BY HENRI LAVEDAN

Translated by Katharine Vincent.
Copyright, 1902, by The Current Literature Publishing Company.

Madame de Précy said to her husband: "You wish to know what is the matter? Oh! I will tell you, if for a few moments you will condescend to lend me your attention."

In an icy tone he answered: "I will not lend, I will give it to you."

"Well, then, the matter is"—and a trembling voice betrayed her excitement—"that life with you has become unbearable and that I have resolved no longer to try to endure it. You are, I admit, an honorable man, and have, I believe, been a faithful husband. I, on my side, have never forgotten my marriage vows. Here we stand on the same ground. The trouble is that we are uncongenial. Everything I do annoys you, and to me all your ways are insufferable. What I say always vexes you, and your laugh drives me crazy. Even when silent, we provoke each other. About the merest trifles we have frightful scenes—about a hat, a dress, whether it will be best to carry a cane or an umbrella, or whether the meat is overdone or not—in short, everything—and everything makes us quarrel! Then, at home, either you talk so much that I can not put in a word or else you do not open your lips, and you look about as cheerful as a mortuary chapel. I must be happy when you are happy, sad when you are sad. Your temper is changeable, odd, quick; you do not allow the slightest contradiction; if I begin to speak of something which does not interest you, I am not allowed to finish my sentence. For me to express an opinion suffices to make you take an opposite view. You insist that you understand music, and that I know nothing about politics, while, in point of fact, the contrary is the truth. You scold my maid until she cries, and your disgusting valet drinks all the wine in my cellar. You forbid me to smoke, and insist that my dresses shall not be cut too low. And when we quarrel, even about some very ordinary matter, instead of its being over in five minutes, it lasts for hours, and we try to outdo each other in saying bitter things which neither of us forgets. In short, everything about me is disagreeable to you. I feel it, and I know it; you hate the tone of my voice, the sound of my step, my gestures, even my clothes; do not deny it, at this very moment I can read in your face that you would like to pitch me out of the window.

"Therefore?" said Monsieur de Précy.

"Therefore I conclude that it is wiser for us not to prolong our experience of married life. Its having proved a failure is neither your fault nor mine, or rather it is the fault of both; at any rate it is a fact. We were not made to live together; until we cease to do so, neither of us will be happy. After all, there is nothing to prevent us from amicably parting. Fortunately there is no child to quarrel about, we have each an ample fortune, so I really can not see why we should any longer remain on the same perch, pulling out each other's feathers. As for me, I have had enough of it, and you have had too much. I am quite sure you will be happy; sometimes in the morning, while you are shaving, you will think of me; and for my part I shall always remember you as a perfectly honorable, thoroughly disagreeable man. But for that I bear you no ill-will, because it is in your blood, all the Précys are so, and your own father and mother, as you have often told me, could never contrive, for more than ten days at a time, to remain together. However, I will waste no more breath in talking about the matter, but will now, Monsieur, retire to my own rooms, where until to-morrow I shall pass my time in thinking over the most practical way in which to arrange our separation."

Monsieur de Précy had in silence received this avalanche of reproaches, but his lips twitched, once or twice he sighed, deeply sighed, and toward the middle of the discourse he had begun to pace the floor. When his wife ceased speaking he stopped before her, and, looking at her with an expression which he strove to render as dignified as possible, said in a sad, somewhat victimized, tone of voice: "Have you finished?"—"I have finished, and it is finished."—"So be it, my dear; the book is closed, and I, like you, think it best not again to open it. As you wish it, we will to-morrow separate and each try solitude."—"Oh, I permit you to enliven it!"—"Thanks, and I forbid you to do so."—"Gracious! I do not dream of such a thing. When I leave you, it is to become my own mistress, not to change masters. You can be quite easy; to marry again would be a folly I shall never commit. Have you anything more to say?"—"No, except that if we take this step without knowing to what it may lead...."—"Oh! I know. First to peace, then to old age, finally to Père Lachaise."—"Do not joke, but please allow me to finish. We will do as we wish, but it is not necessary that the world should be at once enlightened as to our disagreements. That is my opinion, and I think you will agree with me."—"I do not know, because, of course, people can not long remain ignorant...."—"Yes, but for a time. Later the same objections will not exist. In short, this is what I ask: before taking any measures to obtain a divorce, let us by all means separate, but under special conditions which will save appearances, and excite no suspicions in the minds of our friends."—"What, then, is your idea?"—"As you wish to leave to-morrow, do so; but instead of taking refuge with some friend in the country or abroad, as is probably your intention, go to Meneaux, my château in Brittany, and as long as you can endure it—two months, if you have the courage—remain there. Madame Bénard, my parents' old housekeeper, who brought me up, is in charge. She will receive you, and in every way look after your comfort. You can tell her that I will soon join you."—"That, I imagine, will not be the truth."—"No, but you had better say so. The house is well furnished, pretty, and not more than four miles from Guérande. Under the pretext that Brittany is too far away from Paris, you have always avoided setting foot upon this family estate where my childhood was passed. This, before we each go our own way in life, is a good opportunity to look at it. If you let this chance escape, you will never have another. Now can I count upon you? Do you consent?"—"You have made your request with civility, and I consent. I will go to Meneaux, and will remain there for two months. You may send a telegram to Madame Bénard."

