The Dedalus Book of Decadence: (Moral Ruins) (13 page)

THE BLACK NIGHTGOWN

by Catulle Mendès

Fabrice was waiting for Genviève.
He was entirely at home, clad in a morning-coat, with Turkish slippers upon his stockingless feet, stretched out on the chaise longue beside the fireplace where the coals glowed redly.
While he awaited the return of his dear and beautiful beloved he smoked a leisurely cigarette.

She should not be away for long – she had only gone out to do a little shopping.
She did not like to be away too long from the love-nest which they had shared for six months, with its characteristic odour of rosewater and tobacco, mingled together because the room must serve as bedroom and smoking-room alike.
Soon she would reappear, a little out of breath from having climbed the staircase, her cheeks quite rosy, and she would fall upon the chaise beside him, with that pretty little “ouf!”
which no one else could say in quite that way; and they would slowly bring their lips together for another hectic and breathless round of kisses taken and kisses given.

There was a knock at the door.

Already?

No, she would not bother to knock.

“Come in,” called Fabrice.

A young girl came in.
She was slim, with unruly hair – evidently a servant.
She was carrying a huge basket.

“Oh!”
she said.
“Pardon monsieur, I have made a mistake.
I have come from the laundry with Madame’s clothes, but this is not her dressing-room – I have made
a mistake!
The chambermaid told me that it was the second door in the corridor.
If Monsieur would kindly show me…”

Fabrice, who had risen to his feet, shrugged his shoulders impatiently.

“Go ask Rosette!”
he said.

“She has gone out, monsieur.”

“Then putit down on the table or the armchair – it’s not important – wherever you wish.”

“Yes, monsieur,” said the laundry-maid.

She carefully took the clothes out of the basket, some folded and others not, taking care to place them on the table in good order; then, when the basket was quite empty, she gave a little childlike bow, which unsettled her hair even more, and hurried out.

Instead of lying down again Fabrice came over to the table.
He looked down at the pile of clothes – at the delicate fabrics, the whites and pale blues, the pinks and the flesh-colours – and he smiled at the memories which they called to mind.

Yes, most certainly, he remembered them all!

That nightgown of Indian muslin, so nearly transparent, with the short sleeves and the trimmings of Valencienne lace – wasn’t that the one which he had seen sliding down from her lovely shoulders to reveal the length of her perfectly svelte and perfectly smooth young body, on that evening when, for the first time, Geneviève had surrendered her maidenly virtue?
He remembered the rapt feeling inspired in him by the sight of her rounded, rose-tipped breasts, and the way he had hesitated before enfolding her in his arms, fearful of sacrificing to the intimacy of their kisses the delightful sight of her.
How cruel it was that one must nearly lose sight of the person whose lips were pressed to one’s own!

The other nightgowns recalled other nights to
mind – wonderful nights!
And the stockings, too: woollen stockings, chequered stockings, everyday stockings, and stockings of raw silk with gold trimming.
They made him think of her neat and slender feet, which he often held in his hands, where they would tremble like turtle-doves nestling together against the cold.
And there was a pair of tights, too, which reminded him of a fancy which Genevieve had had, at the end of the carnival, to wear the costume of a page-boy beneath her discreet black domino.

And the light pantalettes of twilled silk!
They too made him smile, for those pantalettes had caused a good deal of dissent between the two of them.
She insisted on wearing them at all times, being too modest or too fearful of the wind which might lift her skirt to do otherwise, arguing in support of her insistence that she was afraid of having to descend a staircase at the same time that a man might be coming up, and observing that in winter it was so easy to catch rheumatism.
He, in his turn, poured scorn upon the idea of hiding such a manly accoutrement beneath a petticoat, where it did not belong, and would not admit that any consideration of modesty, safety or health could possibly justify the inconvenience to which he was put in removing them.
Oh, what merry squabbles they were!
And yet, in spite of everything, how enchanted he was – how excited!
– when Geneviève put on her pantalettes.

As he looked down at all these pretty garments which his beloved had worn next to her skin, Fabrice was overcome, little by little, by a boundless feeling of tenderness.
His mistress was not only the prettiest of women, she was the most perfect; a paragon of all the virtues.
She was so graceful – in her movements, her choice of perfumes, her smiles – and she was so extraordinarily open and honest!
Yes, she was utterly virtuous, utterly faithful; he would not hear anything
that might be said to the contrary!

Fabrice, let it be said, was not one of those benighted men who was easily abused; no one could make a fool of him, thank God!
He was not one of those imbeciles who were ever ready to believe tales of visits to an aunt’s house in the Batignolles or the necessity of accompanying unhappily married friends to the solicitors in order to lend support to their pleas for separation.
Oh no,
he
was a man who saw things clearly!

In all the time he had known her, Geneviève had never given him the slightest cause for alarm or suspicion.
In her heart she had, undoubtedly, all the ingenuousness of a little girl; it was impossible for her to tell a lie – that was obvious in the innocence of her features, of her expressions, of her whole attitude.
She, betray him!
– the most hardened of sceptics could not conceive of such a possibility.
The fidelity of Geneviève was so incontestable, so utterly beyond doubt, that Fabrice had never suffered a single pang of anxiety on those occasions when he was obliged, two or three times per month, to quit their love-nest and go to Paris to take care of his business affairs, leaving her all alone.

