Sentimental Education (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (57 page)

Suddenly, Rosanette turned exceedingly pale.

Mademoiselle Vatnaz continued extricating her charms.

“Don’t give yourself so much trouble,” said Rosanette. “Now, I know your political opinions.”

“What?” replied Vatnaz, with a blush on her face like that of a virgin.

“Oh! oh! you understand me.”

Frédéric did not understand. There had evidently been something taking place between them of a more important and personal nature than Socialism.

“And even though it should be so,” said Vatnaz in reply, rising up unflinchingly. “ ’Tis a loan, my dear—set off one debt against the other.”

“Faith, I don’t deny my own debts. I owe some thousands of francs—a nice sum. I borrow, at least; I don’t rob anyone.”

Mademoiselle Vatnaz made an effort to laugh.

“Oh! I would put my hand in the fire for him.”

“Take care! it is dry enough to burn.”

The spinster held out her right hand to her, and keeping it raised in front of her:

“But there are friends of yours who find it attractive enough.”

“Andalusians, I suppose? as castanets?”

“You wench!”

The Maréchale gave a low bow.

“There’s nobody more charming!”

Mademoiselle Vatnaz made no reply. Beads of perspiration appeared on her temples. Her eyes fixed themselves on the carpet. She panted for breath. At last she reached the door, and slamming it vigorously: “Good night! You’ll hear from me!”

“I can hardly wait!” said Rosanette. The effort of self-constraint had shattered her nerves. She sank down on the divan, shaking all over, stammering forth words of abuse, shedding tears. Was it this threat on the part of Vatnaz that had caused so much agitation in her mind? Oh, no! what did she care? It was the golden sheep, a present; and in the midst of her tears the name of Delmar escaped her lips. So, then, she was in love with the actor?

“In that case, why did she take up with me?” Frédéric asked himself. “How is it that he has come back again? Who compels her to stay with me? What is the sense of all of this?”

Rosanette was still sobbing. She remained all the time stretched at the edge of the divan, with her right cheek resting on her two hands, and she seemed a being so dainty, helpless, and so sorely troubled, that he drew closer to her and softly kissed her on the forehead.

Thereupon she gave him assurances of her affection for him; the Prince had just left her, they would be free. But she was for the time being short of money. “You saw yourself that this was so, the other day, when I was trying to turn my old linings to use.” No more carriages now! And this was not all; the upholsterer was threatening to take back the bedroom and the large drawing-room furniture. She did not know what to do.

Frédéric had a mind to answer:

“Don’t worry yourself about it. I will pay.”

But the lady knew how to lie. Experience had enlightened him. He confined himself to mere expressions of sympathy.

Rosanette’s fears were not in vain. It was necessary to give up the furniture and to move out of the handsome apartment in the Rue Drouot. She took another on the Boulevard Poissonnière, on the fourth floor.

The curiosities of her old boudoir were quite sufficient to give the three rooms a coquettish air. There were Chinese blinds, an awning over the terrace, and in the drawing-room a second-hand carpet still perfectly new, with ottomans covered in pink silk. Frédéric had contributed largely to these purchases. He had felt the joy of a newly-married man who possesses at last a house of his own, a wife of his own—and, being much pleased with the place, he used to sleep there nearly every evening.

One morning, as he was passing out through the hall, he saw, on the third floor, on the staircase, the shako of a National Guard who was ascending it. Where in the world was he going?

Frédéric waited. The man continued his progress up the stairs, with his head down. He raised his eyes. It was Arnoux!

The situation was clear. They both reddened simultaneously, overcome by a feeling of embarrassment common to both.

Arnoux was the first to find a way out of it.

“She is better—isn’t she?” as if Rosanette were ill, and he had come to learn how she was.

Frédéric took advantage of this opening.

“Yes, certainly! at least, so I was told by her maid,” wishing to convey that he had not been allowed to see her.

Then they stood facing each other, both undecided as to what they would do next, and eyeing one another intently. The question now was, which of the two was going to remain. Arnoux once more solved the problem.

