Books: Fromont and Risler, v2

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This etext was produced by David Widger

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FROMONT AND RISLER

By ALPHONSE DAUDET

BOOK 2.

CHAPTER VII

THE TRUE PEARL AND THE FALSE

"What can be the matter? What have I done to her?" Claire Fromont very
often wondered when she thought of Sidonie.

She was entirely ignorant of what had formerly taken place between her
friend and Georges at Savigny. Her own life was so upright, her mind so
pure, that it was impossible for her to divine the jealous, mean-spirited
ambition that had grown up by her side within the past fifteen years.
And yet the enigmatical expression in that pretty face as it smiled upon
her gave her a vague feeling of uneasiness which she could not
understand. An affectation of politeness, strange enough between
friends, was suddenly succeeded by an ill-dissembled anger, a cold,
stinging tone, in presence of which Claire was as perplexed as by a
difficult problem. Sometimes, too, a singular presentiment, the ill-
defined intuition of a great misfortune, was mingled with her uneasiness;
for all women have in some degree a kind of second sight, and, even in
the most innocent, ignorance of evil is suddenly illumined by visions of
extraordinary lucidity.

From time to time, as the result of a conversation somewhat longer than
usual, or of one of those unexpected meetings when faces taken by
surprise allow their real thoughts to be seen, Madame Fromont reflected
seriously concerning this strange little Sidonie; but the active, urgent
duties of life, with its accompaniment of affections and preoccupations,
left her no time for dwelling upon such trifles.

To all women comes a time when they encounter such sudden windings in the
road that their whole horizon changes and all their points of view become
transformed.

Had Claire been a young girl, the falling away of that friendship bit by
bit, as if torn from her by an unkindly hand, would have been a source of
great regret to her. But she had lost her father, the object of her
greatest, her only youthful affection; then she had married. The child
had come, with its thrice welcome demands upon her every moment.
Moreover, she had with her her mother, almost in her dotage, still
stupefied by her husband's tragic death. In a life so fully occupied,
Sidonie's caprices received but little attention; and it had hardly
occurred to Claire Fromont to be surprised at her marriage to Risler.
He was clearly too old for her; but, after all, what difference did it
make, if they loved each other?

As for being vexed because little Chebe had attained that lofty position,
had become almost her equal, her superior nature was incapable of such
pettiness. On the contrary, she would have been glad with all her heart
to know that that young wife, whose home was so near her own, who lived
the same life, so to speak, and had been her playmate in childhood, was
happy and highly esteemed. Being most kindly disposed toward her, she
tried to teach her, to instruct her in the ways of society, as one might
instruct an attractive provincial, who fell but little short of being
altogether charming.

Advice is not readily accepted by one pretty young woman from another.
When Madame Fromont gave a grand dinner-party, she took Madame Risler to
her bedroom, and said to her, smiling frankly in order not to vex her:
"You have put on too many jewels, my dear. And then, you know, with a
high dress one doesn't wear flowers in the hair." Sidonie blushed, and
thanked her friend, but wrote down an additional grievance against her in
the bottom of her heart.

In Claire's circle her welcome was decidedly cold. The Faubourg Saint-
Germain has its pretensions; but do not imagine that the Marais has none!
Those wives and daughters of mechanics, of wealthy manufacturers, knew
little Chebe's story; indeed, they would have guessed it simply by her
manner of making her appearance and by her demeanor among them.

Sidonie's efforts were unavailing. She retained the manners of a shop-
girl. Her slightly artificial amiability, sometimes too humble, was as
unpleasant as the spurious elegance of the shop; and her disdainful
attitudes recalled the superb airs of the head saleswomen in the great
dry-goods establishments, arrayed in black silk gowns, which they take
off in the dressing-room when they go away at night--who stare with an
imposing air, from the vantage-point of their mountains of curls, at the
poor creatures who venture to discuss prices.

She felt that she was being examined and criticised, and her modesty was
compelled to place itself upon a war footing. Of the names mentioned in
her presence, the amusements, the entertainments, the books of which they
talked to her, she knew nothing. Claire did her best to help her, to
keep her on the surface, with a friendly hand always outstretched; but
many of these ladies thought Sidonie pretty; that was enough to make them
bear her a grudge for seeking admission to their circle. Others, proud
of their husbands' standing and of their wealth, could not invent enough
unspoken affronts and patronizing phrases to humiliate the little
parvenue.

