Front Matter · Stories in green, zinzolin, rose, purple, mauve, lilac and orange

LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO. 541 Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius

Stories in Green, Zinzolin, Rose, Purple, Mauve, Lilac and Orange

Remy de Gourmont

Translated from the French by Isaac Goldberg

HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY GIRARD, KANSAS

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

STORIES IN GREEN, ZINZOLIN, ROSE, PURPLE, MAUVE, LILAC AND ORANGE

GREEN

_Un regard vert_.... R. G.

After eight days of silence, having scornfully resisted all attempts to torture the secret out of her, all stratagems of the interrogatory, Catherine, accused of having poisoned her mistress, Lady W., spoke and said:

“Very well, yes, I’m the one, yet I am not to blame. I lived alone with her and she had such a bad nature that nobody, after six months, stayed with her more than two hours at a time, and then only in the morning. I alone may be accused; I’ve thought it over and understood that. At first I imagined I would save myself by saying nothing, by remaining before you and before all the judges mute and as if dead; but then I saw that my silence would condemn me. It is only this morning, upon awakening, that things became clear to me; up to that time I seemed to be living in a dense darkness, and I imagined that perhaps I should be left there, that I should be forgotten. When you summoned me, I heard your words without understanding them, but I smiled, I believe, because I was glad to hear the sounds of a voice. This past night, no doubt, everything was clarified in my mind, without my being aware of it. I’ll tell you the story, then, exactly as it is. I am not guilty.”

There was nothing common about Catherine except the equivocal position whence she had risen. Her situation was mid-way between that of lady companions and that of a servant. She had been a tutor. Her origin was modest, but worthy. She was tall, pale beneath brown hair with reddish glints, and her eyes were green. When she raised her head in an attitude of defiance the judge regarded these green eyes with a certain fear.

“Green eyes,” he said to himself. “Cat’s eyes, the eyes of a monster!”

She drooped her eyelids, awaiting a reply; then she raised them with a questioning air.

“Green eyes, but a beautiful green, tender and deep,” mused the judge. “The eyes of a passionate woman.... Of a surety there’s a man in this case.... She wishes to save her lover. That she is in love, her eyes proclaim; that she is beloved is witnessed by her beauty. What a wretched travesty is justice, and what does the disappearance of that old woman matter if it has filled with happiness these distant eyes! How beautiful they must be when they are mad with desire.... Ah! But it’s I who am going mad....”

He frowned and said, simply:

“I am listening to you.”

But Catherine was very well aware of the effect produced by her female attitude and she became more the female than ever.

“It’s two years since I came to Mme. W’s as a lady companion, but at once I saw that I’d be expected, at least most of the time, to fill a humbler position. The maids rarely remained more than a week; a quarrel, suspicions, the mistress’s constant ill humor, discouraged these girls. As I received my share of this testy treatment, I intended at first to leave the place likewise, when I noticed that she was a trifle afraid of me and that, after all, with a little tact I could manage her. So I remained. Toward the end I had a poor neighbor come to do the more menial tasks for me and I ran the house alone, without the help of any domestic. Thus I managed to get some peace, finally even smiling at the peevish words she spoke to me. She’d never address me except in violent, insolent tones, but I never answered, so that took care of itself. I would have endured such a life, in hope of better things, for I went out frequently....”

“To see your lover?”

“Yes, sir, I went to see my lover every day, and I will resume seeing him every day as soon as you permit me to....”

The green eyes had become so tender as she spoke and so ardent that the judge did not dare to brave their brilliancy. He lowered his head and said:

“Go on, please.”

He was playing with a pencil, scribbling aimless designs upon a large sheet of white paper.

“I had reached,” resumed Catherine tranquilly, “up to the chapter of suspicions. Our food was sent in, but it was I, naturally, who saw to its preparation; it passed through my hands and I was responsible for it. As we did not have the same tastes, she allowed me to choose my own. This is the cause of my unhappiness--and hers,” she added cruelly.

“How is that?”

“Eh! Because she took it into her head that, that....”

“That what happened would happen,” said the judge.