“Oh, well! I’ll come back another time. Where are you going? I’ll go with you!”

And, when they were in the street, he chatted as naturally as usual. Unquestionably he was not a man of jealous disposition, or else he was too good-natured to get angry. Besides, his time was devoted to serving his country. He never took off his uniform now. On the twenty-ninth of March he had defended the offices of the
Presse.
When the Chamber was invaded, he distinguished himself by his courage, and he was at the banquet given for the National Guard at Amiens.

Hussonnet, who was still on duty with him, availed himself of his flask and his cigars; but, irreverent by nature, he delighted in contradicting him, putting down the somewhat ungrammatical style of the government’s decrees; the conferences at the Luxembourg, the woman known as the “Vésuviennes,” the political section bearing the name of “Tyroliens”; everything, in fact, down to the chariot of Agriculture, drawn by horses to the ox-market, and escorted by ugly girls. Arnoux, on the other hand, was the upholder of authority, and dreamed of uniting the different parties. However, his own affairs had taken an unfavourable turn, and he was more or less anxious about them.

He was not much troubled about Frédéric’s relations with the Maréchale; for this discovery made him feel justified (in his conscience) in withdrawing the allowance which he had renewed since the Prince had left her. He pleaded financial difficulties, and uttered many lamentations—and Rosanette was generous. The result was that M. Arnoux regarded himself as the lover who appealed entirely to the heart, an idea that raised him in his own estimation, and made him feel young again. Having no doubt that Frédéric was paying the Maréchale, he fancied that he was “playing a nice trick” on the young man, even called at the house in such a stealthy fashion as to keep the other in the dark about it, and when they happened to meet, left the coast clear for him.

Frédéric was not pleased with sharing Rosanette with Arnoux and his rival’s politeness seemed only an elaborate joke. But by taking offence at it, he would have removed from his path every opportunity of ever finding his way back to Madame Arnoux; and then, this was the only means whereby he could hear about her movements. The earthenware-dealer, in accordance with his usual practice, or perhaps with some cunning design, mentioned her readily in the course of conversation, and asked him why he no longer came to see her.

Frédéric, having exhausted every excuse he could think of, assured him that he had called several times to see Madame Arnoux, but without success. Arnoux was convinced that this was so, for he had often referred in an eager tone at home to the absence of their friend, and she had invariably replied that she was out when he called, so that these two lies, instead of contradicting, corroborated each other.

The young man’s gentle ways and the pleasure of finding a dupe in him made Arnoux like him all the better. He carried familiarity to its extreme limits, not through disdain, but through assurance. One day he wrote saying that very urgent business compelled him to be away in the country for twenty-four hours. He begged the young man to mount guard in his stead. Frédéric dared not refuse, so he took himself to the guard-house in the Place du Carrousel.

He had to put up with the company of the National Guards, and, with the exception of a sugar-refiner, a witty fellow who drank an inordinate amount, they all appeared to him more stupid than their cartridge-belts. The principal subject of conversation amongst them was the substitution of sashes for belts. Others railed against the national workshops.
⁵

One man said:

“Where are we going?”

The man to whom the words had been addressed opened his eyes as if he were standing on the verge of an abyss.

“Where are we going?”

Then, one who was more daring than the rest exclaimed:

“It cannot last! It must come to an end!”

And as the same kind of talk went on till evening, Frédéric was bored to death.

Great was his surprise when, at eleven o’clock, he suddenly beheld Arnoux, who immediately explained that he had hurried back to set him free, having taken care of his own business.

The fact was that he had no business to transact. The whole thing was an invention to enable him to spend twenty-four hours alone with Rosanette. But the worthy Arnoux had placed too much confidence in his own powers, so that, now in the state of exhaustion which was the result, he was seized with remorse. He had come to thank Frédéric, and to invite him to have some supper.

“A thousand thanks! I’m not hungry. All I want is to go to bed.”

“All the more reason for having a snack together. How lazy you are! One does not go home at such an hour as this. It is too late! It would be dangerous!”