Sidonie included them all in a single phrase: "Claire's friends--that is
to say, my enemies!" But she was seriously incensed against but one.

The two partners had no suspicion of what was taking place between their
wives. Risler, continually engrossed in his press, sometimes remained at
his draughting-table until midnight. Fromont passed his days abroad,
lunched at his club, was almost never at the factory. He had his reasons
for that.

Sidonie's proximity disturbed him. His capricious passion for her, that
passion that he had sacrificed to his uncle's last wishes, recurred too
often to his memory with all the regret one feels for the irreparable;
and, conscious that he was weak, he fled. His was a pliable nature,
without sustaining purpose, intelligent enough to appreciate his
failings, too weak to guide itself. On the evening of Risler's wedding--
he had been married but a few months himself--he had experienced anew, in
that woman's presence, all the emotion of the stormy evening at Savigny.
Thereafter, without self-examination, he avoided seeing her again or
speaking with her. Unfortunately, as they lived in the same house, as
their wives saw each other ten times a day, chance sometimes brought them
together; and this strange thing happened--that the husband, wishing to
remain virtuous, deserted his home altogether and sought distraction
elsewhere.

Claire was not astonished that it was so. She had become accustomed,
during her father's lifetime, to the constant comings and goings of a
business life; and during her husband's absences, zealously performing
her duties as wife and mother, she invented long tasks, occupations of
all sorts, walks for the child, prolonged, peaceful tarryings in the
sunlight, from which she would return home, overjoyed with the little
one's progress, deeply impressed with the gleeful enjoyment of all
infants in the fresh air, but with a touch of their radiance in the
depths of her serious eyes.

Sidonie also went out a great deal. It often happened, toward night,
that Georges's carriage, driving through the gateway, would compel Madame
Risler to step hastily aside as she was returning in a gorgeous costume
from a triumphal promenade. The boulevard, the shop-windows, the
purchases, made after long deliberation as if to enjoy to the full the
pleasure of purchasing, detained her very late. They would exchange a
bow, a cold glance at the foot of the staircase; and Georges would hurry
into his apartments, as into a place of refuge, concealing beneath a
flood of caresses, bestowed upon the child his wife held out to him, the
sudden emotion that had seized him.

Sidonie, for her part, seemed to have forgotten everything, and to have
retained no other feeling but contempt for that weak, cowardly creature.
Moreover, she had many other things to think about.

Her husband had just had a piano placed in her red salon, between the
windows.

After long hesitation she had decided to learn to sing, thinking that it
was rather late to begin to play the piano; and twice a week Madame
Dobson, a pretty, sentimental blonde, came to give her lessons from
twelve o'clock to one. In the silence of the neighborhood the a-a-a and
o-oo, persistently prolonged, repeated again and again, with windows
open, gave the factory the atmosphere of a boarding-school.

And it was in reality a schoolgirl who was practising these exercises,
an inexperienced, wavering little soul, full of unconfessed longings,
with everything to learn and to find out in order to become a real woman.
But her ambition confined itself to a superficial aspect of things.

"Claire Fromont plays the piano; I will sing. She is considered a
refined and distinguished woman, and I intend that people shall say the
same of me."

Without a thought of improving her education, Sidonie passed her life
running about among milliners and dressmakers. "What are people going to
wear this winter?" was her cry. She was attracted by the gorgeous
displays in the shop-windows, by everything that caught the eye of the
passers-by.

The one thing that Sidonie envied Claire more than all else was the
child, the luxurious plaything, beribboned from the curtains of its
cradle to its nurse's cap. She did not think of the sweet, maternal
duties, demanding patience and self-abnegation, of the long rockings when
sleep would not come, of the laughing awakenings sparkling with fresh
water. No! she saw in the child naught but the daily walk. It is such
a pretty sight, the little bundle of finery, with floating ribbons and
long feathers, that follows young mothers through the crowded streets.