“Yes, sir, that what happened would inevitably happen,--what she herself was preparing, not with her own hands, but with her own words. All at once she would shove back her plate and cry: ‘Catherine, are you trying to poison me?’ I would answer, calmly: ‘I’ve never thought of such a thing, Madame, and you know it.’ Then she’d say: ‘Prove it by eating this.’ And I’d resign myself to sipping a bit of the rejected plate. Thus satisfied, Mme. W. would resume her meal, murmuring, ‘Well, I guess today isn’t yet the day.’ These words, so often repeated, worked upon me like a command. I heard them at night, in my dreams and at times even not sleeping. I should have fled. Alas! I remained. Toward this same time I suffered the severest worriment. My lover fell ill and had to be taken away from Paris. I went mad, if obsession is madness, and one morning I began to repeat, like a litany: ‘This is the day! This is the day!’”

The judge pulled out his watch and arose abruptly.

“Later, we’ll resume later.... Calm yourself.... Say no more.”

Two hours later, alone with Catherine in her cell, the judge was saying to her:

“My child, there are no proofs against you other than your possible confession. So I’ll question you no further. Later on you will tell me everything.”

“Later on?” asked Catherine. “Are you sure you will see me again?”

“I wish very much to see you again. Shall I not have been kind to you? My child, I don’t say this to give me any right to you; but if I do not save you from death, I save you surely from a prison sentence, and certainly from deep disgrace. Shall you not feel grateful to me for that?”

“My life,” said Catherine, “was worth so little! And now? Prison frightened me, and freedom frightens me no less.”

She hid her face in her hands and wept.

“Your lover awaits you,” said the judge, in a voice that quivered a little.

“Would I be crying,” asked Catherine, “if a lover were awaiting me?”

“I can love you, then! Would you have me love you?”

“Can I forbid it?”

“Thanks, but you,--will you love me?”

“I? I?... I should have loved you, perhaps, if, through jealousy, you had had me convicted so as to separate me from a lover....”

“But I knew that you no longer had a lover. Court judges know a great many things.”

“He is dead, and his death taught me that he had been deceiving me.... Leave me, leave me to myself....”

“I will come to see you, and you’ll tell me the end of the story.... But here,” he continued in a low voice, “not a word more. Tomorrow you’ll receive the address of the house where you’ll be expected.”

The judge possessed the smile of those eyes that had encompassed him, and the white pure body of Catherine with its red flowers and its russet shadows. She proved to be an agreeable mistress, but so dreamy at times that she seemed to have become the very statue of dreams. Awakened, she would take the hand that had touched her shoulder and would kiss it.

The end of the story never came up between them. The judge knew it; he knew that the poison had been poured; he knew that the crime had been commanded by the word that need not be uttered.

One day he asked for something to drink.

“Never,” said Catherine. “You’ll never drink here, you’ll never eat here. Never.”

“You don’t love me?” asked the judge.

“Perhaps I don’t love you enough to believe in your love.”

“What do you want, then, my child?”

“To forget.... Will you have a drink now?” He made no reply.

“Do you see?” said Catherine.

REDDISH VIOLET

(_Zinzolin_)

_D’une lumiére zinzoline._ ... Scarron.

The topic of conversation was colors, and the young women were telling their preferences, which were not at all exquisite. One was fond of pink, the other, of blue; another extolled pale green and the fourth preferred red.

“And you, Alain?” asked she of the Blue.

“Oh, I!” replied Alain. “I am, through my status as man, consecrated to blacks, greys and _cachous_. I do not, like you, dream of brilliant plumage. Still, if I were permitted to harbor such a desire, I should choose to dream in zinzolin.”

They all burst into laughter, to hide their ignorance.

“Isn’t that a pretty word?” continued Alain.

There was no reply. Then the young man resumed:

“I don’t want to deceive you. The word’s a pretty one, but the color is frightful. Imagine a reddish violet; think of those violet velvets all frayed and showing a woof of dubious red.”

“You’re poking fun at us, and that isn’t nice.

“I’m not poking fun. I like that word, because it’s pretty. Perhaps because it rhymes with my name, perhaps above all because it rhymes with yours, my zinzoline[A] Aline?”

