The Window
I made the acquaintance of Mme. de Jadelle at Paris this winter. She pleased me exceedingly at once. But you know her as well as I … no … pardon … almost as well as I. … You know her to be at once whimsical and romantic. Frank in manner and emotionally impressionable, wilful, unconventional, fearless, adventurous, audacious, contemptuous of all prejudice, and, in spite of that, sentimental, fastidious, easily offended, sensitive and modest.
She was a widow. I adore widows, because I am indolent. I was thinking of marrying her, and I paid court to her. The better I knew her, the better she pleased me; and I decided that the moment had come to venture my request. I was in love with her, and I was on the verge of being too much in love. When a man marries, he ought not to be too much in love with his wife, because that makes a blundering fool of him: he loses his self-possession, and becomes both stupid and crude. He must hold on to his self-control. If he loses his head the first night, he runs a great risk of having it antlered a year later.
So one day I presented myself at her house in a pair of light gloves and said to her:
“Madame, I am so happy as to love you, and I come to ask you whether I may hope to please you—to do which I will use all my best endeavours—and to give you my name.”
She answered placidly:
“As you like! I really don’t know whether you will please me sooner or later, but I ask nothing better than to put it to the test. As a man, I rather like you. It remains to discover what you are like in disposition and character, what sort of habits you have. Most marriages become stormy or immoral, because parties thereto did not know each other well enough when they married. The merest trifle, a deep-rooted obsession, a tenacious opinion on some point of ethics, religion or anything else, an annoying gesture, a bad habit, the least fault or even a disagreeable trait, is enough to make two irreconcilable enemies, implacably bitter and chained together until death, of the tenderest and most passionate lovers.
“I shall never marry unless I know intimately, in every crack and cranny of his nature, the man whose life I am about to share. I want to study him at leisure, and at close quarters, for months.
“This is what I suggest: You shall come to spend the summer with me on my estate at Lauville, and there in that quiet place we shall see whether we are fitted to live side by side. …
“I see you laughing. You’re thinking an evil thought. Oh, my dear man, if I were not sure of myself, I shouldn’t make the suggestion to you. I have such scorn and loathing for love, as you men understand it, that I should never be tempted to lose my head. Do you accept?”
I kissed her hand.
“When do we start, madame?”
“May the tenth. Is it a bargain?”
“It’s a bargain.”
A month later, I was installed in her house. She really was a singular woman. She studied me from morning till evening. As she adores horses, we spent hours riding in the woods every day, talking about everything under the sun, for she was bent on probing my most intimate thoughts as earnestly as she strove to observe my smallest actions.
As for me, I became madly in love with her and I troubled myself not a whit about the harmony of our natures. I soon became aware that even my slumbers were subject to surveillance. Someone slept in a little room next mine, never entering it until late at night, and with infinite precautions. At last I became impatient of this incessant spying. I wanted to hasten the issue, and one evening I became urgent. She dealt with me in such a way that I refrained from all further attempts; but I was seized with a violent desire to make her pay, somehow or other, for the surveillance to which I was subjected, and I pondered on ways and means.
You know Césarine, her maid, a pretty girl from Granville, where all the girls are beautiful—but as fair as her mistress is dark.
One afternoon I drew the maid into my room, slipped five francs into her hand, and said to her:
“My dear child, I’m not going to ask you to do anything wrong, but I want to treat your mistress as she is treating me.”
The little maid smiled mockingly. I went on:
“I know I’m watched day and night. I’m watched eating, drinking, dressing, shaving, and putting on my socks, I know it.”
The young girl got out:
“Well, you see, sir …” She stopped. I continued:
“You sleep in the room next mine to listen if I snore, or if I dream aloud, don’t deny it.”
She began to laugh outright, and said:
“Well, you see, sir …” then stopped again.
I warmed to my theme:
“Well, you realise, my girl, that it’s not just that everything should be known about me and I know nothing about the lady who will be my wife. I love her with all my soul. She is my ideal in looks, mind and heart; so far as that goes, I’m the happiest of men. However, there are some things I would give a lot to know. …”
Césarine decided to thrust my banknote into her pocket. I understood that she had come to terms.
“Listen, my girl, we men, we think a lot of certain … certain … physical details, which don’t prevent a woman from being charming, but can alter her value in our eyes. I’m not asking you to speak ill of your mistress, nor even to confess her secret faults, if she has any. Only answer frankly four or five questions I’m going to put to you. You know Mme. de Jadelle as well as you know yourself, since you dress and undress her every day. Well, now, tell me this: Is she as plump as she seems to be?”