When she wanted company she had only her parents or her husband. She
preferred to go out alone. The excellent Risler had such an absurd way
of showing his love for her, playing with her as if she were a doll,
pinching her chin and her cheek, capering about her, crying, "Hou! hou!"
or staring at her with his great, soft eyes like an affectionate and
grateful dog. That senseless love, which made of her a toy, a mantel
ornament, made her ashamed. As for her parents, they were an
embarrassment to her in presence of the people she wished to know, and
immediately after her marriage she almost got rid of them by hiring a
little house for them at Montrouge. That step had cut short the frequent
invasions of Monsieur Chebe and his long frock-coat, and the endless
visits of good Madame Chebe, in whom the return of comfortable
circumstances had revived former habits of gossip and of indolence.

Sidonie would have been very glad to rid herself of the Delobelles in the
same way, for their proximity annoyed her. But the Marais was a central
location for the old actor, because the boulevard theatres were so near;
then, too, Desiree, like all sedentary persons, clung to the familiar
outlook, and her gloomy courtyard, dark at four o'clock in winter, seemed
to her like a friend, like a familiar face which the sun lighted up at
times as if it were smiling at her. As she was unable to get rid of
them, Sidonie had adopted the course of ceasing to visit them.

In truth, her life would have been lonely and depressing enough, had it
not been for the distractions which Claire Fromont procured for her.
Each time added fuel to her wrath. She would say to herself:

"Must everything come to me through her?"

And when, just at dinner-time, a box at the theatre or an invitation for
the evening was sent to her from the floor below, while she was dressing,
overjoyed at the opportunity to exhibit herself, she thought of nothing
but crushing her rival. But such opportunities became more rare as
Claire's time was more and more engrossed by her child. When Grandfather
Gardinois came to Paris, however, he never failed to bring the two
families together. The old peasant's gayety, for its freer expansion,
needed little Sidonie, who did not take alarm at his jests. He would
take them all four to dine at Philippe's, his favorite restaurant, where
he knew all the patrons, the waiters and the steward, would spend a lot
of money, and then take them to a reserved box at the Opera-Comique or
the Palais-Royal.

At the theatre he laughed uproariously, talked familiarly with the box-
openers, as he did with the waiters at Philippe's, loudly demanded
footstools for the ladies, and when the performance was over insisted on
having the topcoats and fur wraps of his party first of all, as if he
were the only three-million parvenu in the audience.

For these somewhat vulgar entertainments, from which her husband usually
excused himself, Claire, with her usual tact, dressed very plainly and
attracted no attention. Sidonie, on the contrary, in all her finery, in
full view of the boxes, laughed with all her heart at the grandfather's
anecdotes, happy to have descended from the second or third gallery, her
usual place in the old days, to that lovely proscenium box, adorned with
mirrors, with a velvet rail that seemed made expressly for her light
gloves, her ivory opera-glass, and her spangled fan. The tawdry glitter
of the theatre, the red and gold of the hangings, were genuine splendor
to her. She bloomed among them like a pretty paper flower in a filigree
jardiniere.

One evening, at the performance of a successful play at the Palais-Royal,
among all the noted women who were present, painted celebrities wearing
microscopic hats and armed with huge fans, their rouge-besmeared faces
standing out from the shadow of the boxes in the gaudy setting of their
gowns, Sidonie's behavior, her toilette, the peculiarities of her laugh
and her expression attracted much attention. All the opera-glasses in
the hall, guided by the magnetic current that is so powerful under the
great chandeliers, were turned one by one upon the box in which she sat.
Claire soon became embarrassed, and modestly insisted upon changing
places with her husband, who, unluckily, had accompanied them that
evening.

Georges, youthful and elegant, sitting beside Sidonie, seemed her natural
companion, while Risler Allle, always so placid and self-effacing, seemed
in his proper place beside Claire Fromont, who in her dark clothes
suggested the respectable woman incog. at the Bal de l'Opera.

Upon leaving the theatre each of the partners offered his arm to his
neighbor. A box-opener, speaking to Sidonie, referred to Georges as
"your husband," and the little woman beamed with delight.

"Your husband!"

That simple phrase was enough to upset her and set in motion a multitude
of evil currents in the depths of her heart. As they passed through the
corridors and the foyer, she watched Risler and Madame "Chorche" walking
in front of them. Claire's refinement of manner seemed to her to be
vulgarized and annihilated by Risler's shuffling gait. "How ugly he must
make me look when we are walking together!" she said to herself. And
her heart beat fast as she thought what a charming, happy, admired couple
they would have made, she and this Georges Fromont, whose arm was
trembling beneath her own.

