Queen Hortense
They called her Queen Hortense in Argenteuil. No one ever knew why. Perhaps because she spoke firmly, like an officer giving orders. Perhaps because she was large, bony, and imperious. Perhaps because she governed a multitude of domestic animals, hens, dogs, cats, canaries, and parrots—those animals so dear to old maids. But she neither spoiled these familiar subjects, nor addressed them with loving words, those tender puerilities which seem to slip from the lips of a woman to the velvety coat of a purring cat. She governed her beasts with authority. She ruled.
She was an old maid, one of those old maids with harsh voice, and awkward gesture, whose soul seems hard. She had always had young servants, because youth more easily adapts itself to strong wills. She never allowed contradiction from any person, nor argument, nor would she tolerate hesitation, or indifference, or idleness, or fatigue. No one ever heard her complain, or regret what was, or envy others. “To each one his share,” she would say, with fatalistic conviction. She never went to church, cared nothing for the priests, scarcely believed in God, and called all religious things “stuff for mourners.”
For thirty years she had lived in her little house, with its tiny garden in front, extending along the street, never modifying her way of living, changing only her maids, and that mercilessly, when they became twenty-one years old.
She replaced, without tears and without regrets, her dogs or cats or birds, when they died of old age, or by accident, and she buried the dead animals in a flowerbed, heaping the earth above them with a small spade and treading it down with perfect indifference.
She had in the town a few acquaintances, the families of clerks, whose men travelled to Paris every day. From time to time, they would invite her to spend the evening and drink a cup of tea with them. She inevitably fell asleep on these occasions, and they were obliged to wake her up so that she could go home. She never allowed anyone to accompany her, having no fear by night or day. She seemed to have no love for children.
She occupied her time with a thousand masculine cares, carpentry, gardening, cutting or sawing wood, repairing her old house, even doing mason’s work when it was necessary.
She had some relatives who came to see her twice a year. Her two sisters, Madame Cimme and Madame Columbel, were married, one to an herbalist, the other to a man with small private means. Madame Cimme had no children; Madame Columbel had three: Henri, Pauline, and Joseph. Henri was twenty-one, Pauline, seventeen, and Joseph only three, having come when one would have thought the mother past the age. No tenderness united this old maid to her kinsfolk.
In the spring of 1882, Queen Hortense became suddenly ill. The neighbours went for a doctor, whom she drove away. When the priest presented himself she got out of bed, half naked, and put him out. The little maid, weeping, made herb tea for her.
After three days in bed, the situation became so grave that the carpenter living next door, on the advice of the doctor, who had returned to the house on his own authority, took it upon himself to summon the two families.
They arrived by the same train, about ten o’clock in the morning; the Columbels having brought their little Joseph.
When they arrived at the garden gate, they saw the maid seated on a chair against the wall, weeping. The dog lay asleep on the mat before the front door, under a broiling sun; two cats, that looked dead, lay stretched out on the windowsills, with eyes closed and paws and tails extended at full length. A great clucking hen was promenading before the door, at the head of a flock of chicks covered with yellow down, and in a large cage hung against the wall, covered with chickweed, were several birds, singing themselves hoarse in the light of this hot spring morning.
Two others, inseparable, in a little cage in the form of a cottage, remained quiet, side by side on their perch.
M. Cimme, a large, wheezy personage, who always entered a room first, pushing aside men and women when it was necessary, remarked to the maid: “Well, Céleste! Is it so bad as that?”
The little maid sobbed through her tears:
“She doesn’t know me any more. The doctor says it is the end.”
They all looked at one another.
Madame Cimme and Madame Columbel embraced each other instantly, without saying a word.
They resembled each other very much, always wearing their hair parted in the middle, and shawls of red cashmere, as bright as hot coals.
Cimme turned toward his brother-in-law, a pale man, yellow and thin, tormented by indigestion, who limped badly, and said to him in a serious tone:
“Gad! It was time!”
But no one dared to go into the room of the dying woman, situated on the ground floor. Cimme himself let the others go before him. Columbel was the first to make up his mind; he entered, balancing himself like the mast of a ship, making a noise on the floor with the ferrule of his walking-stick.
The two women ventured to follow, and M. Cimme brought up the line.
Little Joseph remained outside, drawn by the sight of the dog.
A ray of sunlight fell on the bed, just lighting up the hands which moved nervously, opening and shutting without ceasing. The fingers moved as if a thought animated them, as if they would signify something, indicate some idea, obey some intelligence. The rest of the body remained motionless under the sheet. The angular figure gave no start. The eyes remained closed.
The relatives arranged themselves in a semicircle and, without saying a word, watched the heaving breast and the short breathing. The little maid had followed them, still shedding tears.
Finally, Cimme asked: “What did the doctor say exactly?”
The servant stammered: “He said we must leave her alone, that nothing more could be done.”
Suddenly the lips of the old maid began to move. She seemed to pronounce some silent words, concealed in her dying brain, and her hands quickened their singular movement.
Then she spoke in a little, thin voice, quite unlike her own, a voice that seemed to come from far off, perhaps from the bottom of that heart always closed.
Cimme walked upon tiptoe, finding this spectacle painful. Columbel, whose lame leg was growing tired, sat down.
The two women remained standing.
Queen Hortense muttered something quickly, which they were unable to understand. She pronounced some names, called tenderly some imaginary persons:
“Come here, my little Philippe, kiss your mother. You love mamma, don’t you, my child? You, Rose, you will watch your little sister while I am out. Above all, don’t leave her alone, do you hear? And I forbid you to touch matches.”
