Roger’s Method
I was walking with Roger one day when a street-hawker bawled in our ears:
“New method of getting rid of mothers-in-law! Buy, oh buy!”
I stopped, and said to my companion:
“Now that reminds me of a question I’ve long wanted to ask you. What is this ‘Roger’s method’ your wife talks about so often? She jokes about it in such a gay, confidential way that I take it to be some magic potion of which you hold the secret. Whenever she’s told of some young man who is exhausted and has lost his nervous strength, she turns to you and says with a smile: ‘Ah, you ought to show him Roger’s method.’ And the funniest thing of all is that you always blush.”
“Well, there’s a reason for it,” answered Roger. “If my wife really knew what she was talking about, she’d stop it mighty quick. I’ll tell you the story in strict confidence. You know I married a widow with whom I was very much in love. Now my wife has always been very free of speech, and before she became my wife we often had rather spicy little talks. After all, that’s possible with widows; they have the taste of it in their mouths, you see. She has a perfectly honest liking for good smoking-room stories. The sins of the tongue do very little harm; she’s bold, and I’m bashful; and before our wedding she liked to embarrass me with jokes and questions which were not easy for me to answer. Perhaps it was her forwardness which made me fall in love with her. And, talking of love, I was absolutely devoted to her from head to toe, and she knew it too, the little baggage.
“We decided on a quiet wedding and no honeymoon. After the religious ceremony the witnesses were to lunch with us, and then we were to go for a drive, returning to my house in the Rue du Helder for dinner. Well, the witnesses left, and off we went in the carriage; I told the coachman to take us to the Park. It was the end of June, and gorgeous weather.
“As soon as we were alone, she began to laugh.
“ ‘My dear Roger,’ she said, ‘now’s the time to show yourself gallant. See what you can do.’
“This invitation absolutely paralysed me. I kissed her hand; I told her I loved her. I even had the pluck to kiss the nape of her neck twice, but the passersby embarrassed me. And she kept on saying with a funny provoking little air: ‘What next? … What next? …’
“This ‘what next?’ drained all my strength away. After all, in a carriage, in the Park, in broad daylight, one could hardly … well, you know what I mean.
“She was amused by my obvious embarrassment. From time to time she remarked: ‘I’m very much afraid I’ve drawn a blank. You make me very uneasy.’
“I too began to be uneasy—about myself. As soon as I’m scared, I become perfectly useless.
“At dinner she was charming. In order to regain my courage, I’d sent away my servant, who embarrassed me. Oh, we were perfectly well-behaved, but you know how foolish lovers are. We drank from the same glass, we ate off the same plate, with the same fork. We amused ourselves by beginning one biscuit from both ends, so that our lips met in the middle.
“ ‘I should like a little champagne,’ she said.
“I had forgotten the bottle on the sideboard. I took it, untwisted the wires, and pressed the cork to make it fly off. It wouldn’t go. Gabrielle smiled and murmured: ‘An evil omen.’
“I pushed the swollen end of the cork with my thumb, I twisted it to the right, I twisted it to the left, but in vain, and suddenly I broke it right at the lip of the bottle.
“ ‘Poor Roger,’ sighed Gabrielle.
“I took a corkscrew and screwed it into the piece left in the neck. I couldn’t pull it out; I had to call Prosper back. My wife was now shrieking with laughter and saying: ‘Well, well; I see I can depend on you.’ She was a little tipsy.
“By the time we came to the coffee, she was half seas over.
“A widow does not need to be put to bed with the maternal solicitude accorded to young girls, and Gabrielle calmly went to her room, saying: ‘Smoke your cigar for a quarter of an hour.’
“When I rejoined her, I had lost confidence in myself, I admit. I felt unnerved, worried, ill at ease.
“I took my lawful place. She said nothing. She looked at me with a smile upon her lips, obviously desiring to chaff me. Irony, at such a moment, was the last straw. I must confess that it made me helpless hand and foot.
“When Gabrielle observed my … embarrassment, she did nothing to reassure me. On the contrary, she asked me with an air of detachment: ‘Are you always as full of beans as this?’
“I could not help answering: ‘Shut up; you’re unbearable.’
“She went on laughing, but in an unrestrained, maudlin, exasperating way.
“True, I cut a sorry figure, and must have looked a proper fool.
“From time to time, between new fits of merriment, she would say, choking with laughter: ‘Come on—be brave—buck up, you poor boy.’
“Then she continued to laugh so immoderately that she positively screamed.
“Finally I was so exhausted, so furious with myself and her, that I realised I should smack her unless I went away.
“I jumped out of bed and dressed myself quickly in a fiendish temper, without a word to her.
“She became grave at once and, seeing that I was angry, asked: ‘What are you doing? Where are you going?’
“I did not answer, and went down into the street. I wanted to kill someone, to have my revenge, to do some quite insane thing. I strode straight ahead at a great rate, and suddenly the idea came to me to go off with a woman. Who knows?—it would be a trial, an experience, practice perhaps. At all events it would be revenge. And if I were ever deceived by my wife, I should at least have deceived her first.
“I did not hesitate. I knew of a house not far from my own house; I ran there and went in like a man who throws himself into deep water to see if he can still swim.
“Well, I could swim; I swam very well. I stayed there a long time, enjoying my secret and subtle revenge. Then I found myself in the street once more, at the cool hour before dawn. I now felt calm and sure of myself, contented, tranquil, and still ready, I thought, for deeds of valour.
“I went slowly home, and quietly opened the door of my room.
“Gabrielle was reading, her elbow propped up on the pillow. She raised her head and asked in a frightened voice: ‘Ah, there you are; where have you been?’
“I made no answer. I undressed with an air of assurance. I returned like a victorious lord to the place whence I had abjectly fled.
“She was amazed, and was convinced that I had made use of some mysterious secret.
“And now on every occasion she speaks of ‘Roger’s method’ as though she were referring to some infallible scientific device.
“Well, well, it’s ten years ago now, and I’m afraid the same attempt would not have much chance of success today, for me at any rate.
“But if any friend of yours is nervous about his wedding-night, tell him of my stratagem, and tell him, too, that from twenty to thirty-five there’s nothing like it for loosening the shoulders, as the squire of Brantôme would have said.”