Rose
The two young women look as though they were buried under a weight of flowers. They are alone in the huge landau, which is loaded with bouquets like a giant basket. Upon the front seat lie two white satin hampers full of violets from Nice, and on the bearskin which covers their knees is a heap of roses, mimosa, pinks, daisies, tuberoses, and orange blossom, knotted together with silk rosettes, seeming about to crush the two slender bodies. Nothing emerges from this brilliant, perfumed bed but their shoulders, their arms, and a wisp of the upper half of their gowns, one blue, the other lilac.
The coachman’s whip is sheathed in anemones, the horses’ traces are covered with wallflowers, the spokes of the wheels blossom with mignonette; where the lamps should be hang two enormous round bouquets that look like the two strange eyes of this wheeled and flower-decked animal.
At a rapid trot the landau passes along the Antibes road, preceded, followed, and accompanied by a crowd of other garlanded vehicles, full of women drowning in a sea of violets. For it is the day of the battle of flowers at Cannes.
When they reach the Boulevard de la Foncière, the battle begins. For the whole length of the immense avenue a double row of garlanded carriages runs up and down like an endless ribbon. Flowers are flung from one to another. They pass through the air like bullets, strike against new faces, flutter, and fall in the dust, where a crowd of urchins picks them up.
A tight-packed crowd on the pavement is looking on, noisy but well-behaved, kept in order by mounted police, who trot arrogantly up and down, forcing back the over-inquisitive, as though they could not permit a plebeian crowd to come too near the aristocrats.
Those in the carriages call to one another, meet, and discharge volleys of roses. A car full of pretty girls dressed as red devils attracts and seduces all eyes. A debonair young man, who looks like the portraits of Henry IV, is throwing with eager gaiety a bouquet held on an elastic string. Before the menace of its impact the women shade their eyes and the men duck their heads, but the lively weapon, swift and obedient, describes a curve in the air and returns to its master, who promptly flings it at a fresh face.
The two young women empty their arsenal in handfuls, and receive a hail of bouquets; at last, tired by an hour of combat, they order the coachman to follow the Juan Bay road, which runs along the sea.
The sun disappears behind the Esterel, silhouetting across the flaming Western sky the black jagged edge of the long mountain. The quiet waters stretch, blue and clear, to the far horizon where they mingle with the sky: the fleet anchored in the middle of the bay looks like a herd of monstrous beasts, motionless upon the water, apocalyptic animals, breastplated and humpbacked, topped with masts frail as feathers, with eyes that gleam in the dusk.
The young women, huddled under the protection of the heavy rug, glance languidly about them. At last one of them speaks:
“There are some marvellous evenings, are there not, Margot, when life seems well worth living?”
“Yes, it’s very lovely,” replied the other, “but there is something missing, all the same.”
“What! I feel perfectly happy; there’s nothing I want.”
“Yes, but there is. You are overlooking it now. However profound the delight which overmasters our bodies, we demand always one thing more … for our hearts.”
“To love a little?” said the other, smiling.
“Yes.”
They fell into silence, looked straight ahead; then she who was called Marguerite murmured:
“Without love, life seems to me insupportable. I need to be loved, were it only by a dog. We are all like that, whatever you may say, Simone.”
“No, my dear. I would rather not be loved at all than by just anyone. Do you think I should enjoy being loved, for instance, by … by …”
She searched her mind for someone by whom she might be loved, and her eyes roved over the wide landscape. After raking the horizon, her glance fell upon the two metal buttons gleaming on the coachman’s back, and with a laugh she continued: “by my coachman?”
Madame Margot smiled faintly and said in a low voice:
“I assure you it’s very good fun to have one of your servants in love with you. It’s happened to me two or three times. They roll their eyes so comically that I could die of laughter. Of course, the more loving they are, the more severe you become, until some day you dismiss them on the first excuse that comes into your head, because you’d look so ridiculous if anyone noticed what was going on.”
Madame Simone listened with her eyes looking straight in front of her, then declared:
“No, my footman’s heart is really not good enough for me. But tell me how you discovered that they were in love with you.”
“Why, just as I do with any other man; when they grew stupid.”
“Well, I don’t think my lovers look so stupid.”
“Why, they’re idiots, my dear, unable to speak, answer, or understand anything at all.”
“But what did you feel like when a servant fell in love with you? Were you affected, flattered … what?”
“Affected? No. Flattered? Yes, a little. One is always flattered by the love of a man, whoever he may be.”
“Really, Margot!”
“It’s quite true, my dear. I’ll tell you a strange thing which happened to me. To make you see how queer and contradictory are one’s feelings in such circumstances.
“Four years ago next autumn I found myself without a maid. I had tried five or six hopeless creatures one after another, and was about despairing of ever finding one, when I read, in the advertisement columns of a paper, that a young girl with knowledge of sewing, embroidery, and hairdressing was looking for a place and that she could supply excellent references. Also, she spoke English.