[A] Tr. note: The feminine form of zinzolin, as Aline is the feminine form of Alain.

And passionately he kissed his sister, who protested:

“No, I’m not zinzoline, I don’t want to be zinzoline!”

“But if I am fond of the word,” Alain went on, “I don’t at all care for the color that it represents, and if my Aline became truly zinzoline I’d love her less.”

“Wretch!” said Aline.

“For a few moments,” said Alain.

She whom they called Mlle. Blue was an orphan. The daughter of the closest lady friend that Alain and Aline’s mother had possessed, she had come into the house as a tiny girl and had there grown up, yet there was a feeling that she did not quite form part of the household. Her character separated her from her adoptive family. She was moody, they were light-hearted; she seemed to fear life, while they plunged into it joyously, young and old as in a warm sea; neither the one nor the others had much will-power. Paule, on the contrary (that was her real name) seemed forever in a state of moral tension, and if she ever happened to laugh like everybody else, she would stop brusquely the moment she became aware of herself. A philosopher might have found in this child the passion for suffering that priests have so greatly exploited in women, in whom it is not rare, and which men always like in women, since their pride is flattered by it or else, more simply, because they find this perfectly natural. Such creatures are very difficult to domesticate, for they are exceedingly defiant and exceedingly timid as well. Often one thinks them wicked when they are really afraid. Those most advanced in the art of causing self-suffering try to displease, as others try to please, but they have always a secret motive, and when one has detected this, one becomes their master.

Paule was neither homely nor pretty. If the features of her somewhat dumpy face were lighted by a smile, she became agreeable; her eyes might have spoken if she had not imposed silence upon them; she was small but not thin, rather lithe, and her hair, which was very abundant, was of chestnut hue,--that neutral shade which is perhaps the most seductive because it is the most mysterious, because it forecasts nothing.

With the two young girls there were two young women, and it was these, naturally, that Alain courted. He was not at all sure which appealed to him the most, nor for that matter the one or the other appealed to him at all. They were both pronounced brunettes and they fairly frightened him, but as they responded to his advances, he teased them, as one provokes singular animals to see what will happen. And what happened was that, in the midst of this play they would exchange oblique glances and each of the women, in turn, would go into ecstasies when she had received a particular token of favor. Alain would kiss one of them upon the fingertips, and her corsage, where the fingers would fly for refuge, would swell like a great wave. He would approach the other, like a traitor, and brush the down of her nape with his lips: the neck and the whole woman would shudder a long time.

Motionless, with a vague glance and a scornful mien, Paule seemed to see nothing yet saw all. She seemed to feel nothing, yet suffered.

“I’m nothing, I am. He didn’t look at me once! I’m homely, it’s true, and so ill dressed in this blue that doesn’t at all become me! But it suits me to be thus. Oh! I wish I could displease him even more!”

Alain, at this moment, happened to notice her.

“Just the same, she’s the prettiest of them all.”

He threw toward her head a rose that he had just filched from one of the young women.

“Thanks, Zinzolin,” said Paule. “You don’t often make me a gift, so I’ll keep this one.”

She placed the rose in her corsage and resumed her disdainful air.

“He tried to humiliate me,” she said to herself. “How shall I make myself really disagreeable to him? Remain or leave?”

She looked at the two young women:

“Remain.”

She smelled the rose:

“Leave.”

“I’m going in,” said Aline at that juncture. “Are you coming, Paule?”

Once more she looked at the two young women, which Alain, facing them, half concealed from her.

“No, I’ll stay.”

Alain turned his head toward her. His features outlined a smile.

“Yes, I’ll go too. Wait for me.”

She had mused:

“He looked at me with an ironical air. He thinks I want to spy upon him. What a notion! I certainly scoff at him!”

Aline entered the salon. Paule went up to her room. She poured some water into a little vase of blue crystal and, before placing the rose into it, she inhaled its fragrance, gazed at it for a long time and suddenly, with a brusque movement, brought it to her lips.

“Why, I’m mad! I’m ashamed of myself! What do I care for this flower? How stupid! No, no, no.”

