The Secret
The little Baroness de Grangerie was drowsing on her couch, when the little Marquise of Rennedon entered abruptly, looking very disturbed, her bodice a little rumpled, her hat a little on one side, and dropped into a chair, exclaiming:
“Ouf, I’ve done it!”
Her friend, who had never seen her anything but placid and gentle, sat bolt upright in amazement. She demanded:
“What is it? What have you done?”
The Marchioness, who did not seem able to remain in one place, got to her feet, and began to walk about the room; then she flung herself on the foot of the couch where her friend was resting and, taking her hands, said:
“Listen, darling, promise me never to repeat what I am going to tell you.”
“I promise.”
“On your immortal soul.”
“On my immortal soul.”
“Well, I have just revenged myself on Simon.”
The other woman exclaimed:
“Oh, you’ve done right!”
“Yes, haven’t I? Just think, during the past six months he has become more intolerable than ever, beyond words intolerable. When I married him, I knew well enough how ugly he was, but I thought that he was a kindly man. What a mistake I made! He must certainly have thought that I loved him for himself, with his fat paunch and his red nose, for he began to coo like a turtledove. You can imagine that it made me laugh, I nicknamed him ‘Pigeon’ for it. Men really do have the oddest notions about themselves. When he realised that I felt no more than friendship for him, he became suspicious, he began to speak bitterly to me, to treat me as if I were a coquette or a fast woman, or I don’t know what. And then it became more serious because of … of … it’s not very easy to put it into words. … In short, he was very much in love with me, very much in love … and he proved it to me often, far too often. Oh, my dearest, what torture it is to be … made love to by a clown of a man! … No, really, I couldn’t bear it any longer … not any longer at all … it is just like having a tooth pulled every evening … much worse than that, much worse. Well, imagine among your acquaintances someone very ugly, very ridiculous, very repellent, with a fat paunch—that’s the frightful part—and great hairy calves. You can just imagine him, can’t you? Now imagine that this someone is your husband … and that … every evening … you understand. No, its loathsome! … loathsome! It made me sick, positively sick … sick in my basin. Really, I can’t bear it any longer. There ought to be a law to protect wives in such cases. Just imagine it yourself, every evening! … Pah, it’s beastly!
“It’s not that I have been dreaming of romantic love-affairs—not ever. There aren’t any nowadays. All the men in our world are like stable-boys or bankers; they care for nothing but horses or money; and if they love women, they love them only as they love horses, just to display them in their drawing rooms as they show off a pair of chestnuts in the Bois. Nothing else. Life today is such that romantic feelings can play no part.
“We should show ourselves merely as matter-of-fact and unemotional women. Intercourse is now no more than meetings at stated times, at which the same thing is always repeated. Besides, for whom could one feel any affection or tenderness? Men, our men, are generally speaking only correct tailor’s dummies altogether wanting in intelligence and sensibility. If we look for any intellectual graces, like a person looking for water in a desert, we call the artists to our side; and we behold the arrival of intolerable poseurs or underbred Bohemians. As for me, like Diogenes I have been looking for a man, one real man in the whole of Parisian society; but I am already quite convinced that I shall not find him, and it will not be long before I blow out my lantern. To return to my husband, since it fairly turned my stomach to see him coming into my room in his shirt and drawers, I used all means, all, you understand me, to alienate him and to … disgust him with me. At first he was furious, and then he became jealous, he imagined that I was deceiving him. In the early days he contented himself with watching me. He glared like a tiger at all the men who came to the house, and then the persecution began. He followed me everywhere. He used abominable means to take me off guard. Then he never left me alone to talk with anyone. At all the balls, he remained planted behind me, poking out his clumsy hound’s head as soon as I said a word. He followed me to the buffet, forbidding me to dance with this man and that man, taking me away in the very middle of the cotillion, making me look foolish and ridiculous, and appear I don’t know what sort of a person. It was after this that I ceased to go anywhere.
“In this intimacy, he became worse still. Would you believe that the wretch treated me as … as I daren’t say it … as a harlot.
“My dear! … he said to me one evening: ‘Whose bed have you been sharing today?’ I wept and he was delighted.
“And then he became worse still. The other week he took me to dine in the Champs-Élysées. Fate ordained that Baubiguac should be at the neighbouring table. Then, if you please, Simon began to tread furiously on my feet and growl at me over the melon: ‘You have given him a rendezvous, you slut! Just you wait!’ Then—you could never guess what he did, my dear—he had the audacity to pull my hatpin gently out and he drove it into my arm. I uttered a loud cry. Everybody came running up. Then he staged a detestable comedy of mortification. You can imagine it.
