But Arnoux had proved himself a very good fellow. Frederick had no doubt of it. However, their friend was a queer character, full of faults. He took care to recall them. She quite agreed with him on this point.
“Never mind! One likes him, all the same, this camel!”
“Still—even now?” said Frederick.
She began to redden, half smiling, half angry.
“Oh, no! that’s an old story. I don’t keep anything hidden from you. Even though it might be so, with him it is different. Besides, I don’t think you are nice towards your victim!”
“My victim!”
Rosanette caught hold of his chin.
“No doubt!”
And in the lisping fashion in which nurses talk to babies:
“Have always been so good! Never went a-bye-bye with his wife?”
“I! never at any time!”
Rosanette smiled. He felt hurt by this smile of hers, which seemed to him a proof of indifference.
But she went on gently, and with one of those looks which seem to appeal for a denial of the truth:
“Are you perfectly certain?”
“Not a doubt of it!”
Frederick solemnly declared on his word of honour that he had never bestowed a thought on Madame Arnoux, as he was too much in love with another woman.
“Why, with you, my beautiful one!”
“Ah! don’t laugh at me! You only annoy me!”
He thought it a prudent course to invent a story—to pretend that he was swayed by a passion. He manufactured some circumstantial details. This woman, however, had rendered him very unhappy.
“Decidedly, you have not been lucky,” said Rosanette.
“Oh! oh! I may have been!” wishing to convey in this way that he had been often fortunate in his love-affairs, so that she might have a better opinion of him, just as Rosanette did not avow how many lovers she had had, in order that he might have more respect for her—for there will always be found in the midst of the most intimate confidences restrictions, false shame, delicacy, and pity. You divine either in the other or in yourself precipices or miry paths which prevent you from penetrating any farther; moreover, you feel that you will not be understood. It is hard to express accurately the thing you mean, whatever it may be; and this is the reason why perfect unions are rare.
The poor Maréchale had never known one better than this. Often, when she gazed at Frederick, tears came into her eyes; then she would raise them or cast a glance towards the horizon, as if she saw there some bright dawn, perspectives of boundless felicity. At last, she confessed one day to him that she wished to have a mass said, “so that it might bring a blessing on our love.”
How was it, then, that she had resisted him so long? She could not tell herself. He repeated his question a great many times; and she replied, as she clasped him in her arms:
“It was because I was afraid, my darling, of loving you too well!”
On Sunday morning, Frederick read, amongst the list of the wounded given in a newspaper, the name of Dussardier. He uttered a cry, and showing the paper to Rosanette, declared that he was going to start at once for Paris.
“For what purpose?”
“In order to see him, to nurse him!”
“You are not going, I’m sure, to leave me by myself?”
“Come with me!”
“Ha! to poke my nose in a squabble of that sort? Oh, no, thanks!”
“However, I cannot—”
“Ta! ta! ta! as if they had need of nurses in the hospitals! And then, what concern is he of yours any longer? Everyone for himself!”
He was roused to indignation by this egoism on her part, and he reproached himself for not being in the capital with the others. Such indifference to the misfortunes of the nation had in it something shabby, and only worthy of a small shopkeeper. And now, all of a sudden, his intrigue with Rosanette weighed on his mind as if it were a crime. For an hour they were quite cool towards each other.
Then she appealed to him to wait, and not expose himself to danger.
“Suppose you happen to be killed?”
“Well, I should only have done my duty!”
Rosanette gave a jump. His first duty was to love her; but, no doubt, he did not care about her any longer. There was no common sense in what he was going to do. Good heavens! what an idea!
Frederick rang for his bill. But to get back to Pans was not an easy matter. The Leloir stagecoach had just left; the Lecomte berlins would not be starting; the diligence from Bourbonnais would not be passing till a late hour that night, and perhaps it might be full, one could never tell. When he had lost a great deal of time in making enquiries about the various modes of conveyance, the idea occurred to him to travel post. The master of the post-house refused to supply him with horses, as Frederick had no passport. Finally, he hired an open carriage—the same one in which they had driven about the country—and at about five o’clock they arrived in front of the Hôtel du Commerce at Melun.
The marketplace was covered with piles of arms. The prefect had forbidden the National Guards to proceed towards Paris. Those who did not belong to his department wished to go on. There was a great deal of shouting, and the inn was packed with a noisy crowd.
Rosanette, seized with terror, said she would not go a step further, and once more begged of him to stay. The innkeeper and his wife joined in her entreaties. A decent sort of man who happened to be dining there interposed, and observed that the fighting would be over in a very short time. Besides, one ought to do his duty. Thereupon the Maréchale redoubled her sobs. Frederick got exasperated. He handed her his purse, kissed her quickly, and disappeared.
On reaching Corbeil, he learned at the station that the insurgents had cut the rails at regular distances, and the coachman refused to drive him any farther; he said that his horses