And she crushed the rose with passionate violence, threw it broken upon the carpet, stamped upon its petals, a prey to a childish fit of anger. Coming back to herself, she carefully swept toward the fireplace the ruins of her rejected joy, but in this humble attitude she was seized by a sudden reversion of feeling and with the little hearth broom in her tightened fingers, her other hand leaning against the marble, at once a ridiculous and a tragic figure, she gave herself up to tears.

Once again Paule had the strength to fight off her emotion. She arose, bathed her eyes, forced herself to read three pages of the _Trésor des humbles_ and went down, calm and cold. Everybody had come in. She served tea, with Aline, as usual.

Alain, during all this, had continued his adolescent games. Alain, who was eighteen, was awkward and insolent, but in all innocence, for he believed himself very skilful, having already conquered two chamber-maids and a little flower-girl of the neighboring village: he had beheld them, in turn, languishing with pleasure and chagrin and he had spoken to them, each time, the words required by the situation. So that he did not consider himself insolent, but, on the contrary, well-bred and even affable.

He was fairly tall and slender, beardless and with hair close cropped; his head revealed but two superposed tones--pink and copper, with two large blue flowers in the pink. He was singular and attractive; women desired him as they desire a rare, striking jewel, but, as he thought too much about himself, he was not aware of their desires. The friends of his mother or his sister seemed to him, moreover, impregnable citadels. These two, however, had betrayed weaknesses and he was beginning to consider them vulnerable.

Left alone with the two young women, he addressed to them awkwardly the greatest impertinences in the world.

“I love you both, yes, both of you.”

“We have no need of being loved,” replied the younger spiritedly. “We have our husbands.”

“And those things love, do they--these husbands?”

“Why certainly,” she retorted.

“If your husbands loved you, they wouldn’t be a-hunting. They would have done as I did. They would have had a lame foot so that they might remain with you.”

And he showed his slipper.

The younger woman would not be beaten. She said:

“There is a time for everything.”

But to herself she said:

“Good Lord! He missed the hunt for me! He loves me.”

“Does he love me, then?” thought the elder. “He loves me!”

As if he had divined these secret thoughts, Alain grew bolder.

“Only lovers know how to love.”

“Can that be true?” mused the elder. “If I only tried it.”

“He’s right,” thought the younger, who had had experience. “He could make excellent love to me, he could!”

They had lowered their eyes, that they might dream the better.

“Mesdames,” said Alain, “I place my heart at your feet.”

This time they laughed:

“What a devil!”

“What a little demon!”

“Oh! If I might only whisper into your ears--to both of you at a time!”

“The scoundrel!”

“Very well, then, one after the other. Let’s draw lots.”

They laughed more heartily.

“I’ll speak one word to each and I’ll ask a question. You’ll have to answer me.”

“No, I don’t care to hear anything.”

“And still less to answer.”

“But I won’t say the same word to both, nor will I ask the same question.”

“And you’ll say only things that it’s proper to hear?”

“You’ll ask only questions that admit of reply?”

“Naturally.”

“Come, then, and cast your lots, naughty boy.”

“I don’t want to be first.”

“It’s your turn, dear Madame. Deign to approach. Fine. ‘I love you. And you?--Monster!’ Now your turn: I adore you. Do you love me?--Hush!’ I’ve kept my word, and so have you. Now let’s have our tea with the satisfaction of having fulfilled a duty.”

The women walked along in a revery. Alain followed them, asking himself:

“With which shall I begin, and how shall I go about it?”

* * * * *

Scarcely had the day dawned when Paule was up. She had slept but little. Before even making her toilette she left her room and made her way to a spacious chamber nearby which was called the linen room, and contained, besides the household linen, all manner of castoff material from hats and gowns, abandoned ribbons,--the remnants of several generations of women. There were pigeon-throat silks in the style of Empress Eugénie, there were amaranth velvets and nacarat satins:

“Ah! Here’s what I want!”

It was a card of ribbons whose sorry hue seemed to answer exactly to the definition of zinzolin,--a reddish violet.

“How ugly!”

Upon her blue corsage, her white neck, her chestnut tresses, she arranged the bows of zinzolin silk.

