me in the eyes of my fellow-men? Had I fallen into a trap set by an unscrupulous woman? I wondered....
Yet I surrendered unconditionally without struggling against her subtle logic, convinced that her aristocratic bringing-up ought to serve me as a guide in all doubtful cases where my education did not suffice. She had a ready answer to everything. The Baron had never bought a single piece of furniture. Everything belonged to her—and since the Baron did not scruple to keep my wife’s furniture, I need not scruple to accept all articles which belonged to my own wife.
The last phrase: “Since the Baron did not scruple to keep my wife’s furniture,” caused me lively satisfaction. Because the pictures which hung in my drawing-room were proofs of a noble trust and evidenced the ideal character of our relationship, they remained where they were; I even carried simplicity to the length of telling all inquisitive callers who cared to know who the giver of those landscapes was.
I never dreamed in those days that it was I, the man belonging to the middle-classes, who possessed tact and delicacy, instincts which are as frequently found amongst the lower strata of society as they are wanting in men and women of the upper ones, where coarse minds are only too often cleverly concealed under a thin layer of veneer. Would that I had known what manner of woman she was in whose hands I had laid my fate!
But I did not know it.