The Village Rector

III

MAR­RIAGE

On the re­turn of old Sauvi­at Graslin paid his first evening vis­it at half-​past nine o'clock. Veronique was ex­pect­ing him, dressed in her blue silk gown and muslin guimpe, over which fell a col­laret made of lawn with a deep hem. Her hair was sim­ply worn in two smooth ban­deaus, gath­ered in­to a Gre­cian knot at the back of her head. She was seat­ed on a tapestried chair be­side her moth­er, who oc­cu­pied a fine arm­chair with a carved back, cov­ered with red vel­vet (ev­ident­ly the rel­ic of some old chateau), which stood be­side the fire­place. A bright fire blazed on the hearth. On the chim­ney-​piece, at ei­ther side of an an­tique clock, the val­ue of which was whol­ly un­known to the Sauvi­ats, six wax can­dles in two brass sconces twist­ed like vine-​shoots, light­ed the dark room and Veronique in all her bud­ding prime. The old moth­er was wear­ing her best gown.

From the silent street, at that tran­quil hour, through the soft shad­ows of the an­cient stair­way, Graslin ap­peared to the mod­est, art­less Veronique, her mind still dwelling on the sweet ideas which Bernadin de Saint-​Pierre had giv­en her of love.

Graslin, who was short and thin, had thick black hair like the bris­tles of a brush, which brought in­to vig­or­ous re­lief a face as red as that of a drunk­ard emer­itus, and cov­ered with sup­pu­rat­ing pim­ples, ei­ther bleed­ing or about to burst. With­out be­ing caused by eczema or scro­fu­la, these signs of a blood over­heat­ed by con­tin­ual toil, anx­iety, and the lust of busi­ness, by wake­ful nights, poor food, and a sober life, seemed to par­take of both these dis­eases. In spite of the ad­vice of his part­ners, his clerks, and his physi­cian, the banker would nev­er com­pel him­self to take the health­ful pre­cau­tions which might have pre­vent­ed, or would at least mod­ify, this mal­ady, which was slight at first, but had great­ly in­creased from year to year. He want­ed to cure it, and would some­times take baths or drink some pre­scribed po­tion; but, hur­ried along on the cur­rent of his busi­ness, he soon ne­glect­ed the care of his per­son. Some­times he thought of sus­pend­ing work for a time, trav­el­ling about, and vis­it­ing the not­ed baths for such dis­eases; but where is the hunter af­ter mil­lions who is will­ing to stop short?

In that blaz­ing fur­nace shone two gray eyes rayed with green lines start­ing from the pupils, and speck­led with brown spots,--two im­pla­ca­ble eyes, full of res­olu­tion, rec­ti­tude, and shrewd cal­cu­la­tion. Graslin's nose was short and turned up; he had a mouth with thick lips, a promi­nent fore­head, and high cheek-​bones, coarse ears with large edges dis­col­ored by the con­di­tion of his blood,--in short, he was an an­cient satyr in a black satin waist­coat, brown frock-​coat, and white cra­vat. His strong and vig­or­ous shoul­ders, which be­gan life by bear­ing heavy bur­dens, were now rather bent; and be­neath this tor­so, un­du­ly de­vel­oped, came a pair of weak legs, rather bad­ly af­fixed to the short thighs. His thin and hairy hands had the crooked fin­gers of those whose busi­ness it is to han­dle mon­ey. The habit of quick de­ci­sion could be seen in the way the eye­brows rose in­to a point over each arch of the eye. Though the mouth was grave and pinched, its ex­pres­sion was that of in­ward kind­li­ness; it told of an ex­cel­lent na­ture, sunk in busi­ness, smoth­ered pos­si­bly, though it might re­vive by con­tact with a wom­an.

At this ap­pari­tion Veronique's heart was vi­olent­ly ag­itat­ed; black­ness came be­fore her eyes; she thought she cried aloud; but she re­al­ly sat there mute, with fixed and star­ing gaze.

“Veronique, this is Mon­sieur Graslin,” said old Sauvi­at.