Thereupon, when the blue-lined carriage drove up to the door of the
theatre, she began to reflect, for the first time, that, when all was
said, Claire had stolen her place and that she would be justified in
trying to recover it.

CHAPTER VIII

THE BREWERY ON THE RUE BLONDEL

After his marriage Risler had given up the brewery. Sidonie would have
been glad to have him leave the house in the evening for a fashionable
club, a resort of wealthy, well-dressed men; but the idea of his
returning, amid clouds of pipe-smoke, to his friends of earlier days,
Sigismond, Delobelle, and her own father, humiliated her and made her
unhappy. So he ceased to frequent the place; and that was something of a
sacrifice. It was almost a glimpse of his native country, that brewery
situated in a remote corner of Paris. The infrequent carriages, the
high, barred windows of the ground floors, the odor of fresh drugs, of
pharmaceutical preparations, imparted to that narrow little Rue Blondel a
vague resemblance to certain streets in Basle or Zurich.

The brewery was managed by a Swiss and crowded with men of that
nationality. When the door was opened, through the smoke-laden
atmosphere, dense with the accents of the North, one had a vision of a
vast, low room with hams hanging from the rafters, casks of beer standing
in a row, the floor ankle-deep with sawdust, and on the counter great
salad-bowls filled with potatoes as red as chestnuts, and baskets of
pretzels fresh from the oven, their golden knots sprinkled with white
salt.

For twenty years Risler had had his pipe there, a long pipe marked with
his name in the rack reserved for the regular customers. He had also his
table, at which he was always joined by several discreet, quiet
compatriots, who listened admiringly, but without comprehending them,
to the endless harangues of Chebe and Delobelle. When Risler ceased his
visits to the brewery, the two last-named worthies likewise turned their
backs upon it, for several excellent reasons. In the first place, M.
Chebe now lived a considerable distance away. Thanks to the generosity
of his children, the dream of his whole life was realized at last.

"When I am rich," the little man used to say in his cheerless rooms in
the Marais, "I will have a house of my own, at the gates of Paris, almost
in the country, a little garden which I will plant and water myself.
That will be better for my health than all the excitement of the
capital."

Well, he had his house now, but he did not enjoy himself in it. It was
at Montrouge, on the road that runs around the city. "A small chalet,
with garden," said the advertisement, printed on a placard which gave an
almost exact idea of the dimensions of the property. The papers were new
and of rustic design, the paint perfectly fresh; a water-butt planted
beside a vine-clad arbor played the part of a pond. In addition to all
these advantages, only a hedge separated this paradise from another
"chalet with garden" of precisely the same description, occupied by
Sigismond Planus the cashier, and his sister. To Madame Chebe that was a
most precious circumstance. When the good woman was bored, she would
take a stock of knitting and darning and go and sit in the old maid's
arbor, dazzling her with the tale of her past splendors. Unluckily, her
husband had not the same source of distraction.

However, everything went well at first. It was midsummer, and M. Chebe,
always in his shirt-sleeves, was busily employed in getting settled.
Each nail to be driven in the house was the subject of leisurely
reflections, of endless discussions. It was the same with the garden.
He had determined at first to make an English garden of it, lawns always
green, winding paths shaded by shrubbery. But the trouble of it was that
it took so long for the shrubbery to grow.

"I have a mind to make an orchard of it," said the impatient little man.

And thenceforth he dreamed of nothing but vegetables, long lines of
beans, and peach-trees against the wall. He dug for whole mornings,
knitting his brows in a preoccupied way and wiping his forehead
ostentatiously before his wife, so that she would say:

"For heaven's sake, do rest a bit--you're killing yourself."

The result was that the garden was a mixture: flowers and fruit, park and
kitchen garden; and whenever he went into Paris M. Chebe was careful to
decorate his buttonhole with a rose from his rose-bushes.

While the fine weather lasted, the good people did not weary of admiring
the sunsets behind the fortifications, the long days, the bracing country
air. Sometimes, in the evening, when the windows were open, they sang
duets; and in presence of the stars in heaven, which began to twinkle
simultaneously with the lanterns on the railway around the city,
Ferdinand would become poetical. But when the rain came and he could not
go out, what misery! Madame Chebe, a thorough Parisian, sighed for the
narrow streets of the Marais, her expeditions to the market of Blancs-
Manteaux, and to the shops of the quarter.