“I look like a savage,” she said, as she surveyed herself in the mirror. “He’ll laugh at me. Perhaps he’ll be angry? If I don’t manage this time to displease him utterly, how am I ever to do it?”

She went down into the garden. A blackbird was arduously whistling the five notes of its monotonous call; the sun cast long shadows; the dew lay soft upon the leaves and the trees; she saw a bindweed open for all the world like a tender eye; she ate an apple as cold as ice: Paule no longer thought of anything, but the joy of being an early-rising roe-deer.

What was that she glimpsed, all at once, at the turn of the syringas? Alain, seated upon a bench, staring at her in surprise.

The sight of this friendly enemy rekindled her rancor:

“Eh? You couldn’t have been thinking of me?”

“No, my dear Paule, I was thinking of myself.”

“Do you get up early?”

“Oh! Not every day.”

“Today, then?”

Paule, in the full sunlight, was ablaze with zinzolin gleams.

“Where did you find that?”

“Find what?”

“Those frightful ribbons.”

“Frightful? Do you think so?”

“Could it be to please me, by chance?”

“Why not?”

“If it was your purpose to displease me, you have succeeded. But, tell me,--I thought you indifferent to everything. I thought nothing could touch your heart. And here you’ve arisen at five in the morning....”

“And you?”

“I? Because I’m in love....”

“Not I.”

“ ... and because you’ve bedizened yourself like a gipsy and are strolling through the garden to shake your thoughts.... Sit down besides me, Paule, do.... It’s certainly zinzolin.... What a notion! But you haven’t been so blundering as you thought and I am less stupid than you believe....”

“Then?” she queried, with ill-feigned coldness.

“Then I am like you,--I don’t know what to say. I’d like to banter, but the words won’t come.... Paule, Paule, do you know why we both arose with the dawn? Tell me, do you know?... Give me your hand, Paule.”

She let him take her hand, she let Alain’s arm encircle her waist, she allowed him to clasp her to his bosom. The trees, the flowers, the sky and the earth all blended and turned away. She shut her eyes and her head drooped.

“Tell me, do you know?” continued Alain. “Well, we were seeking each other, and we found.”

She became the tender mistress of Alain, during all the vacations and for a long time after, every time he returned to the house.

Alain said one day:

“We ought to get married, but how can we? Can a man marry at eighteen? Let’s wait.”

“Let’s not speak of that,” answered Paule. “I belong to you; you’ll do as you please with me.”

Thus did she reconcile her felicity and her love of suffering. She was very happy for several years.

ROSE

... _et les roses trop hautes_. H. de Régnier.

He was a child. He was no longer dressed as a little boy, but neither was he dressed as a man. His figure was lithe, his hair curly; one could fairly see him grow; he played billiards during the season and chaffed the girls all the year round.

But he didn’t chaff Christiane, however, because Christiane was ten years older than he, and because she seemed a lady, like her mother--a younger lady and not yet married. On the contrary, he loved her, because she was kind, affectionate and good-humored. Life is a thing that must laugh, think little boys, and when one isn’t laughing, one isn’t living.

All of Christiane’s friends were married, having settled down here and there. She would visit them, hoping, here or there, to find a husband in her turn, but she scarcely had a dot and that made matters difficult. She would often come to the little boy’s mother, because their houses were nearby and also because the father of the little boy, who collected prints, frequently received visits from wealthy enthusiasts, to whom he liked to exhibit his collection. Who knows? It was her own explanation. She repeated it at every opportunity, with confidence in the future. Christiane was twenty-five.

In the summer, Christiane’s friends would foregather at a little seashore in Brittany and the one who had found the most spacious cottage would invite Christiane, whose parents, old and weak, preferred not to stir from their home. This made of the coterie the gayest gathering of childhood and youth. There, the little boy became more than ever amphibious. He no longer knew which of his instincts to obey. To rear fortresses of pebbles against the rising tide was really tempting; to remain reading near the young women who sat sewing and beside Christiane who was embroidering, was also mightily tempting. Then he would divide himself in two, and when he thought that he had played the serious young man long enough, he would run off to the little fellows and gleefully wade in the foam-washed sand.

