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MONSIEUR, MADAME AND BEBE

By GUSTAVE DROZ

BOOK 3.

CHAPTER XX

THE HOT-WATER BOTTLE

When midnight strikes, when the embers die away into ashes, when the lamp
burns more feebly and your eyes close in spite of yourself, the best
thing to do, dear Madame, is to go to bed.

Get up from your armchair, take off your bracelets, light your
rosecolored taper, and proceed slowly, to the soft accompaniment of your
trailing skirt, rustling across the carpet, to your dressing-room, that
perfumed sanctuary in which your beauty, knowing itself to be alone,
raises its veils, indulges in self-examination, revels in itself and
reckons up its treasures as a miser does his wealth.

Before the muslin-framed mirror, which reveals all that it sees so well,
you pause carelessly and with a smile give one long satisfied look, then
with two fingers you withdraw the pin that kept up your hair, and its
long, fair tresses unroll and fall in waves, veiling your bare shoulders.
With a coquettish hand, the little finger of which is turned up, you
caress, as you gather them together, the golden flood of your abundant
locks, while with the other you pass through them the tortoiseshell comb
that buries itself in the depths of this fair forest and bends with the
effort.

Your tresses are so abundant that your little hand can scarcely grasp
them. They are so long that your outstretched arm scarcely reaches their
extremity. Hence it is not without difficulty that you manage to twist
them up and imprison them in your embroidered night-cap.

This first duty accomplished, you turn the silver tap, and the pure and
limpid water pours into a large bowl of enamelled porcelain. You throw
in a few drops of that fluid which perfumes and softens the skin, and
like a nymph in the depths of a quiet wood preparing for the toilet, you
remove the drapery that might encumber you.

But what, Madame, you frown? Have I said too much or not enough? Is it
not well known that you love cold water; and do you think it is not
guessed that at the contact of the dripping sponge you quiver from head
to foot?

But what matters it, your toilette for the night is completed, you are
fresh, restored, and white as a nun in your embroidered dressing-gown,
you dart your bare feet into satin slippers and reenter your bedroom,
shivering slightly. To see you walking thus with hurried steps, wrapped
tightly in your dressing-gown, and with your pretty head hidden in its
nightcap, you might be taken for a little girl leaving the confessional
after confessing some terrible sin.

Gaining the bedside, Madame lays aside her slippers, and lightly and
without effort, bounds into the depths of the alcove.

However, Monsieur, who was already asleep with his nose on the Moniteur,
suddenly wakes up at the movement imparted to the bed.

"I thought that you were in bed already, dear," he murmurs, falling off
to sleep again. "Good-night."

"If I had been in bed you would have noticed it." Madame stretches out
her feet and moves them about; she seems to be in quest of something. "I
am not in such a hurry to go to sleep as you are, thank goodness."

Monsieur, suddenly and evidently annoyed, says: "But what is the matter,
my dear? You fidget and fidget--I want to sleep." He turns over as he
speaks.

"I fidget! I am simply feeling for my hot-water bottle; you are
irritating."

"Your hot-water bottle?" is Monsieur's reply, with a grunt.

"Certainly, my hot-water bottle, my feet are frozen." She goes on
feeling for it. "You are really very amiable this evening; you began by
dozing over the 'Revue des Deux Mondes', and I find you snoring over the
'Moniteur'. In your place I should vary my literature. I am sure you
have taken my hot-water bottle."

"I have been doing wrong. I will subscribe to the 'Tintamarre' in
future. Come, good-night, my dear." He turns over. "Hello, your hot-
water bottle is right at the bottom of the bed; I can feel it with the
tips of my toes."

"Well, push it up; do you think that I can dive down there after it?"

"Shall I ring for your maid to help you?" He makes a movement of ill-
temper, pulls the clothes up to his chin, and buries his head in the
pillow. "Goodnight, my dear."

Madame, somewhat vexed, says: "Good-night, goodnight."

The respiration of Monsieur grows smooth, and even his brows relax, his
forehead becomes calm, he is on the point of losing all consciousness of
the realities of this life.

Madame taps lightly on her husband's shoulder.

"Hum," growls Monsieur.

Madame taps again.

"Well, what is it?"

Madame, in an angelic tone of voice, "My dear, would you put out the
candle?"

Monsieur, without opening his eyes, "The hot-water bottle, the candle,
the candle, the hot-water bottle."

"Good heavens! how irritable you are, Oscar. I will put it out myself.
Don't trouble yourself. You really have a very bad temper, my dear; you
are angry, and if you were goaded a little, you would, in five minutes,
be capable of anything."