“I wrote to the address indicated, and next day the person in question came to see me. She was fairly tall, slender, and rather pale, with a very timid bearing. She had beautiful black eyes, a charming complexion, and I was attracted to her at once. I asked her for her references; she gave me one in English, for she had just left, she said, the service of Lady Rymwell, with whom she had been ten years.
“The letter stated that the girl had left of her own free will in order to go back to France, and that her mistress had found nothing to reproach her with, during her long service, except some slight indications of ‘French coquetry.’
“The puritanical flavour of the English phrase made me smile, and I engaged her at once as my maid. She began her duties the same day; her name was Rose.
“By the end of a month I adored her.
“She was a magnificent find, a pearl, a marvel.
“Her taste in hairdressing was perfect; she could trim a hat better than the best shops, and was a dressmaker into the bargain.
“I was amazed at her ability. Never had I had such a maid.
“She dressed me rapidly, and her hands were uncommonly light. I never felt her fingers on my skin, and there is nothing I dislike so much as the touch of a servant’s hand. I grew more and more indolent, it was such a pleasure to be dressed from head to foot, from chemise to gloves, by this tall, timid girl, whose cheeks always wore a faint blush, and who never spoke. After my bath she used to rub me and massage me while I dozed on my sofa; upon my word, I thought of her as a friend of humble rank rather than as a mere servant.
“One morning the porter made a mysterious request that he might speak to me. I was surprised, and sent for him. He was a very steady man, an old soldier who had been my husband’s orderly.
“He seemed embarrassed by what he had to tell, and at last faltered:
“ ‘Madame, the district inspector of police is in the hall.’
“ ‘What does he want?’ I asked sharply.
“ ‘He wants to search the house.’
“The police are a useful body, but I loathe them. I don’t think it’s a noble profession. Irritated and disturbed, I replied:
“ ‘Why this search? What is it for? I won’t have them in.’
“ ‘He says there is a criminal here,’ replied the porter.
“This time I was frightened, and told him to send up the inspector to explain. He was a fairly well-bred man, decorated with the Legion of Honour. He made excuses and begged my pardon, and eventually announced that one of my servants was a convict!
“I was thoroughly annoyed; I replied that I would vouch for the entire staff of the house, and went through them one after another.
“ ‘The porter, Pierre Courtin, an old soldier.’
“ ‘That’s not the man.’
“ ‘The coachman, François Pingau, a peasant from Champagne, the son of one of the farmers on my father’s estate.’
“ ‘Not the man.’
“ ‘A stable-boy, also from Champagne, the son of some peasants with whom I am acquainted; and the footman you have just seen.’
“ ‘That’s not he.’
“ ‘Then, monsieur, it must be clear to you that you have made a mistake.’
“ ‘Excuse me, madame, but I am quite sure that there is no mistake on my part. As a dangerous criminal is in question will you have the goodness to have all your servants brought here before you and me?’
“I refused at first, but at last I gave way, and made them all come up, men and women.
“The inspector cast but a single glance at them, and declared:
“ ‘That is not all.’
“ ‘I am sorry, monsieur; the only one missing is my own maid, a girl whom you could not possibly mistake for a convict.’
“ ‘May I see her too?’ he asked.
“ ‘Certainly.’
“I rang for Rose, who promptly appeared. She had scarcely entered the room when the inspector made a sign, and two men whom I had not seen, hidden behind the door, flung themselves upon her, seized her hands, and bound them with cords.
“A cry of rage escaped me, and I was ready on the instant to run to her defence. The inspector stopped me:
“ ‘This girl, madame, is a man named Jean Nicolas Lecapet, condemned to death in 1879 for murder preceded by rape. His sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life. Four months ago he escaped. We have been searching for him ever since.’
“I was bewildered, thunderstruck. I could not believe it. With a laugh the inspector continued:
“ ‘I can give you only one proof. His right arm is tattooed.’
“The sleeve was rolled up. It was true. The police officer added, rather tactlessly:
“ ‘You will have to trust us to verify the remaining details.’
“And they led my maid away!
“Now—would you believe it?—the feeling strongest in me was not anger at the way I had been tricked, duped, and made ridiculous; it was not the shame of having been dressed and undressed, handled and touched, by that man … but a … profound humiliation … the humiliation of a woman. Do you understand?”
“No, not quite.”
“Oh, think. … That fellow had been sentenced … for rape. … I thought, don’t you know … of the woman he had ravished … and it … it humiliated me. … Now do you understand?”
Madame Margot did not speak. She gazed straight in front of her with a queer, absent stare, at the two gleaming buttons of the coachman’s livery, her lips curved in the inscrutable smile a woman sometimes wears.