Then a few words more were exchanged with a coldness too intense to be quite genuine.—"Thanks—good night—good-by!—yes, good-by!"—Their voices did not tremble, oh no; but their hearts, their poor hearts, ached! Each one privately thought: "What? Can it be true we are to part—and forever? That is what we shall see, my wife! I'm not quite sure about that, my husband!"

But, nevertheless, Madame de Précy the next day departed.

On a clear, fresh May morning the young woman arrived at Meneaux. It is at the seaside, a delightful moment when spring, like a tiny child on its uncertain legs, hesitatingly treads there. The sparse, backward vegetation is more rugged than elsewhere; the blue of the sky has a deeper tint, and in the salt air there is something bracing and healthful which brings red to the cheek and peace to the soul.

For Madame de Précy's occupation, Madame Bénard had prepared, on the second floor, a large bedchamber, wainscoted in oak and hung with old sulphur-colored damask, which on one side overlooked a wide expanse of flat country, broken only here and there by a rock or a thin cluster of reeds; and on the other a pine wood ceaselessly murmuring in the breeze.

After she had emptied her trunks and made herself at home in her room, Madame de Précy found plenty of time for reflection. Nature offers to those who at a moral crisis fly to her, many consolations. By a sort of reflex action, she deadens pain, soothes and cheers. Her immutability, her apparent egotism, are good advisers. Before her who does not pass away one learns to see that everything else will do so, our little happinesses as well as our great sorrows; and the order which in everything she observes incites us to order also our hearts and minds. Madame de Précy began to think, and more seriously than for many and many a long day before. She reviewed her entire past life, beginning with the first white pages of cradle, dolls, first communion, long skirts and balls, next turning to the chapter of marriage. Her life had not been a romance, scarcely even a story, but very ordinary, without great joys, great catastrophes, or anything striking. Every night she had gone to bed with the secret hope that the next day something might happen. During the nine years of her married life, the sun had risen many times, but never had anything happened. Little by little she and her husband had become embittered, and perhaps he also, without being willing to admit it, had suffered from that monotony to some beings so irritating—monotony of things, hours, events, crimes, heroisms, vices, seasons, rain, sun, admirations, and anticipations. Her husband was not a man to be despised: cultivated, distinguished, honorable, sometimes (only sometimes) tender-hearted—in fact, admirable—yet impossible to live with. So, while deploring her fate, in the bloom of youth finding herself thus alone and in a false position, she did not, however, regret the impulse to which she had yielded. She would not know happiness, but she could have peace. One can not expect everything at once. Without feeling that her dignity was compromised, she gladly accepted the society of Madame Bénard, the old housekeeper in charge of the château, and yet, as a rule, she was haughty. But Madame Bénard had brought up Monsieur de Précy, and then the country equalizes; its solitude brings together human beings, raising a little those who are below, and lowering a little those who are above, so that Madame de Précy and the good old lady—for a lady she really was—soon became friends.