Veronique rose, curt­sied, dropped back in­to her chair, and looked at her moth­er, who was smil­ing at the mil­lion­aire, seem­ing, as her fa­ther did, so hap­py,--so hap­py that the poor girl found strength to hide her sur­prise and her vi­olent re­pul­sion. Dur­ing the con­ver­sa­tion which then took place some­thing was said of Graslin's health. The banker looked naive­ly in­to the mir­ror, with bev­elled edges in an ebony frame.

“Made­moi­selle,” he said, “I am not good-​look­ing.”

There­upon he pro­ceed­ed to ex­plain the blotch­es on his face as the re­sult of his over­worked life. He re­lat­ed how he had con­stant­ly dis­obeyed his physi­cian's ad­vice; and re­marked that he hoped to change his ap­pear­ance al­to­geth­er when he had a wife to rule his house­hold, and take bet­ter care of him than he took of him­self.

“Is a man mar­ried for his face, com­pa­tri­ot?” said Sauvi­at, giv­ing the oth­er a hearty slap on the thigh.

Graslin's speech went straight to those nat­ural feel­ings which, more or less, fill the heart of ev­ery wom­an. The thought came in­to Veronique's mind that her face, too, had been de­stroyed by a hor­ri­ble dis­ease, and her Chris­tian mod­esty re­buked her first im­pres­sion.

Hear­ing a whis­tle in the street, Graslin went down­stairs, fol­lowed by Sauvi­at. They speed­ily re­turned. The of­fice-​boy had brought the first bou­quet, which was a lit­tle late in com­ing. When the banker ex­hib­it­ed this mound of ex­ot­ic flow­ers, the fra­grance of which com­plete­ly filled the room, and of­fered it to his fu­ture wife, Veronique felt a rush of con­flict­ing emo­tions; she was sud­den­ly plunged in­to the ide­al and fan­tas­tic world of trop­ical na­ture. Nev­er be­fore had she seen white camelias, nev­er had she smelt the fra­grance of the Alpine cis­tus, the Cape jes­samine, the ce­dronel­la, the vol­came­ria, the moss-​rose, or any of the di­vine per­fumes which woo to love, and sing to the heart their hymns of fra­grance. Graslin left Veronique that night in the grasp of such emo­tions.

From this time forth, as soon as all Limo­ges was sleep­ing, the banker would slip along the walls to the Sauvi­ats' house. There he would tap gen­tly on the win­dow-​shut­ter; the dog did not bark; old Sauvi­at came down and let him in, and Graslin would then spend an hour or two with Veronique in the brown room, where Madame Sauvi­at al­ways served him a true Au­vergnat sup­per. Nev­er did this sin­gu­lar lover ar­rive with­out a bou­quet made of the rarest flow­ers from the green­house of his old part­ner, Mon­sieur Gros­setete, the on­ly per­son who as yet knew of the ap­proach­ing mar­riage. The man-​of-​all-​work went ev­ery evening to fetch the bunch, which Mon­sieur Gros­setete made him­self.

Graslin made about fifty such vis­its in two months; each time, be­sides the flow­ers, he brought with him some rich present,--rings, a watch, a gold chain, a work-​box, etc. These in­con­ceiv­able ex­trav­agances must be ex­plained, and a word suf­fices. Veronique's dowry, promised by her fa­ther, con­sist­ed of near­ly the whole of old Sauvi­at's prop­er­ty, name­ly, sev­en hun­dred and fifty thou­sand francs. The old man re­tained an in­come of eight thou­sand francs de­rived from the Funds, bought for him orig­inal­ly for six­ty thou­sand francs in assig­nats by his cor­re­spon­dent Brezac, to whom, at the time of his im­pris­on­ment, he had con­fid­ed that sum, and who kept it for him safe­ly. These six­ty thou­sand francs in assig­nats were the half of Sauvi­at's for­tune at the time he came so near be­ing guil­lotined. Brezac was al­so, at the same time, the faith­ful repos­ito­ry of the rest, name­ly, sev­en hun­dred louis d'or (an enor­mous sum at that time in gold), with which old Sauvi­at be­gan his busi­ness once more as soon as he re­cov­ered his lib­er­ty. In thir­ty years each of those louis d'or had been trans­formed in­to a bank-​note for a thou­sand francs, by means of the in­come from the Funds, of Madame Sauvi­at's in­her­itance from her fa­ther, old Cham­pagnac, and of the prof­its ac­cru­ing from the busi­ness and the ac­cu­mu­lat­ed in­ter­est there­on in the hands of the Brezac firm. Brezac him­self had a loy­al and hon­est friend­ship for Sauvi­at,--such as all Au­vergnats are apt to feel for one an­oth­er.