But even as he lost himself in this pleasant reverie – even as his heart slowly melted – he suddenly started with surprise.
What was this that he had found?
There, underneath the nightgown of Indian muslin, lurking among the woollen stockings and the chequered stockings, the everyday stockings and the raw silk stockings, and the light pantalettes, there was a black nightgown: a twilled silk nightgown which he did not recognise, which he had never seen before – no, never!
– but which, in view of the fact that it had just come back from the laundry, must at some time have been worn.…which must have been put on – and taken off!

Carried away by awful conviction and intoxicated
with fury, Fabrice would have reduced the tell-tale nightgown to rags, if Geneviève had not reappeared at precisely that moment, a little out of breath from having climbed the staircase, her cheeks quite rosy with the effort.

She cast herself down upon the chaise longue, with that pretty little “ouf” sound which no one else ever made in quite such a charming way.

At that moment, however, Fabrice could not care less whether she said “ouf!”
well or badly!

“Madame,” he cried, “you have deceived me!
Oh, your ruses have been so cleverly contrived that you were doubtless led to think that you could not possibly be found out, and that you acted with impunity.
But you reckoned without the vicissitudes of chance – that great enemy of all betrayal!
Chance has delivered into my hands the proof of your guilt.

“Look here!
Is this a nightgown or is it not?
Is it black, this nightgown?
Is it silk?
You can hardly hope to persuade me that it is white and that it is cotton!
It is silk, and it is black!
And it is a garment which I have never seen you put on or take off in my presence.
It is a nightgown, which I have never seen you wear in our bed – and yet it has been put on, and it has been taken off!

“I must congratulate you on your exquisite taste, Madame: what a fine contrast the blackness of the material must make with the delicate whiteness of your sinful flesh!
Clad in silk so dark, you must seem to be a flake of snow which falls in the dark night, or the feather of a turtle-dove between a raven’s wings.
Miserable wretch!
I wish I could put a bullet or a swordpoint into each of your white-rimmed eyes!
Let us have it, if you please – your explanation!
Tell me everything, without any reticence or subterfuge; and when I have heard it, we shall see whether my anger causes me to hurl you
through the window, or whether my contempt will force me to show you the door!”

And while Fabrice – who, as one can easily judge, was not so very well brought up – was launched upon this tirade, what did Geneviève do?

She remained silent.

Advisedly so?
Was she silent because she had nothing to say in her defence?
Was she silent because, knowing as she did that the chemise was marked with her initials, it was impossible for her to pretend that there had been an error at the laundry?
Or was it, perhaps, that she was completely innocent, and remained silent in the face of these calumnies because she would not lower herself to produce the explanation which would exonerate her?

When Fabrice had finished, the young girl got up.

“Adieu, monsieur,” she said, turning towards the door.

She seemed so deeply offended, and displayed so dignified an appearance, that Fabrice felt suddenly and singularly troubled.
There was in that attitude of injured innocence an inimitable
something
which made him pause, and which caused him to reconsider the awful suspicions which had been raised in him.

“Genevieve,” he cried to her, “have you nothing to say in order to justify yourself?”

“No,” she said.

“The nightgown does not belong to you, perhaps?”

“It is mine, monsieur.”

“Perhaps it was formerly pink or blue, but you have had it dyed at the laundry?”

“It has always been black.”

“Tell me, then, that you have not yet worn it – that you have neither put it on nor taken it off, because it is new, and that you sent it to the cleaners for some other
reason.”

“It is
not
new; I have worn it.
Once again, adieu.”

And she opened the door, evidently determined to leave.
But then it seemed that her resolve faltered and that she was betrayed by her emotions.
It seemed that she had not the heart to leave her beloved, no matter how jealous he was, no matter what insults he heaped upon her in his rage.
The poor creature burst into a flood of tears.

“Oh, the ingrate!”
she wailed.
“He does not understand!
He does not understand at all!”

Then, her stammering punctuated by the prettiest sobs in all the world, she said:

“You do not remember, of course, that you frequently leave me all alone, for days and nights at a time?
Because of your business affairs, you say.
And am I, desolate and abandoned, to put on one of the nightgowns – white, blue, or pink – that your impatient desire has so often slipped from my shoulders?
How cruel you are to think so!
No – for my nights of solitude, for my nights of widowhood, I have black nightgowns: mourning clothes, for the nights when I must go to sleep weeping for the lack of your caresses!”

He looked at her, hesitantly.

“Ah!”
she continued.
“How many times have I lain in my bed, full of bitterness and jealousy!
How often, in the bitterness of my isolation have I wrenched and torn these dark nightgowns, while racked by memories of happier hours!
Unless it has been mended, the very one you hold is torn – in more than one place, I think.”

Fabrice bent down, and quickly unfolded the nightgown of black twilled silk.
Indeed it was torn, here and here.
Torn, as she had said it was!
With such proof as this before him, he would surely be a very great fool to retain the slightest doubt!

Fabrice threw himself at the feet of his mistress, profusely begging her pardon.

It was, of course, the wisest course which he could possibly have taken; for how could anyone possibly believe that Geneviève – who had such very beautiful eyes, more beautiful still when her eyelashes were prettily moistened with tears – could ever soil her rosy lips with a lie?