Monsieur, his voice smothered in the pillow, "No, not at all; I am
sleepy, dear, that is all. Good-night, my dear."

Madame, briskly, "You forget that in domestic life good feeling has for
its basis reciprocal consideration."

"I was wrong--come, good-night." He raises himself up a little. "Would
you like me to kiss you?"

"I don't want you to, but I permit." She puts her face toward that of
her husband, who kisses her on the forehead. "You are really too good,
you have kissed my nightcap."

Monsieur, smiling, "Your hair smells very nice . . . You see I am so
sleepy. Ah! you have it in little plaits, you are going to wave it
to-morrow."

"To wave it. You were the first to find that that way of dressing it
became me, besides, it is the fashion, and tomorrow is my reception day.
Come, you irritable man, embrace me once for all and snore at your ease,
you are dying to do so."

She holds her neck toward her husband.

Monsieur, laughing, "In the first place, I never snore. I never joke."
He kisses his wife's neck, and rests his head on her shoulder.

"Well, what are you doing there?" is her remark.

"I am digesting my kiss."

Madame affects the lackadaisical, and looks sidewise at her husband with
an eye half disarmed. Monsieur sniffs the loved perfume with open
nostrils.

After a period of silence he whispers in his wife's ear, "I am not at all
sleepy now, dear. Are your feet still cold? I will find the hot-water
bottle."

"Oh, thanks, put out the light and let us go to sleep; I am quite tired
out."

She turns round by resting her arm on his face.

"No, no, I won't have you go to sleep with your feet chilled; there is
nothing worse. There, there is the hot-water bottle, warm your poor
little feet . . . there . . . like that."

"Thanks, I am very comfortable. Good-night, dear, let us go to sleep."

"Good-night, my dear."

After a long silence Monsieur turns first on one side and then on the
other, and ends by tapping lightly on his wife's shoulder.

Madame, startled, "What is the matter? Good heavens! how you startled
me!"

Monsieur, smiling, "Would you be kind enough to put out the candle?"

"What! is it for that you wake me up in the middle of my sleep? I shall
not be able to doze again. You are unbearable."

"You find me unbearable?" He comes quite close to his wife; "Come, let
me explain my idea to you."

Madame turns round--her eye meets the eye . . . full of softness . .
of her husband. "Dear me," she says, "you are a perfect tiger."

Then, putting her mouth to his ear, she murmurs with a smile, "Come,
explain your idea, for the sake of peace and quiet."

Madame, after a very long silence, and half asleep, "Oscar!"

Monsieur, his eyes closed, in a faint voice, "My dear."

"How about the candle? it is still alight."

"Ah! the candle. I will put it out. If you were very nice you would
give me a share of your hot-water bottle; one of my feet is frozen.
Good-night."

"Good-night."

They clasp hands and fall asleep.

CHAPTER XXI

A LONGING

MONSIEUR and MADAME are quietly sitting together--The clock has just
struck ten--MONSIEUR is in his dressing-gown and slippers, is
leaning back in an armchair and reading the newspaper--MADAME is
carelessly working squares of laces.

Madame--Such things have taken place, have they not, dear?

Monsieur--(without raising his eyes)--Yes, my dear.

Madame--There, well I should never have believed it. But they are
monstrous, are they not?

Monsieur--(without raising his eyes)--Yes, my dear.

Madame--Well, and yet, see how strange it is, Louise acknowledged it to
me last month, you know; the evening she called for me to go to the
perpetual Adoration, and our hour of adoration, as it turned out, by the
way, was from six to seven; impossible, too, to change our turn; none of
the ladies caring to adore during dinner-time, as is natural enough.
Good heavens, what a rage we were in! How good God must be to have
forgiven you. Do you remember?

Monsieur--(continuing to read)--Yes, dear.

Madame--Ah! you remember that you said, 'I don't care a . . .' Oh!
but I won't repeat what you said, it is too naughty. How angry you were!
'I will go and dine at the restaurant, confound it!' But you did not say
confound, ha! ha! ha! Well, I loved you just the same at that moment;
it vexed me to see you in a rage on God's account, but for my own part I
was pleased; I like to see you in a fury; your nostrils expand, and then
your moustache bristles, you put me in mind of a lion, and I have always
liked lions. When I was quite a child at the Zoological Gardens they
could not get me away from them; I threw all my sous into their cage for
them to buy gingerbread with; it was quite a passion. Well, to continue
my story. (She looks toward her husband who is still reading, and after
a pause,) Is it interesting-that which you are reading?