So, when­ev­er Sauvi­at passed the front of the Graslin man­sion he had said to him­self, “Veronique shall live in that fine palace.” He knew very well that no girl in all the de­part­ment would have sev­en hun­dred and fifty thou­sand francs as a mar­riage por­tion, be­sides the ex­pec­ta­tion of two hun­dred and fifty thou­sand more. Graslin, his cho­sen son-​in-​law, would there­fore in­fal­li­bly mar­ry Veronique; and so, as we have seen, it came about.

Ev­ery evening Veronique had her fresh bunch of flow­ers, which on the mor­row decked her lit­tle sa­lon and was care­ful­ly con­cealed from the neigh­bors. She ad­mired the beau­ti­ful jew­els, the pearls and di­amonds, the bracelets, the ru­bies, gifts which as­sured­ly grat­ify all the daugh­ters of Eve. She thought her­self less plain when she wore them. She saw her moth­er hap­py in the mar­riage, and she had no oth­er point of view from which to make com­par­isons. She was, more­over, to­tal­ly ig­no­rant of the du­ties or the pur­pose of mar­riage. She heard the solemn voice of the vicar of Saint-​Eti­enne prais­ing Graslin to her as a man of hon­or, with whom she would lead an hon­or­able life. Thus it was that Veronique con­sent­ed to re­ceive Mon­sieur Graslin as her fu­ture hus­band.

When it hap­pens that in a life so with­drawn from the world, so soli­tary as that of Veronique, a sin­gle per­son en­ters it ev­ery day, that per­son can­not long re­main in­dif­fer­ent; ei­ther he is hat­ed, and the aver­sion, jus­ti­fied by a deep­en­ing knowl­edge of his char­ac­ter, ren­ders him in­tol­er­able, or the habit of see­ing bod­ily de­fects dims the eye to them. The mind looks about for com­pen­sa­tions; his coun­te­nance awak­ens cu­rios­ity; its fea­tures bright­en; fleet­ing beau­ties ap­pear in it. At last the in­ner, hid­den be­neath the out­er, shows it­self. Then, when the first im­pres­sions are fair­ly over­come, the at­tach­ment felt is all the stronger, be­cause the soul clings to it as its own cre­ation. That is love. And here lies the rea­son of those pas­sions con­ceived by beau­ti­ful things for oth­er be­ings ap­par­ent­ly ug­ly. The out­ward as­pect, for­got­ten by af­fec­tion, is no longer seen in a crea­ture whose soul is deeply val­ued. Be­sides this, beau­ty, so nec­es­sary to a wom­an, takes many strange as­pects in man; and there is as much di­ver­si­ty of feel­ing among wom­en about the beau­ty of men as there is among men about the beau­ty of wom­en. So, af­ter deep re­flec­tion and much de­bat­ing with her­self, Veronique gave her con­sent to the pub­li­ca­tion of the banns.

From that mo­ment all Limo­ges rang with this in­ex­pli­ca­ble af­fair, --in­ex­pli­ca­ble be­cause no one knew the se­cret of it, name­ly, the im­men­si­ty of the dowry. Had that dowry been known Veronique could have cho­sen a hus­band where she pleased; but even so, she might have made a mis­take.