She was silent some seconds; then, in a loud tone, as if she was calling, she said: “Henriette!” She waited a little and continued: “Tell your father to come and speak to me before going to his office.” Then suddenly: “I am not very well today, dear; promise me you will not return late; you will tell your chief that I am ill. You know it is dangerous to leave the children alone when I am in bed. I am going to make you a dish of rice and sugar for dinner. The little ones like it so much. Claire will be so pleased!”
She began to laugh, a youthful and noisy laugh, as she had never laughed before. “Look at Jean,” she said, “how funny he looks. He has smeared himself with jam, the dirty little thing! Look! my dear, how funny he looks!”
Columbel, who kept changing the position of his lame leg every moment, murmured: “She is dreaming that she has children and a husband; the end is near.”
The two sisters did not move, but seemed surprised and stunned.
The little maid said: “Will you take off your hats and your shawls, and go into the other room?”
They went out without having said a word. And Columbel followed them limping, leaving the dying woman alone again.
When they were relieved of their outer garments, the women seated themselves. Then one of the cats left the window, stretched herself, jumped into the room, then upon the knees of Madame Cimme, who began to caress her.
They heard from the next room the voice of the dying woman, living, without doubt, in this last hour, the life she had wished for, pouring out her dreams at the very moment when all would be finished for her.
Cimme, in the garden, played with little Joseph and the dog, enjoying himself, with all the gaiety of a fat man in the country, without a thought for the dying woman.
But suddenly he entered, and addressed the maid: “I say, my girl, are you going to give us some lunch? What are you going to eat, ladies?”
They decided upon an omelet of fine herbs, a piece of fillet with new potatoes, cheese, and a cup of coffee.
And as Madame Columbel was fumbling in her pocket for her purse Cimme stopped her, and turning to the maid said, “You must have some money?” and she answered: “Yes, sir.”
“How much?”
“Fifteen francs.”
“That’s enough. Make haste, now, my girl, because I am getting hungry.”
Madame Cimme, looking out at the climbing flowers bathed in the sunlight, and at two pigeons making love on the roof opposite, said, with a heartbroken air: “It is unfortunate to have come for so sad an event. It would be nice in the country, today.”
Her sister sighed without answering, and Columbel murmured, moved perhaps by the thought of a walk:
“My leg plagues me awfully.”
Little Joseph and the dog made a terrible noise, one shouting with joy and the other barking violently. They played at hide-and-seek around the three flowerbeds, running after each other like mad.
The dying woman continued to call her children, chatting with each, imagining that she was dressing them, that she caressed them, that she was teaching them to read: “Come, Simon, repeat, A, B, C, D. You do not say it well; see, D, D, D, do you hear? Repeat, now …”
Cimme declared: “It is extraordinary the things one talks about at such times.”
Then said Madame Columbel: “It would be better, perhaps, to go in there.”
But Cimme dissuaded her from it:
“Why go in, since we are not able to do anything for her? Besides we are as well off here.”
No one insisted. Madame observed the two green birds called inseparable. She remarked pleasantly upon this singular fidelity, and blamed men for not imitating these little creatures. Cimme looked at his wife and laughed, singing with a bantering air, “Tra-la-la, Tra-la-la,” as if to say he could tell some things about his own fidelity.
Columbel, taken with cramps in his stomach, struck the floor with his cane. The other cat entered, its tail in the air. They did not sit down at table until one o’clock.
When he had tasted the wine, Columbel, who could drink only choice Bordeaux, called the servant:
“I say, is there nothing better than this in the cellar?”
“Yes, sir; there is some of the wine that was served when you used to come here.”
“Oh, well, go and bring three bottles.”
They tasted this wine, which seemed excellent. Not that it was of a remarkable vintage, but it had been fifteen years in the cellar. Cimme declared it was real wine for invalids.
Columbel, seized with a desire to possess this Bordeaux, asked of the maid: “How much is left of it, my girl?”
“Oh, nearly all, sir; Mademoiselle never drank any of it. It is at the bottom of the cellar.”
Then Columbel turned toward his brother-in-law: “If you wish, Cimme, I will take this wine in exchange for something else; it agrees with my stomach wonderfully.”
The hen, in her turn, had entered with her troop of chicks; the two women amused themselves by throwing crumbs to them. Joseph and the dog were sent back into the garden, as they had eaten enough.
Queen Hortense spoke continually, but in a whisper now, so that it was no longer possible to distinguish the words.
When they had finished the coffee, they all went in to learn the condition of the sick woman. She seemed calm.
They went out and seated themselves in a circle in the garden, to digest their food.
Presently the dog began to run around the chairs with all speed, carrying something in his mouth. The child ran wildly after him. Both disappeared into the house. Cimme fell asleep, with his stomach in the sun.
The dying woman began to speak loudly again. Then suddenly she shouted.
The two women and Columbel hastened in to see what had happened. Cimme awakened but did not move, as he did not care for such things.
The dying woman was sitting up, staring with haggard eyes. Her dog, to escape the pursuit of little Joseph, had jumped upon the bed, and across the dying woman. Entrenched behind the pillow, he was peeping at his comrade with eyes glistening, ready to jump again at the least movement. He held in his mouth one of the slippers of his mistress, all torn by his teeth, as he had been playing with it for an hour.
The child, intimidated by the woman rising so suddenly before him, stood motionless before the bed.
The hen, which had also entered, had jumped upon a chair, frightened by the noise, and was desperately calling to her chicks, which were peeping, frightened, from under the four legs of the chair.
Queen Hortense cried out in piercing tones: “No, no, I do not wish to die! I don’t want to! Who will bring up my children? Who will care for them? Who will love them? No I won’t! … I am not …”
She fell back. All was over.
The dog, much excited, jumped into the room and skipped about.
Columbel ran to the window and called his brother-in-law: “Come quickly! come quickly! I believe she is gone.”
Then Cimme got up and resolutely went into the room, muttering: “It did not take so long as I thought it would.”