Frédéric once more yielded. Arnoux was quite a favorite with his brethren-in-arms, who had not expected to see him—and he was a particular crony of the refiner. They were all fond of him, and he was such a good fellow that he was sorry Hussonnet was not there. But he wanted to shut his eyes for one minute, no longer.

“Sit down beside me!” said he to Frédéric, stretching himself on the camp-bed without taking off his belt and straps. Through fear of an alert, in spite of the regulations, he even kept his gun in his hand, then stammered out some words:

“My darling! my little angel!” and ere long was fast asleep.

Those who had been talking to each other became silent; and gradually there was a deep silence in the guard-house. Frédéric, tormented by the fleas, kept looking around. The wall, painted yellow, had, half-way up, a long shelf, on which the knapsacks formed a succession of little humps, while underneath, the muskets, which were the colour of lead, rose up side by side; and there could be heard a succession of snores, produced by the National Guards, whose stomachs were outlined through the darkness. On the top of the stove stood an empty bottle and some plates. Three straw chairs were drawn around the table, with a pack of cards on it. There was a drum, in the middle of the bench, with its strap hanging down.

A warm breeze coming through the door caused the lamp to smoke. Arnoux slept with his two arms wide apart; and his gun was placed in a slightly crooked position, with the butt on the floor, the mouth of the barrel up right under his arm. Frédéric noticed this, and was alarmed.

“But, no, I’m wrong, there’s nothing to be afraid of! And yet, what if he were to die!”

And immediately images passed through his mind in endless succession.

He saw himself with her at night in a coach, then on a river’s bank on a summer’s evening, and under the reflection of a lamp at home in their own house. He even fixed his attention on household expenses and domestic arrangements, contemplating, feeling already his happiness between his hands; and in order to realise it, all that was needed was that the cock of the gun should rise. The end of it could be pushed with one’s toe, the gun would go off—it would be a mere accident—nothing more!

Frédéric brooded over this idea like a playwright in the creative act. Suddenly it seemed to him that it was not far from being carried into practical operation, and that he was going to contribute to that result—that, in fact, he was yearning for it; and then a feeling of absolute terror took possession of him. In the midst of this mental distress he experienced a sense of pleasure, and he allowed himself to sink deeper and deeper into it, with a dreadful consciousness all the time that his scruples were vanishing. In the wildness of his reverie the rest of the world vanished, and he was no longer conscious of himself except for an unbearable tightness in his chest.

“Let us have a drop of white wine!” said the refiner, as he awoke.

Arnoux sprang to his feet, and, as soon as the white wine was swallowed, he wanted to relieve Frédéric of his sentry duty.

Then he brought him to have breakfast in the Rue de Chartres, at Parly‘s, and as he needed to recuperate his energies, he ordered two dishes of meat, a lobster, an omelet with rum, a salad, etc., and finished this off with a brand of Sauterne of 1819 and one of ’42 Romanée, not to speak of the champagne at dessert and the liqueurs.

Frédéric let him have his way. He was disturbed in mind as if by the thought that the other might somehow trace on his face the idea that had lately flitted before his imagination. With both elbows on the table and his head bent forward, so that he annoyed Frédéric by his fixed stare, he confided some of his hobbies to the young man.

He wanted to lease for farming purposes all the embankments on the Northern line, in order to plant potatoes there, or else to organise on the boulevards a gigantic procession in which the celebrities of the day would take part. He would rent all the windows, which would, at an average rate of three francs produce a handsome profit. In short, he dreamed of a great stroke of fortune by means of a monopoly. He assumed a moral tone, nevertheless, found fault with excesses and all sorts of misconduct, spoke about his “poor father,” and every evening, as he said, made an examination of his conscience before offering his soul to God.

“A little curaçao, eh?”

“Just as you please.”

As for the Republic, things would right themselves; in fact, he looked on himself as the happiest man on earth; and forgetting himself, he exalted Rosanette’s attractive qualities, and even compared her with his wife. It was quite a different thing. You could not imagine a lovelier person!