“At that very moment I said to myself: ‘I’ll have my revenge, and before very long, too.’ What would you have done?”
“Oh, I would have revenged myself!”
“Very well, that’s what I’ve done to him.”
“How?”
“What! Don’t you understand?”
“But, my dear … still … well, yes.”
“Yes, what? Gracious, just think of his head! Can’t you just see him, with his fat face, his red nose, and his side-whiskers hanging down like dog’s ears.”
“Yes.”
“Well, I said to myself: ‘I shall revenge myself for my own pleasure and Marie’s,’ for I always intended to tell you, but never anyone but you, mind. Just think of his face and then remember that he … that he … he is …”
“What … you’ve …”
“Oh, darling, never, never tell a soul, promise me again! But think how funny it is … think. … He has looked quite different to me since that very moment … and I burst out laughing all alone … all alone. … Just think of his head.”
The Baroness looked at her friend, and the wild laughter that welled up in her breast burst between her lips; she began to laugh, but she laughed as if she were hysterical, and with both hands pressed to her breast, her face puckered up, her breath strangled in her throat, she leaned forward as if she would fall over on her face.
Then the little Marquise herself gave way to a stifling outburst of mirth. Between two cascades of little cries she repeated:
“Think … do think … isn’t it funny? Tell me … think of his head … think of his side-whiskers! … of his nose … just think … isn’t it funny? but whatever you do, don’t tell anyone … don’t … tell … about it … ever!”
They continued for some minutes very nearly suffocated, unable to speak, weeping real tears in their ecstasy of amusement.
The Baroness was the first to recover her self-control, and still shaking:
“Oh! … tell me how you did it … tell me … it’s so funny … so funny!”
But the other woman could not speak … she stammered:
“When I had made up my mind … I said to myself: … ‘Now … hurry up … you must make it happen at once.’ … And I … did it … today …”
“Today!”
“Yes … right at once … and I told Simon to come and look for me at your house for our especial amusement. … He’s coming … at once … he’s coming. … Just think … think … think of his head when you see him. …”
The Baroness, a little sobered, panted as if she had just finished running a race. She answered:
“Oh, tell me how you did it … tell me.”
“It was quite easy. I said to myself: ‘He is jealous of Baubiguac; very well, Baubiguac it shall be. He is as clumsy as his feet, but quite honourable; incapable of gossiping.’ Then I went to his house, after breakfast.”
“You went to his house. On what excuse?”
“A collection … for orphans …”
“Tell me the whole tale me … quickly … tell me the whole tale. …”
“He was so astounded to see me that he could not speak. And then he gave me two louis for my collection, and then as I got up to go away, he asked news of my husband; then I pretended to be unable to contain my feelings any longer, and I told him everything that was on my mind. I painted him even blacker than he is, look you. … Then Baubiguac was very touched, he began to think of ways in which he might help me … and as for me, I began to cry … but I cried as a woman cries … when she is crying on purpose. … He comforted me … he made me sit down … and then, as I didn’t stop, he put his arm round me. … I said: ‘Oh, my poor friend my poor friend!’ He repeated: ‘My poor friend, my poor friend!’ and he went on embracing me … all the time … until we reached the closest embrace of all. … There.
“When it was over, I made a terrible display of despair and reproaches. Oh, I treated him, I treated him as if he were the lowest of the low. … But I wanted to burst out laughing madly. I thought of Simon, of his head, of his side-whiskers. Imagine it … just imagine it! I’ve done it to him. Even if he comes in this minute, I’ve done it to him. And he was so afraid of it happening. Come wars, earthquakes, epidemics, even if we all die … I’ve done it to him. Nothing can ever prevent it now! Think of his head … and say to yourself that I’ve done it to him!”
The Baroness, who was almost choking to death, demanded:
“Shall you see Baubiguac again?”
“No, never. Certainly not. … I’ve had enough of him … he’s no more desirable than my husband.”
And they both began to laugh again so violently that they reeled like epileptics.
The ringing of a bell silenced their mirth.
The Baroness murmured:
“It’s he … look closely at him.”
The door opened, and a stout man appeared, a ruddy-faced man with thick lips and drooping side-whiskers; he rolled incensed eyes.
The two young women regarded him for a moment; then they flung themselves wildly down on the couch, in such a delirium of laughter that they groaned as if they were in the most dreadful agony.
And he repeated in a stupefied voice: “Upon my word, are you mad? … mad? … are you mad?”