Graslin was thought to be much in love. Up­hol­ster­ers came from Paris to fit up the house. Noth­ing was talked of in Limo­ges but the pro­fuse ex­pen­di­tures of the banker. The val­ue of the chan­de­liers was cal­cu­lat­ed; the gild­ing of the walls, the fig­ures on the clocks, all were dis­cussed; the jar­dinieres, the caloriferes, the ob­jects of lux­ury and nov­el­ty, noth­ing was left un­no­ticed. In the gar­den of the ho­tel Graslin, above the ice­house, was an aviary, and all the in­hab­itants of the town were present­ly sur­prised by the sight of rare birds,--Chi­nese pheas­ants, mys­te­ri­ous breeds of ducks. Ev­ery one flocked to see them. Mon­sieur and Madame Gros­setete, an old cou­ple who were high­ly re­spect­ed in Limo­ges, made sev­er­al vis­its to the Sauvi­ats, ac­com­pa­nied by Graslin. Madame Gros­setete, a most ex­cel­lent wom­an, con­grat­ulat­ed Veronique on her hap­py mar­riage. Thus the Church, the fam­ily, so­ci­ety, and all ma­te­ri­al things down to the most triv­ial, made them­selves ac­com­plices to bring about this mar­riage.

In the month of April the for­mal in­vi­ta­tions to the wed­ding were is­sued to all Graslin's friends and ac­quain­tance. On a fine spring morn­ing a caleche and a coupe, drawn by Limousin hors­es cho­sen by Mon­sieur Gros­setete, drew up at eleven o'clock be­fore the shop of the iron-​deal­er, bring­ing, to the great ex­cite­ment of the neigh­bor­hood, the for­mer part­ners of the bride­groom and the lat­ter's two clerks. The street was lined with spec­ta­tors, all anx­ious to see the Sauvi­ats' daugh­ter, on whose beau­ti­ful hair the most renowned hair­dress­er in Limo­ges had placed the bridal wreath and a cost­ly veil of En­glish lace. Veronique wore a gown of sim­ple white muslin. A rather im­pos­ing as­sem­blage of the most dis­tin­guished wom­en in the so­ci­ety of the town at­tend­ed the wed­ding in the cathe­dral, where the bish­op, know­ing the re­li­gious fer­vor of the Sauvi­ats, deigned to mar­ry Veronique him­self. The bride was very gen­er­al­ly vot­ed plain.

She en­tered her new house, and went from one sur­prise to an­oth­er. A grand din­ner was to pre­cede the ball, to which Graslin had in­vit­ed near­ly all Limo­ges. The din­ner, giv­en to the bish­op, the pre­fect, the judge of the court, the at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al, the may­or, the gen­er­al, and Graslin's for­mer part­ners with their wives, was a tri­umph for the bride, who, like all oth­er per­sons who are sim­ple and nat­ural, showed charms that were not ex­pect­ed in her. Nei­ther of the bridal pair could dance; Veronique con­tin­ued there­fore to do the hon­ors to her guests, and to win the es­teem and good graces of near­ly all the per­sons who were pre­sent­ed to her, ask­ing Gros­setete, who took an hon­est lik­ing to her, for in­for­ma­tion about the com­pa­ny. She made no mis­takes and com­mit­ted no blun­ders. It was dur­ing this evening that the two for­mer part­ners of the banker an­nounced the amount of the dowry (im­mense for Limousin) giv­en by the Sauvi­ats to their daugh­ter. At nine o'clock the old iron-​deal­er re­turned home and went to bed, leav­ing his wife to pre­side over the bride's re­tir­ing. It was said by ev­ery­one through­out the town that Madame Graslin was very plain, though well made.

Old Sauvi­at now wound up his busi­ness and sold his house in town. He bought a lit­tle coun­try-​place on the left bank of the Vi­enne be­tween Limo­ges and Cluzeau, ten min­utes' walk from the sub­urb of Saint-​Mar­tial, where he in­tend­ed to fin­ish his days tran­quil­ly with his wife. The old cou­ple had an apart­ment in the ho­tel Graslin and al­ways dined once or twice a week with their daugh­ter, who, as of­ten, made their house in the coun­try the ob­ject of her walks.