Monsieur--(like a man waking up)--What is it, my dear child? What I am
reading? Oh, it would scarcely interest you. (With a grimace.) There
are Latin phrases, you know, and, besides, I am hoarse. But I am
listening, go, on. (He resumes his newspaper.)

Madame--Well, to return to the perpetual Adoration, Louise confided to
me, under the pledge of secrecy, that she was like me.

Monsieur--Like you? What do you mean?

Madame--Like me; that is plain enough.

Monsieur--You are talking nonsense, my little angel, follies as great as
your chignon. You women will end by putting pillows into your chignons.

Madame--(resting her elbows on her husband's knees)--But, after all, the
instincts, the resemblances we have, must certainly be attributed to
something. Can any one imagine, for instance, that God made your cousin
as stupid as he is, and with a head like a pear?

Monsieur--My cousin! my cousin! Ferdinand is only a cousin by marriage.
I grant, however, that he is not very bright.

Madame--Well, I am sure that his mother must have had a longing, or
something.

Monsieur--What can I do to help it, my angel?

Madame--Nothing at all; but it clearly shows that such things are not to
be laughed at; and if I were to tell you that I had a longing--

Monsieur--(letting fall his newspaper)--The devil! a longing for what?

Madame--Ah! there your nostrils are dilating; you are going to resemble a
lion again, and I never shall dare to tell you. It is so extraordinary,
and yet my mother had exactly the same longing.

Monsieur--Come, tell it me, you see that I am patient. If it is possible
to gratify it, you know that I love you, my . . . Don't kiss me on the
neck; you will make me jump up to the ceiling, my darling.

Madame--Repeat those two little words. I am your darling, then?

Monsieur--Ha! ha! ha! She has little fingers which --ha! ha!--
go into your neck--ha! ha!--you will make me break something, nervous as I
am.

Madame--Well, break something. If one may not touch one's husband, one
may as well go into a convent at once. (She puts her lips to MONSIEUR'S
ear and coquettishly pulls the end of his moustache.) I shall not be
happy till I have what I am longing for, and then it would be so kind of
you to do it.

Monsieur--Kind to do what? Come, dear, explain yourself.

Madame--You must first of all take off that great, ugly dressing-gown,
pull on your boots, put on your hat and go. Oh, don't make any faces;
if you grumble in the least all the merit of your devotedness will
disappear . . . and go to the grocer's at the corner of the street,
a very respectable shop.

Monsieur--To the grocer's at ten o'clock at night! Are you mad? I will
ring for John; it is his business.

Madame (staying his hand) You indiscreet man. These are our own private
affairs; we must not take any one into our confidence. I will go into
your dressing-room to get your things, and you will put your boots on
before the fire comfortably . . . to please me, Alfred, my love, my
life. I would give my little finger to have . . .

Monsieur--To have what, hang it all, what, what, what?

Madame--(her face alight and fixing her eyes on him)--I want a sou's
worth of paste. Had not you guessed it?

Monsieur--But it is madness, delirium, fol--

Madame--I said paste, dearest; only a sou's worth, wrapped in strong
paper.

Monsieur--No, no. I am kind-hearted, but I should reproach myself--

Madame--(closing his mouth with her little hands)--Oh, not a word; you
are going to utter something naughty. But when I tell you that I have a
mad longing for it, that I love you as I have never loved you yet, that
my mother had the same desire--Oh! my poor mother (she weeps in her
hands), if she could only know, if she were not at the other end of
France. You have never cared for my parents; I saw that very well on our
wedding-day, and (she sobs) it will be the sorrow of my whole life.

Monsieur--(freeing himself and suddenly rising)--Give me my boots.

Madame--(with effusion)--Oh, thanks, Alfred, my love, you are good, yes,
you are good. Will you have your walking-stick, dear?

Monsieur--I don't care. How much do you want of that abomination--a
franc's worth, thirty sous' worth, a louis' worth?

Madame--You know very well that I would not make an abuse of it-only a
sou's worth. I have some sous for mass; here, take one. Adieu, Alfred;
be quick; be quick!

(Exit MONSIEUR.)

Left alone, Madame wafts a kiss in her most tender fashion toward the
door Monsieur has just closed behind him, then goes toward the glass and
smiles at herself with pleasure. Then she lights the wax candle in a
little candlestick, and quietly makes her way to the kitchen, noiselessly
opens a press, takes out three little dessert plates, bordered with gold
and ornamented with her initials, next takes from a box lined with white
leather, two silver spoons, and, somewhat embarrassed by all this
luggage, returns to her bedroom.

