The very next day Arthur woke to find himself alone; Madame Schontz was cold, as women of that sort know how to be.
“What happened last night?” asked he at breakfast, looking at Aurélie.
“That is the way of it, in Paris,” said she. “You go to bed on a wet night, next morning the pavement is dry, and everything so frozen that the dust flies; would you like a brush?”
“But what ails you, dear little woman?”
“Go, go to your great gawk of a wife!”
“My wife?” cried the unhappy Marquis.
“Couldn’t I guess why you brought Maxime here? You wanted to make it up with Madame de Rochefide, who wants you perhaps for some telltale baby.—And I, whom you think so cunning, was advising you to give her back her money!—Oh, I know your tricks. After five years my gentleman is tired of me. I am fat, Béatrix is bony; it will be a change. You are not the first man I have known with a taste for skeletons. Your Béatrix dresses well too, and you are one of the men who like a clotheshorse. Besides, you want to send Monsieur du Guénic packing. That would be a triumph! How well it will look! Won’t it be talked about! You will be quite a hero!”
At two o’clock Madame Schontz had not come to an end of her ironical banter, in spite of Arthur’s protestations. She said she was engaged to dine out. She desired the “faithless one” to go without her to the Italiens; she was going to a first-night performance at the Ambigu-Comique, and to make the acquaintance of a charming woman, Lousteau’s mistress, Madame de la Baudraye.
To prove his eternal attachment to his little Aurélie, and his aversion for his wife, Arthur offered to set out the very next day for Italy, and to live as her husband in Rome, Naples, or Florence, whichever Aurélie might prefer, giving her sixty thousand francs a year.
“All that is pure whims,” said she. “That will not hinder your making it up with your wife, and you will be wise to do so.”
At the end of this formidable discussion, Arthur and Aurélie parted, he to play and dine at the club, she to dress and spend the evening tête-à-tête with Fabien.
Monsieur de Rochefide found Maxime at the club, and poured out his complaints, as a man who felt happiness being torn up from his heart by the roots that clung by every fibre. Maxime listened to the Marquis’ lament as polite people can listen while thinking of something else.
“I am a capital counselor in such cases, my dear fellow,” said he. “Well, you make a great mistake in letting Aurélie see how much you care for her. Let me introduce you to Madame Antonia—a heart to let. You will see la Schontz sing very small. Why, she is seven-and-thirty, is your Schontz, and Antonia is but twenty-six! And such a woman! Her wits are not all in her brains, I can tell you. Indeed, she is my pupil. If Madame Schontz still struts out her pride, do you know what it means?”
“On my honor, no.”
“That she means to get married; and then nothing can hinder her from throwing you over. After a six years’ lease the woman has a right to do it.—But if you will listen to me, you can do better than that. At the present time your wife is worth a thousand Schontzes and Antonias of the Saint-Georges quarter. She will be hard to win, but not impossible; and she will make you as happy as Orgon! At any rate, if you do not wish to look like a fool, come to supper tonight at Antonia’s.”
“No, I love Aurélie too well; I will not allow her to have any cause for blaming me.”
“Oh, my dear fellow! what a life you are making for yourself!” cried Maxime.
“It is eleven o’clock. She will have returned from the Ambigu,” said Rochefide, going off. And he roared at the coachman to drive as fast as he could to the Rue de la Bruyère.
Madame Schontz had given distinct orders, and Monsieur was admitted exactly as though he and Madame were the best of friends; but Madame, informed of Monsieur’s return, took care to let Monsieur hear the slam of her dressing-room door, shut as doors shut when a lady is taken by surprise. Then, on the corner of the piano, was Fabien’s hat, intentionally forgotten, and conspicuously fetched away by the maid as soon as Monsieur and Madame were engaged in conversation.
“So you did not go to the play, little woman?”
“No, I changed my mind.”
“And who has been here?” he asked quite simply, seeing the maid carry away the hat.
“Nobody.”
To this audacious falsehood Arthur could only bow his head; this was passing under the Caudine forks of submission. True love has this magnanimous cowardice. Arthur behaved to Madame Schontz as Sabine did to Calyste, as Calyste did to Béatrix.
Within a week there was a change like that of a grub to a butterfly in the handsome and clever young Count, Charles-Édouard Rusticoli de la Palférine (the hero of the sketch called “A Prince of Bohemia,” which makes it unnecessary to describe his person and character in this place). Hitherto he had lived very poorly, making up his deficits with the audacity of a Danton; now he paid his debts, by Maxime’s advice he had a little low carriage, he was elected to the Jockey Club, to the club in the Rue de Grammont, he became superlatively elegant. Finally, he published in the Journal des Débats a novel which earned him in a few days such a reputation as professional writers do not achieve after many years of labor and success, for in Paris nothing is so vehement as what is to prove ephemeral. Nathan, perfectly certain that the Count would never write anything more, praised this elegant and impertinent youth to Madame de Rochefide in such terms, that Béatrix,