This en­forced rest al­most killed old Sauvi­at. Hap­pi­ly, Graslin found a means of oc­cu­py­ing his fa­ther-​in-​law. In 1823 the banker was forced to take pos­ses­sion of a porce­lain man­ufac­to­ry, to the pro­pri­etors of which he had ad­vanced large sums, which they found them­selves un­able to re­pay ex­cept by the sale of their fac­to­ry, which they made to him. By the help of his busi­ness con­nec­tions and by in­vest­ing a large amount of prop­er­ty in the con­cern, Graslin made it one of the finest man­ufac­to­ries of Limo­ges ware in the town. Af­ter­wards he resold it at a fine prof­it; mean­time he placed it un­der the su­per­in­ten­dence of his fa­ther-​in-​law, who, in spite of his sev­en­ty-​two years, count­ed for much in the re­turn of pros­per­ity to the es­tab­lish­ment, who him­self re­newed his youth in the em­ploy­ment. Graslin was then able to at­tend to his le­git­imate busi­ness of bank­ing with­out anx­iety as to the man­ufac­to­ry.

Sauvi­at died in 1827 from an ac­ci­dent. While tak­ing ac­count of stock he fell in­to a _cha­rasse_,--a sort of crate with an open grat­ing in which the chi­na was packed; his leg was slight­ly in­jured, so slight­ly that he paid no at­ten­tion to it; gan­grene set in; he would not con­sent to am­pu­ta­tion, and there­fore died. The wid­ow gave up about two hun­dred and fifty thou­sand francs which came to her from Sauvi­at's es­tate, re­serv­ing on­ly a stipend of two hun­dred francs a month, which am­ply suf­ficed for her wants. Graslin bound him­self to pay her that sum du­ly. She kept her lit­tle house in the coun­try, and lived there alone with­out a ser­vant and against the re­mon­strances of her daugh­ter, who could not in­duce her to al­ter this de­ter­mi­na­tion, to which she clung with the ob­sti­na­cy pe­cu­liar to old per­sons. Madame Sauvi­at came near­ly ev­ery day in­to Limo­ges to see her daugh­ter, and the lat­ter still con­tin­ued to make her moth­er's house, from which was a charm­ing view of the riv­er, the ob­ject of her walks. From the road lead­ing to it could be seen that is­land long loved by Veronique and called by her the Ile de France.

In or­der not to com­pli­cate our his­to­ry of the Graslin house­hold with the fore­go­ing in­ci­dents, we have thought it best to end that of the Sauvi­ats by an­tic­ipat­ing events, which are more­over use­ful as ex­plain­ing the pri­vate and hid­den life which Madame Graslin now led. The old moth­er, notic­ing that Graslin's miser­li­ness, which re­turned up­on him, might ham­per her daugh­ter, was for some time un­will­ing to re­sign the prop­er­ty left to her by her hus­band. But Veronique, un­able to imag­ine a case in which a wom­an might de­sire the use of her own prop­er­ty, urged it up­on her moth­er with rea­sons of great gen­eros­ity, and out of grat­itude to Graslin for restor­ing to her the lib­er­ty and free­dom of a young girl. But this is an­tic­ipat­ing.

The un­usu­al splen­dor which ac­com­pa­nied Graslin's mar­riage had dis­turbed all his habits and con­stant­ly an­noyed him. The mind of the great fi­nancier was a very small one. Veronique had had no means of judg­ing the man with whom she was to pass her life. Dur­ing his fifty-​five vis­its he had let her see noth­ing but the busi­ness man, the in­de­fati­ga­ble work­er, who con­ceived and sus­tained great en­ter­pris­es, and an­alyzed pub­lic af­fairs, bring­ing them al­ways to the cru­cial test of the Bank. Fas­ci­nat­ed by the mil­lion of­fered to him by Sauvi­at, he showed him­self gen­er­ous by cal­cu­la­tion. Car­ried away by the in­ter­ests of his mar­riage and by what he called his “fol­ly,” name­ly, the house which still goes by the name of the ho­tel Graslin, he did things on a large scale. Hav­ing bought hors­es, a caleche, and a coupe, he nat­ural­ly used them to re­turn the wed­ding vis­its and go to those din­ners and balls, called the “re­tours de no­ces,” which the heads of the ad­min­is­tra­tion and the rich fam­ilies of Limo­ges gave to the new­ly mar­ried pair. Un­der this im­pul­sion, which car­ried him en­tire­ly out of his nat­ural sphere, Graslin sent to Paris for a man-​cook and took a re­cep­tion day. For a year he kept the pace of a man who pos­sess­es a for­tune of six­teen hun­dred thou­sand francs, and he be­came of course the most not­ed per­son­age in Limo­ges. Dur­ing this year he gen­er­ous­ly put in­to his wife's purse ev­ery month twen­ty-​five gold pieces of twen­ty francs each.