Then she pokes the fire, draws a little buhl table close up to the
hearth, spreads a white cloth, sets out the plates, puts the spoons by
them, and enchanted, impatient, with flushed complexion, leans back in an
armchair. Her little foot rapidly taps the floor, she smiles, pouts--
she is waiting.

At last, after an interval of some minutes, the outer door is heard to
close, rapid steps cross the drawingroom, Madame claps her hands and
Monsieur comes in. He does not look very pleased, as he advances holding
awkwardly in his left hand a flattened parcel, the contents of which may
be guessed.

Madame--(touching a gold-bordered plate and holding it out to her
husband)--Relieve yourself of it, dear. Could you not have been quicker?

Monsieur--Quicker?

Madame--Oh! I am not angry with you, that is not meant for a reproach,
you are an angel; but it seems to me a century since you started.

Monsieur--The man was just going to shut his shop up. My gloves are
covered with it . . . it's sticky . . . it's horrid, pah! the
abomination! At last I shall have peace and quietness.

Madame--Oh! no harsh words, they hurt me so. But look at this pretty
little table, do you remember how we supped by the fireside? Ah! you
have forgotten it, a man's heart has no memory.

Monsieur--Are you so mad as to imagine that I am going to touch it? Oh!
indeed! that is carrying--

Madame--(sadly)--See what a state you get in over a little favor I ask of
you. If in order to please me you were to overcome a slight repugnance,
if you were just to touch this nice, white jelly with you lips, where
would be the harm?

Monsieur--The harm! the harm! it would be ridiculous. Never.

Madame--That is the reason? "It would be absurd." It is not from
disgust, for there is nothing disgusting there, it is flour and water,
nothing more. It is not then from a dislike, but out of pride that you
refuse?

Monsieur--(shrugging his shoulders)--What you say is childish, puerile,
silly. I do not care to answer it.

Madame--And what you say is neither generous nor worthy of you, since you
abuse your superiority. You see me at your feet pleading for an
insignificant thing, puerile, childish, foolish, perhaps, but one which
would give me pleasure, and you think it heroic not to yield. Do you
want me to speak out, well? then, you men are unfeeling.

Monsieur--Never.

Madame--Why, you admitted it to me yourself one night, on the Pont des
Arts, as we were walking home from the theatre.

Monsieur--After all, there is no great harm in that.

Madame--(sadly)--I am not angry with you, this sternness is part of your
nature, you are a rod of iron.

Monsieur--I have some energy when it is needed, I grant you, but I have
not the absurd pride you imagine, and there (he dips his finger in the
paste and carries it to his lips), is the proof, you spoilt child. Are
you satisfied? It has no taste, it is insipid.

Madame--You were pretending.

Monsieur--I swear to you . . .

Madame (taking a little soon, filling it with her precious paste and
holding it to her husband's lips)--I want to see the face you will make,
love.

Monsieur--(Puts out his lips, buries his two front teeth, with marked
disgust, in the paste, makes a horrible face and spits into the
fireplace)--Eugh.

Madame--(still holding the spoon and with much interest) Well?

Monsieur--Well! it is awful! oh! awful! taste it.

Madame--(dreamily stirring the paste with the spoon, her little finger in
the air)--I should never have believed that it was so nasty.

Monsieur--You will soon see for yourself, taste it, taste it.

Madame--I am in no hurry, I have plenty of time.

Monsieur--To see what it is like. Taste a little, come.

Madame--(pushing away the plate with a look of horror)--Oh! how you
worry me. Be quiet, do; for a trifle I could hate you. It is
disgusting, this paste of yours!

CHAPTER XXII

FAMILY LIFE

It was the evening of the 15th of February. It was dreadfully cold. The
snow drove against the windows and the wind whistled furiously under the
doors. My two aunts, seated at a table in one corner of the drawing-
room, gave vent from time to time to deep sighs, and, wriggling in their
armchairs, kept casting uneasy glances toward the bedroom door. One of
them had taken from a little leather bag placed on the table her blessed
rosary and was repeating her prayers, while her sister was reading a
volume of Voltaire's correspondence which she held at a distance from her
eyes, her lips moving as she perused it.

