“Order the carriage,” she said suddenly; “I am going to the Opera.”
She dressed splendidly; she meant to show herself alone, and smiling like a happy woman. In the midst of her remorse for the endorsement on that letter she was determined to triumph, to bring Calyste back to her by the greatest gentleness, by wifely virtues, by the meekness of a Paschal lamb. She would lie to all Paris. She loved him, she loved him as courtesans love, or angels, with pride and with humility.
But the Opera was Othello. When Rubini sang “Il mio cor si divide”, she fled. Music is often more powerful than the poet and the actor, the two most formidable natures combined. Savinien de Portenduère accompanied Sabine to the portico and put her into her carriage, unable to account for her precipitate escape.
Madame du Guénic now entered on a period of sufferings such as only the highest classes can know. You who are poor, envious, wretched, when you see on ladies’ arms those snakes with diamond heads, those necklaces and pins, tell yourselves that those vipers sting, that those necklaces have poisoned teeth, that those light bonds cut into the tender flesh to the very quick. All this luxury must be paid for. In Sabine’s position women can curse the pleasures of wealth; they cease to see the gilding of their rooms, the silk of sofas is as tow, exotic flowers as nettles, perfumes stink, miracles of cookery scrape the throat like barley-bread, and life has the bitterness of the Dead Sea.
Two or three instances will so plainly show the reaction of a room or of a woman on happiness, that everyone who has experienced it will be reminded of their home-life.
Sabine, warned of the dreadful truth, studied her husband when he was going out, to guess at the day’s prospects. With what a surge of suppressed fury does a woman fling herself on to the red-hot pikes of such torture!—What joy for Sabine when he did not go to the Rue de Courcelles! When he came in she would look at his brow, his hair, his eyes, his expression and attitude, with a horrible interest in trifles, and the studious observation of the most recondite details of his dress, by which a woman loses her self-respect and dignity. These sinister investigations, buried in her heart, turned sour there and corroded the slender roots, whence grow the blue flowers of holy confidence, the golden stars of saintly love, all the blossoms of memory.
One day Calyste looked round at everything with ill-humor, but he stayed at home! Sabine was coaxing and humble, cheerful and amusing.
“You are cross with me, Calyste; am I not a good wife?—What is there here that you do not like?”
“All the rooms are so cold and bare,” said he. “You do not understand this kind of thing.”
“What is wanting?”
“Flowers—”
“Very good,” said Sabine to herself; “Madame de Rochefide is fond of flowers, it would seem.”
Two days later the rooms at the Hôtel du Guénic were completely altered. No house in Paris could pride itself on finer flowers than those that decorated it.
Some time after this Calyste, one evening after dinner, complained of the cold. He shivered in his chair, looking about him to see whence the draught came, and evidently seeking something close about him. It was some time before Sabine could guess the meaning of this new whim, for the house was fitted with a hot-air furnace to warm the staircase, anterooms, and passages. Finally, after three days’ meditation, it struck her that her rival had a screen, no doubt, so as to produce the subdued light that was favorable to the deterioration of her face; so Sabine purchased a screen made of glass, and of Jewish magnificence.
“Which way will the wind blow now?” she wondered.
This was not the end of the mistress’ indirect criticism. Calyste ate so little at home as to drive Sabine crazy; he sent away his plate after nibbling two or three mouthfuls.
“Is it not nice?” asked Sabine, in despair, seeing all the pains wasted which she devoted to her conferences with the cook.
“I did not say so, my darling,” replied Calyste, without annoyance. “I am not hungry, that is all.”
A wife given up to a legitimate passion and to such a contest as this, feels a sort of fury in her desire to triumph over her rival, and often outruns the mark even in the most secret regions of married life. This cruel struggle, fierce and ceaseless, over the visible and outward facts of home-life, was carried on with equal frenzy over the feelings of the heart. Sabine studied her attitudes and dress, and watched herself in the smallest trivialities of love.
This matter of the cookery went on for nearly a month. Sabine, with the help of Mariotte and Gasselin, invented stage tricks to discover what dishes Madame de Rochefide served up for Calyste. Gasselin took the place of the coachman, who fell ill to order, and was thus enabled to make friends with Béatrix’s cook; so at last Sabine could give Calyste the same fare, only better; but again she saw him give himself airs over it.
“What is wanting?” said she.
“Nothing,” he answered, looking round the table for something that was not there.
“Ah!” cried Sabine to herself, as she woke next morning, “Calyste is pining for powdered cockroaches2 and all the English condiments which are sold by the druggist in cruets; Madame de Rochefide has accustomed him to all sorts of spices.”
She bought an English cruet-stand and its scorching contents; but she could not pursue her discoveries down to every dainty devised by her rival.
This phase lasted for several months; nor need we wonder when we remember all the attractions of such a contest. It is life; with all its wounds and pangs it is preferable to the blank gloom of disgust, to the poison of contempt, to the blankness of abdication, to the death of the