So­ci­ety con­cerned it­self much about Veronique from the day of her mar­riage, for she was a boon to its cu­rios­ity, which has lit­tle to feed on in the provinces. Veronique was all the more stud­ied be­cause she had ap­peared in the so­cial world like a phe­nomenon; but once there, she re­mained al­ways sim­ple and mod­est, in the at­ti­tude of a per­son who is ob­serv­ing habits, cus­toms, man­ners, things un­known to her, and en­deav­or­ing to con­form to them. Al­ready vot­ed ug­ly but well-​shaped, she was now de­clared kind­ly but stupid. She was learn­ing so many things, she had so much to hear and to see that her looks and speech did cer­tain­ly give some rea­son for this judg­ment. She showed a sort of tor­por which re­sem­bled lack of mind. Mar­riage, that hard call­ing, as she said, for which the Church, the Code, and her moth­er ex­hort­ed her to res­ig­na­tion and obe­di­ence, un­der pain of trans­gress­ing all hu­man laws and caus­ing ir­repara­ble evil, threw her in­to a dazed and dizzy con­di­tion, which amount­ed some­times to a species of in­ward delir­ium.

Silent and self-​con­tained, she lis­tened as much to her­self as she did to oth­ers. Feel­ing with­in her the most vi­olent “dif­fi­cul­ty of ex­ist­ing,” to use an ex­pres­sion of Fontenelle's, which was con­stant­ly in­creas­ing, she be­came ter­ri­fied at her­self. Na­ture re­sist­ed the com­mands of the mind, the body de­nied the will. The poor crea­ture, caught in the net, wept on the breast of that great Moth­er of the poor and the af­flict­ed,--she went for com­fort to the Church; her piety re­dou­bled, she con­fid­ed the as­saults of the de­mon to her con­fes­sor; she prayed to heav­en for suc­cor. Nev­er, at any pe­ri­od of her life, did she ful­fil her re­li­gious du­ties with such fer­vor. The de­spair of not lov­ing her hus­band flung her vi­olent­ly at the foot of the al­tar, where di­vine and con­so­la­to­ry voic­es urged her to pa­tience. She was pa­tient, she was gen­tle, and she con­tin­ued to live on, hop­ing al­ways for the hap­pi­ness of ma­ter­ni­ty.

“Did you no­tice Madame Graslin this morn­ing?” the wom­en would say to each oth­er. “Mar­riage doesn't agree with her; she is ac­tu­al­ly green.”

“Yes,” some of them would re­ply; “but would you give your daugh­ter to a man like Graslin? No wom­an could mar­ry him with im­puni­ty.”

Now that Graslin was mar­ried, all the moth­ers who had court­ed him for ten years past pur­sued him with sar­casms.

Veronique grew vis­ibly thin­ner and re­al­ly ug­ly; her eyes looked weary, her fea­tures coars­ened, her man­ner was shy and awk­ward; she ac­quired that air of cold and melan­choly rigid­ity for which the ul­tra-​pi­ous are so of­ten blamed. Her skin took on a gray­ish tone; she dragged her­self lan­guid­ly about dur­ing this first year of mar­ried life, or­di­nar­ily so bril­liant for a young wife. She tried to di­vert her mind by read­ing, prof­it­ing by the lib­er­ty of mar­ried wom­en to read what they please. She read the nov­els of Wal­ter Scott, the po­ems of Lord By­ron, the works of Schiller and of Goethe, and much else of mod­ern and al­so an­cient lit­er­ature. She learned to ride a horse, and to dance and to draw. She paint­ed wa­ter-​col­ors and made sepia sketch­es, turn­ing ar­dent­ly to all those re­sources which wom­en em­ploy to bear the weari­ness of their soli­tude. She gave her­self that sec­ond ed­uca­tion which most wom­en de­rive from a man, but which she de­rived from her­self on­ly.