Thus the time had been passing by for several days when the print collector received a mysterious letter: “Monsieur, your departure, of which I learned when I came to your house this past Thursday, interfered with a project that I had for some time been dreaming about. A certain impatience does not permit me to wait till you return. Would I be indiscreet to take the liberty of disturbing you for a few moments at the shore, to which you have gone for the precise purpose of fleeing such indiscreet persons as I?” ... The signature, “Durand, of the Institute,” recalled to the print lover a visitor whom he had received two or three times and who, at his last visit, seemed distrait. He recalled, too, that on the first day Christiane had been with this gentleman, and that he had greeted her with great deference, that he had spoken with her, tenderly, and that for her he had even stopped examining the portfolio of rare examples.

Christiane had conquered a husband. One doubted this no longer when M. Durand was seen to install himself in the Beach hotel, and, declaring that he would finish his vacation season there, mingle gravely in the frivolous pursuits of the young women. The little boy had detested him from the first day. He thought:

“That fellow is no print lover, he’s a lover of Christiane.”

This thought, which often recurred to him, he even permitted to escape aloud, before his mother, who gave him a proper scolding, at the same time repressing her intense desire to laugh. Soon M. Durand was known only as the lover of Christiane, and this name was to cling to him for the rest of his life.

This was the sole allusion to a marriage that was decided in silence. Toward the end of the month, when everybody, spontaneously, began to speak of preparations to return, M. Durand drew the print collector aside and said to him:

“I’m leaving. I’m firmly decided. I certainly am ‘Christiane’s lover.’”

“Ah! You have heard?...

“Yes, and joyfully. That proves that I have been understood.”

“But she?”

“I don’t care.”

The print collector took it upon himself to place Christiane’s hand into that of M. Durand. Christiane opened her eyes in astonishment. M. Durand blushingly kissed the obedient little hand and Christiane understood that this man loved her and desired her happiness. This thought rendered her already happy.

Christiane freed herself of the felicitations, the kisses of her friends. She went up to her room, and, seated at the window, contemplated the sea, which, naively, she found similar to the infinitude of her existence.

She had been dreaming thus a moment, when a noise caused her to turn her head. She listened. It sounded like sobbing. She arose and looked. On his knees near the bed, and half concealed by the drawn curtain, the little boy was crying, his head buried in the covers.

Christiane approached and, taking the boy by the shoulders, raised him and drew him toward her:

“What’s the matter, my little fellow?”

“Christiane! Christiane!”

“What is it?”

“Oh! Christiane!”

“Come now. Sit down right beside me tell me what is the trouble.” She had sunk down upon the bed, quite touched by this immense sorrow. She began again, when the little boy had drawn near to her with his head leaning against her shoulder.

“Did they give you a scolding?”

“No.”

“Does something hurt you?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know.”

“Come now,” she said, a little rudely. “Be reasonable. Speak.”

“Oh! Christiane, it’s you who scold me. You whom I love so much!”

Then Christiane understood, and the child began to frighten her. But his words had softened her, too, and, in order to make up for her rudeness she clasped him to her bosom.

“Christiane, is he going to take you away, then?”

“Why, not at all. I shall remain with all of you, with you.”

“That’s not true!”

“But it is, I assure you. I’ll come to see you, just as usual, and I’ll always love you, my dear little fellow.”

“And I,--I love you so!”

A pair, of innocent and curious hands clutched at Christiane and pressed her flesh. She looked, perturbed, into the languishing eyes that sought her own. She looked at the young mouth, and the young mouth rose toward hers and seized it. They remained a long time in this position, then in a sudden ecstasy they rolled over upon the bed. The little boy opened his eyes and his instinct threw him upon Christiane. He opened her corsage, caressed her soft flesh, thrust his hand in under her shoulders. Christiane started up, arranged her clothes, then, all of a sudden, finding herself unhooked:

“Yes, my little one, kiss my heart. Here! Give me my first kiss of love!”

And the little boy, with both hands pressing Christiane’s swelling breast, placed his happy lips upon the pale rose that budded there, ready to open.

She uttered a cry, as if bitten, arose, arranged her toilette, and said:

“Now I am content. My tender little friend, I will love you always. Preserve the taste of my heart. Who knows?”

