Then he felt the need of seeing Rosanette. After such an exhibition of ugly traits, and so much magniloquence, her dainty person would be a source of relaxation. She was aware that he had intended to present himself at a club that evening. However, she did not even ask him a single question when he came in. She was sitting near the fire, ripping open the lining of a dress. He was surprised to find her thus occupied.
“Hallo! what are you doing?”
“You can see for yourself,” said she, dryly. “I am mending my clothes! So much for this Republic of yours!”
“Why do you call it mine?”
“Perhaps you want to make out that it’s mine!”
And she began to upbraid him for everything that had happened in France for the last two months, accusing him of having brought about the Revolution and with having ruined her prospects by making everybody that had money leave Paris, and that she would by-and-by be dying in a hospital.
“It is easy for you to talk lightly about it, with your yearly income! However, at the rate at which things are going on, you won’t have your yearly income long.”
“That may be,” said Frederick. “The most devoted are always misunderstood, and if one were not sustained by one’s conscience, the brutes that you mix yourself up with would make you feel disgusted with your own self-denial!”
Rosanette gazed at him with knitted brows.
“Eh? What? What self-denial? Monsieur has not succeeded, it would seem? So much the better! It will teach you to make patriotic donations. Oh, don’t lie! I know you have given them three hundred francs, for this Republic of yours has to be kept. Well, amuse yourself with it, my good man!”
Under this avalanche of abuse, Frederick passed from his former disappointment to a more painful disillusion.
He withdrew to the lower end of the apartment. She came up to him.
“Look here! Think it out a bit! In a country as in a house, there must be a master, otherwise, everyone pockets something out of the money spent. At first, everybody knows that Ledru-Rollin is head over ears in debt. As for Lamartine, how can you expect a poet to understand politics? Ah! ’tis all very well for you to shake your head and to presume that you have more brains than others; all the same, what I say is true! But you are always cavilling; a person can’t get in a word with you! For instance, there’s Fournier-Fontaine, who had stores at Saint-Roch! do you know how much he failed for? Eight hundred thousand francs! And Gomer, the packer opposite to him—another Republican, that one—he smashed the tongs on his wife’s head, and he drank so much absinthe that he is going to be put into a private asylum. That’s the way with the whole of them—the Republicans! A Republic at twenty-five percent. Ah! yes! plume yourself upon it!”
Frederick took himself off. He was disgusted at the foolishness of this girl, which revealed itself all at once in the language of the populace. He felt himself even becoming a little patriotic once more.
The ill-temper of Rosanette only increased. Mademoiselle Vatnaz irritated him with her enthusiasm. Believing that she had a mission, she felt a furious desire to make speeches, to carry on disputes, and—sharper than Rosanette in matters of this sort—overwhelmed her with arguments.
One day she made her appearance burning with indignation against Hussonnet, who had just indulged in some blackguard remarks at the Woman’s Club. Rosanette approved of this conduct, declaring even that she would take men’s clothes to go and “give them a bit of her mind, the entire lot of them, and to whip them.”
Frederick entered at the same moment.
“You’ll accompany me—won’t you?”
And, in spite of his presence, a bickering match took place between them, one of them playing the part of a citizen’s wife and the other of a female philosopher.
According to Rosanette, women were born exclusively for love, or in order to bring up children, to be housekeepers.
According to Mademoiselle Vatnaz, women ought to have a position in the Government. In former times, the Gaulish women, and also the Anglo-Saxon women, took part in the legislation; the squaws of the Hurons formed a portion of the Council. The work of civilisation was common to both. It was necessary that all should contribute towards it, and that fraternity should be substituted for egoism, association for individualism, and cultivation on a large scale for minute subdivision of land.
“Come, that is good! you know a great deal about culture just now!”
“Why not? Besides, it is a question of humanity, of its future!”
“Mind your own business!”
“This is my business!”
They got into a passion. Frederick interposed. The Vatnaz became very heated, and went so far as to uphold Communism.
“What nonsense!” said Rosanette. “How could such a thing ever come to pass?”
The other brought forward in support of her theory the examples of the Essenes, the Moravian Brethren, the Jesuits of Paraguay, the family of the Pingons near Thiers in Auvergne; and, as she gesticulated a great deal, her gold chain got entangled in her bundle of trinkets, to which was attached a gold ornament in the form of a sheep.
Suddenly, Rosanette turned exceedingly pale.
Mademoiselle Vatnaz continued extricating her trinkets.
“Don’t give yourself so much trouble,” said Rosanette. “Now, I know your political opinions.”
“What?” replied the Vatnaz, with a blush on her face like that of a virgin.
“Oh! oh! you understand me.”
Frederick did not understand. There had evidently been something taking place between them of a more important and intimate character than Socialism.
“And even though it should be so,” said the Vatnaz in reply, rising up unflinchingly. “ ’Tis a loan, my dear—set off one debt against the other.”
“Faith, I don’t deny my own debts. I owe some thousands of francs—a nice sum. I borrow, at least; I don’t rob anyone.”
Mademoiselle Vatnaz made an effort to laugh.
“Oh! I would put my hand in the fire for him.”
“Take care! it is dry