On the day Madame Bénard took Madame de Précy through the château, she went first to a large room on the third story, and, as she pushed open the door, said: "I want to begin by showing you everything connected with Monsieur's childhood. This is the room where Monsieur played and amused himself when he was a little boy." Then she opened closets where lay balls, drums, trumpets, boxes of tin soldiers, games of patience, checkers, and dominoes, saying as one after another she fingered them: "These were Monsieur's playthings when he was a little boy." And suddenly she pulled from a heap a doll with a broken nose. "See, Madame! he even had a doll, that boy; he called her Pochette, and when he kissed her he used to say: 'She shall be my wife!' Was it not ludicrous? Well, he would not say that now. He has something better." Madame de Précy did not reply. The housekeeper questioned: "It must agitate you to see all these things?"—"Yes, Madame Bénard."

Then the old lady took her to see the room where Monsieur used to sleep; sometimes forgetting herself, instead of Monsieur, she said Louis; and Madame de Précy was strangely moved at hearing pronounced by another that name she had so often called, but might never say again. The room where her husband used to study was next exhibited, with its shelves still filled by his old school-books and copy-books. One of the latter was seized by Madame Bénard, who, tendering it to Madame de Précy, cried: "See how well Monsieur wrote when he was a little boy." And traced in large, uncertain letters she read: "Let us love one another." Then she exclaimed: "I should like to go out into the air; I do not feel quite well."

They went out of doors, and for some moments silently walked about. When a large pond, on which floated two beautiful white swans, was presently approached, Madame Bénard announced: "Here is the pond where Monsieur kept his boat when he was a little boy. One evening he came near drowning himself. I shall never forget that."

When, a few steps farther on, they reached an old straight-backed, moss-grown wooden bench, on either side of which stood a tall earthenware vase, she cried: "This is the bench where Monsieur used to sit and read when he was a little boy."

Next they entered the vegetable garden, and Madame Bénard, walking at once toward a little plot, enclosed by a hedge of box, said again: "This was Monsieur's garden when he was a little boy."

As they afterward crossed the servants' court, a glimpse of the farm horses in their stalls, afforded by widely opened stable doors, caused Madame Bénard to exclaim: "Oh, Boniface used to be kept there!"

"What was Boniface?" asked Madame de Précy.

"Boniface was Monsieur's pony when he was a little boy."

So clearly had Madame Bénard brought before Madame de Précy a little Louis who studied, read, wrote, laughed, and played that she almost saw him now, in short trousers with sunburnt legs and bare head, running across the garden.

When later in the day they were both seated in the dining-room near a large window overlooking the sea, Madame Bénard began in a simple way to relate the story of Monsieur when he was a little boy. It was not very cheerful.

"I must tell you, Madame," said the old woman, "that Monsieur's parents were very peculiar. You never saw them, but I knew them well.

"Just imagine, they actually disliked each other, and without any good reason. That they were not 'congenial' was the only excuse they could give for living almost always apart; but think how wicked that was! If the father was in Paris the mother traveled, and when she returned he went away. They both loved Monsieur Louis, but rather than share his society preferred entirely to deprive themselves of it. So he was sent here to me, and I had to be to him both father and mother. That is the way I happened to bring him up, and I did my best. His parents both died quite young, and he, poor child, wept as bitterly as if he had known them. I can forgive him, but I'm quite sure that when I die he will not grieve as much.

"I tell you all this, Madame, because perhaps he has never done so, and also that you may be able to make allowance for him if sometimes he appears nervous, quick-tempered, or moody. It is not his fault; it is the fault of old times when he was a little boy. Had it not been for his deserted, lonely childhood, he would have grown up quite a different man."

All this Madame Bénard said and much besides, telling many anecdotes, and giving a mass of details, so that the conversation lasted until evening. Neither of the two women thought of ringing for a lamp, and darkness enveloped them. Therefore, Madame Bénard did not observe that Madame de Précy was furtively drying her eyes. When she rose it was to say:

"All you have related about my husband has interested me very much, dear Madame Bénard," and she warmly pressed the good old woman's hands. This did not astonish Madame Bénard, nor was she surprised when the young woman handed her a telegram for Paris to be sent to the office at Guérande. What did the telegram contain? What is sure is that it was sent that night, and that the next day Monsieur de Précy arrived.