PURPLE

_Qualem purpureis agitatam fluctibus Hellen. Propertius._

_SIDOINE_ _CLOTILDE_ _MARCELLE_

FIRST SCENE

SIDOINE--CLOTILDE

_Clotilde_--A lover? No. I am too fond of my freedom. A lover? Suspicions, jealousy, torment. A lover? No, I want to be able to go and come in life, according to my own wishes. A lover? “What were you doing yesterday, my dear, at the corner of the rue de la Paix?” “I was waiting.” “What?” “Waiting for a carriage.” “Ah!” And he doesn’t believe you. His whole person says: “It’s very strange.” A lover! No. I’ve enough as it is with a husband. My husband is a debonair guardian who fears only scandal. Knowing that I am well-bred, he watches over me only from afar, and then the infatuation characteristic of husbands prevents him, even if he should surprise me in a suspicious conversation, from believing his eyes. But a lover?

_Sidoine_--Your husband is right. To suspect his wife is to insult her, and a gallant man is above insulting his wife.

_Clotilde_--If his wife is honest, that’s quite as it should be. If she is not, his suspicions become legitimate, even before the beginning of the proof.

_Sidoine_--Suspicions are never legitimate.

_Clotilde_--Don’t talk nonsense. Suspicions are always legitimate. But one has them or hasn’t; it depends upon temperament. I don’t know whether my husband has ever suspected me; he has never shown it. You know as well as I, nevertheless,--no, not quite so well, but anyway you know--that I had a lover, since you were not only his friend but our confidant. Confess, then, that all your pretty phrases are nothing but pretty phrases.

_Sidoine_--Not at all. When one loves, when one believes oneself loved, suspicions are infamous. I’ll say more--they’re stupid. Life is an act of confidence. To deceive is to degrade oneself. Well, can one ever suppose that the beloved is a degraded creature?

_Clotilde_--For my part, I know that lovers are suspicious, and nothing unnerves me more. Your friend tortured me for three years. I’ve had enough. The trouble he gave me did not make up for the pleasures that he lavished so prodigally upon me. Another woman, perhaps, would have been happy with him. I wasn’t. One experiment suffices. I don’t say that I’ll never yield to a whim. Oh! Lord, no! Caprices! I seek them, and I’d bless heaven, I’d dedicate a novena to Notre-Dame des Victories, if that plant should sprout in my head. Alas! It’s years since I’ve felt anything; my flesh doesn’t rise to anything or anybody. I’m desolate. As to my heart, let’s not mention it. I’ve brought it to reason.

_Sidoine_--You’re a delightful little egotist. That isn’t why I love you, but I love you just the same.

_Clotilde_--You’ve told me so often enough. Love me. Who’s stopping you?

_Sidoine_--But it takes two to love.

_Clotilde_--Much credit you deserve, then! Why, I loved your friend for six months before he so much as deigned to cast an eye upon me.

_Sidoine_--My merit, if there is any, is far greater, for it’s a year, day for day, that I’ve been paying court to you.

_Clotilde_--Your merit would be double, indeed, if you really loved me.

_Sidoine_--What? You don’t even credit my sincerity?

_Clotilde_--One believes only in the sincerity of those whom one loves, and I don’t love you.

_Sidoine_--There’s a fine fix for me!

_Clotilde_--What’s the matter? You’ve turned pale?

_Sidoine_--That thrust was rather direct. Farewell.

_Clotilde_--Sidoine, don’t leave with such an evil impression.

_Sidoine_--Ah! Your eyes are no longer cruel, thanks! I may remain a little while, then?

_Clotilde_--Yes, but not seated.

_Sidoine_--I’ll remain standing then.

_Clotilde_--Not standing. On your knees.

_Sidoine_--Yes, I ask your pardon for loving you too much.

_Clotilde_--Very well, I pardon you, and here’s my hand to kiss, even. That makes it complete, doesn’t it?

_Sidoine_--It’s so nice kneeling before you.

_Clotilde_--How silly is a man in love. It’s really touching.

_Sidoine_--She’s actually weeping. Ah! You love me, Clotilde!

_Clotilde_--Yes.