For my own part, I was striding up and down the room, gnawing my
moustache, a bad habit I have never been able to get rid of, and halting
from time to time in front of Dr. C., an old friend of mine, who was
quietly reading the paper in the most comfortable of the armchairs.
I dared not disturb him, so absorbed did he seem in what he was reading,
but in my heart I was furious to see him so quiet when I myself was so
agitated.

Suddenly he tossed the paper on to the couch and, passing his hand across
his bald and shining head, said:

"Ah! if I were a minister, it would not take long, no, it would not be
very long . . . . You have read that article on Algerian cotton. One
of two things, either irrigation . . . . But you are not listening to
me, and yet it is a more serious matter than you think."

He rose, and with his hands in his pocket, walked across the room humming
an old medical student's song. I followed him closely.

"Jacques," said I, as he turned round, "tell me frankly, are you
satisfied?"

"Yes, yes, I am satisfied . . . observe my untroubled look," and he
broke into his hearty and somewhat noisy laugh.

"You are not hiding anything from me, my dear fellow?"

"What a donkey you are, old fellow. I tell you that everything is going
on well."

And he resumed his song, jingling the money in his pockets.

"All is going on well, but it will take some time," he went on. "Let me
have one of your dressing-gowns. I shall be more comfortable for the
night, and these ladies will excuse me, will they not?"

"Excuse you, I should think so, you, the doctor, and my friend!" I felt
devotedly attached to him that evening.

"Well, then, if they will excuse me, you can very well let me have a pair
of slippers."

At this moment a cry came from the next room and we distinctly heard
these words in a stifled voice:

"Doctor . . . oh! mon Dieu! . . . doctor!"

"It is frightful," murmured my aunts.

"My dear friend," I exclaimed, seizing the doctor's arm," you are quite
sure you are not concealing anything from me?"

"If you have a very loose pair they will suit me best; I have not the
foot of a young girl . . . . I am not concealing anything, I am not
concealing anything . . . . What do you think I should hide from you?
It is all going on very well, only as I said it will take time-- By the
way, tell Joseph to get me one of your smokingcaps; once in dressing-gown
and slippers a smokingcap is not out of the way, and I am getting bald,
my dear Captain. How infernally cold it is here! These windows face the
north, and there are no sand-bags. Mademoiselle de V.," he added,
turning to my aunt, "you will catch cold."

Then as other sounds were heard, he said: "Let us go and see the little
lady."

"Come here," said my wife, who had caught sight of me, in a low voice,
"come here and shake hands with me." Then she drew me toward her and
whispered in my ear: "You will be pleased to kiss the little darling,
won't you?" Her voice was so faint and so tender as she said this, and
she added: "Do not take your hand away, it gives me courage."

I remained beside her, therefore, while the doctor, who had put on my
dressing-gown, vainly strove to button it.

From time to time my poor little wife squeezed my hand violently, closing
her eyes, but not uttering a cry. The fire sparkled on the hearth. The
pendulum of the clock went on with its monotonous ticking, but it seemed
to me that all this calm was only apparent, that everything about me must
be in a state of expectation like myself and sharing my emotion. In the
bedroom beyond, the door of which was ajar, I could see the end of the
cradle and the shadow of the nurse who was dozing while she waited.

What I felt was something strange. I felt a new sentiment springing up
in my heart, I seemed to have some foreign body within my breast, and
this sweet sensation was so new to me that I was, as it were, alarmed at
it. I felt the little creature, who was there without yet being there,
clinging to me; his whole life unrolled itself before me. I saw him at
the same time a child and a grown-up man; it seemed to me that my own
life was about to be renewed in his and I felt from time to time an
irresistible need of giving him something of myself.

Toward half-past eleven, the doctor, like a captain consulting his
compass, pulled out his watch, muttered something and drew near the bed.

"Come, my dear lady," said he to my wife, "courage, we are all round you
and all is going well; within five minutes you will hear him cry out."

My mother-in-law, almost beside herself, was biting her lips and each
pang of the sufferer was reflected upon her face. Her cap had got
disarranged in such a singular fashion that, under any other
circumstances, I should have burst out laughing. At that moment I heard
the drawing-room door open and saw the heads of my aunts, one above the
other, and behind them that of my father, who was twisting his heavy
white moustache with a grimace that was customary to him.

"Shut the door," cried the doctor, angrily, "don't bother me."

And with the greatest coolness in the world he turned to my mother-in-law
and added, "I ask a thousand pardons."

But just then there was something else to think of than my old friend's
bluntness.

"Is everything ready to receive him?" he continued, growling.

"Yes, my dear doctor," replied my mother-in-law.

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