As she sat by the window, her usual place for sewing and observation,
she would gaze at the damp little garden, where the volubilis and the
nasturtiums, stripped of their blossoms, were dropping away from the
lattices with an air of exhaustion, at the long, straight line of the
grassy slope of the fortifications, still fresh and green, and, a little
farther on, at the corner of a street, the office of the Paris omnibuses,
with all the points of their route inscribed in enticing letters on the
green walls. Whenever one of the omnibuses lumbered away on its journey,
she followed it with her eyes, as a government clerk at Cayenne or Noumea
gazes after the steamer about to return to France; she made the trip with
it, knew just where it would stop, at what point it would lurch around a
corner, grazing the shop-windows with its wheels.

As a prisoner, M. Chebe became a terrible trial. He could not work in
the garden. On Sundays the fortifications were deserted; he could no
longer strut about among the workingmen's families dining on the grass,
and pass from group to group in a neighborly way, his feet encased in
embroidered slippers, with the authoritative demeanor of a wealthy
landowner of the vicinity. This he missed more than anything else,
consumed as he was by the desire to make people think about him.
So that, having nothing to do, having no one to pose before, no one to
listen to his schemes, his stories, the anecdote of the accident to the
Duc d'Orleans--a similar accident had happened to him in his youth, you
remember--the unfortunate Ferdinand overwhelmed his wife with reproaches.

"Your daughter banishes us--your daughter is ashamed of us!"

She heard nothing but that "Your daughter--your daughter--your daughter!"
For, in his anger with Sidonie, he denied her, throwing upon his wife the
whole responsibility for that monstrous and unnatural child. It was a
genuine relief for poor Madame Chebe when her husband took an omnibus at
the office to go and hunt up Delobelle--whose hours for lounging were
always at his disposal--and pour into his bosom all his rancor against
his son-in-law and his daughter.

The illustrious Delobelle also bore Risler a grudge, and freely said of
him: "He is a dastard."

The great man had hoped to form an integral part of the new household, to
be the organizer of festivities, the 'arbiter elegantiarum'. Instead of
which, Sidonie received him very coldly, and Risler no longer even took
him to the brewery. However, the actor did not complain too loud, and
whenever he met his friend he overwhelmed him with attentions and
flattery; for he had need of him.

Weary of awaiting the discerning manager, seeing that the engagement he
had longed for so many years did not come, it had occurred to Delobelle
to purchase a theatre and manage it himself. He counted upon Risler for
the funds. Opportunely enough, a small theatre on the boulevard happened
to be for sale, as a result of the failure of its manager. Delobelle
mentioned it to Risler, at first very vaguely, in a wholly hypothetical
form--"There would be a good chance to make a fine stroke." Risler
listened with his usual phlegm, saying, "Indeed, it would be a good thing
for you." And to a more direct suggestion, not daring to answer, "No,"
he took refuge behind such phrases as "I will see"--"Perhaps later"--
"I don't say no"--and finally uttered the unlucky words "I must see the
estimates."

For a whole week the actor had delved away at plans and figures, seated
between his wife and daughter, who watched him in admiration, and
intoxicated themselves with this latest dream. The people in the house
said, "Monsieur Delobelle is going to buy a theatre." On the boulevard,
in the actors' cafes, nothing was talked of but this transaction.
Delobelle did not conceal the fact that he had found some one to advance
the funds; the result being that he was surrounded by a crowd of
unemployed actors, old comrades who tapped him familiarly on the shoulder
and recalled themselves to his recollection--" You know, old boy." He
promised engagements, breakfasted at the cafe, wrote letters there,
greeted those who entered with the tips of his fingers, held very
animated conversations in corners; and already two threadbare authors had
read to him a drama in seven tableaux, which was "exactly what he wanted"
for his opening piece. He talked about "my theatre!" and his letters
were addressed, "Monsieur Delobelle, Manager."

When he had composed his prospectus and made his estimates, he went to
the factory to see Risler, who, being very busy, made an appointment to
meet him in the Rue Blondel; and that same evening, Delobelle, being the
first to arrive at the brewery, established himself at their old table,
ordered a pitcher of beer and two glasses, and waited. He waited a long
while, with his eye on the door, trembling with impatience. Whenever any
one entered, the actor turned his head. He had spread his papers on the
table, and pretended to be reading them, with animated gestures and
movements of the head and lips.

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