The little maid did not answer.
I went on:
“Come, my child, you’re not ignorant that some women put wadding, you know, wadding where, where … well, wadding in the place where babies are fed, and on the place where you sit down. Tell me, does she pad?”
Césarine had lowered her gaze. She said timidly:
“Ask all your questions, sir. I’ll answer them all at once.”
“Well, my girl, some women have knock-knees, too, so badly that they rub against each other with every step they take. Others have them so widely separated that their legs are like the arches of a bridge. You can see the countryside through them. Both fashions are very pretty. Tell me what your mistress’s legs are like.”
The little maid did not answer.
I continued:
“Some women have such a fine breast that it forms a deep fold underneath. Some have plump arms and a thin figure. Some are well shaped in front and have no shape at all behind; others are well shaped behind and have no shape in front. All these fashions are very pretty, very pretty; but I would dearly like to know how your mistress is shaped. Tell me frankly and I will give you still more money.”
Césarine looked at me searchingly and, laughing heartily, said:
“Except that she’s black, sir, madame is shaped just like me.” Then she ran away.
I was sold.
This time I felt a fool, and I determined that I would at least avenge myself on this impertinent maid.
An hour later, I cautiously entered the little room, where she listened to my slumbers, and unscrewed the bolts.
She arrived about midnight at her observation post. I followed her at once. When she saw me, she made as if to cry out; but I shut her mouth with my hand and convinced myself with very little trouble that, unless she was lying, Mme. de Jadelle must be very well made indeed.
I even took a great delight in this process of verification, which, moreover, pushed a little farther, did not seem any less pleasing to Césarine.
She was, upon my word, a ravishing specimen of the Bas-Normande race, at once sturdy and slender. She was innocent of certain delicate refinements that Henry IV would have scorned. I very soon taught her them, and as I adore perfumes, I made her a present that same evening of a flask of amber lavender.
We were soon more attached than I would have believed possible, almost friends. She became an exquisite mistress, naturally intelligent, made for the pleasures of love. In Paris she would have been a notable courtesan.
The delights she afforded me enabled me to wait patiently for the end of Mme. de Jadelle’s test. My behaviour became quite irreproachable, I was pliant, docile, complaisant.
As for my betrothed, she must have found me quite delightful, and I was aware from certain signs that I was soon to be fully accepted. I was certainly one of the happiest men in the world, placidly waiting for the lawful kiss of a woman I adored in the arms of a young and beautiful girl of whom I was uncommonly fond.
This, madame, is where you must turn away a little. I have come to the delicate point.
One evening, as we were coming back from our ride, Mme. de Jadelle complained bitterly that the grooms had not given her mount certain attentions upon which she insisted. She even repeated several times: “They’d better take care, they’d better take care. I know how to catch them out.”
I passed a quiet night, in my bed. I woke up early, full of life and energy. And I dressed.
I had formed the habit of going every morning to smoke a cigarette on a turret of the château that had a spiral staircase, lit by a large window at the height of the first floor.
I was advancing silently, my feet in felt-soled morocco slippers, to ascend the first steps, when I saw Césarine leaning out of the window looking out.
I did not see the whole of Césarine but only one-half of Césarine, the lower half of her. I preferred this half! I might have preferred the upper half of Mme. de Jadelle. The half presented to me was delightful so, clad in a little white petticoat that hardly covered it.
I approached so softly that the young girl heard nothing. I kneeled down; with infinite caution I took hold of the two edges of the petticoat and lifted it quickly. Immediately I recognised, round, fresh, plump and smooth, my mistress’s secret face, and I pressed on it—pardon, madame—I pressed on it a tender kiss, the kiss of a lover who dares do anything.
I was surprised. There was a fragrance of verbena. But I had no time to think about it. I received a terrific blow, or rather a push in the face, that almost broke my nose. I heard a cry that made my hair stand on end. The woman turned round—it was Mme. de Jadelle.
She beat the air with her hands like a woman on the verge of fainting; for a few moments she stood gasping, lifted her hand as if to thrash me, then fled.
Ten minutes later, a dumbfounded Césarine brought me a letter. I read: “Mme. de Jadelle hopes that M. de Brives will relieve her of his company at once.”
I went.
Well, I am still disconsolate. I have tried by every means and every explanation to win pardon for my error. All my endeavours have been in vain.
Since that moment, do you know, I cherish in … in my heart … a faint fragrance of verbena that fills me with a wild longing to savour its sweetness again.