The nat­ural su­pe­ri­or­ity of a free, sin­cere spir­it, brought up, as it were in a desert and strength­ened by re­li­gion, had giv­en her a sort of un­tram­melled grandeur and cer­tain needs, to which the provin­cial world she lived in of­fered no sus­te­nance. All books pic­tured Love to her, and she sought for the ev­idence of its ex­is­tence, but nowhere could she see the pas­sion of which she read. Love was in her heart, like seeds in the earth, await­ing the ac­tion of the sun. Her deep melan­choly, caused by con­stant med­ita­tion on her­self, brought her back by hid­den by-​ways to the bril­liant dreams of her girl­ish days. Many a time she must have lived again that old ro­man­tic po­em, mak­ing her­self both the ac­tor and the sub­ject of it. Again she saw that is­land bathed in light, flow­ery, fra­grant, ca­ress­ing to her soul. Of­ten her pal­lid eyes wan­dered around a sa­lon with pierc­ing cu­rios­ity. The men were all like Graslin. She stud­ied them, and then she seemed to ques­tion their wives; but noth­ing on the faces of those wom­en re­vealed an in­ward an­guish like to hers, and she re­turned home sad and gloomy and dis­tressed about her­self. The au­thors she had read in the morn­ing an­swered to the feel­ings in her soul; their thoughts pleased her; but at night she heard on­ly emp­ty words, not even pre­sent­ed in a live­ly way,--dull, emp­ty, fool­ish con­ver­sa­tions in pet­ty lo­cal mat­ters, or per­son­al­ities of no in­ter­est to her. She was of­ten sur­prised at the heat dis­played in dis­cus­sions which con­cerned no feel­ing or sen­ti­ment --to her the essence of ex­is­tence, the soul of life.

Of­ten she was seen with fixed eyes, men­tal­ly ab­sorbed, think­ing no doubt of the days of her youth­ful ig­no­rance spent in that cham­ber full of har­monies now for­ev­er passed away. She felt a hor­ri­ble re­pug­nance against drop­ping in­to the gulf of pet­ti­ness in which the wom­en among whom she lived were floun­der­ing. This re­pug­nance, stamped on her fore­head, on her lips, and ill-​dis­guised, was tak­en for the in­so­lence of a par­venue. Madame Graslin be­gan to ob­serve on all faces a cer­tain cold­ness; she felt in all re­marks an ac­ri­mo­ny, the caus­es of which were un­known to her, for she had no in­ti­mate friend to en­light­en or ad­vise her. In­jus­tice, which angers lit­tle minds, brings lofti­er souls to ques­tion them­selves, and com­mu­ni­cates a species of hu­mil­ity to them. Veronique con­demned her­self, en­deav­or­ing to see her own faults. She tried to be af­fa­ble; they called her false. She grew more gen­tle still; they said she was a hyp­ocrite, and her pi­ous de­vo­tion helped on the calum­ny. She spent mon­ey, gave din­ners and balls, and they taxed her with pride.

Un­suc­cess­ful in all these at­tempts, un­just­ly judged, re­buffed by the pet­ty and tor­ment­ing pride which char­ac­ter­izes provin­cial so­ci­ety, where each in­di­vid­ual is armed with pre­ten­sions and their at­ten­dant un­easi­ness, Madame Graslin fell back in­to ut­ter soli­tude. She re­turned with ea­ger­ness to the arms of the Church. Her great soul, clothed with so weak a flesh, showed her the mul­ti­plied com­mand­ments of Catholi­cism as so many stones placed for pro­tec­tion along the precipices of life, so many props brought by char­ita­ble hands to sus­tain hu­man weak­ness on its weary way; and she fol­lowed, with greater rig­or than ev­er, even the small­est re­li­gious prac­tices.

On this the lib­er­als of the town classed Madame Graslin among the _de­votes_, the ul­tras. To the dif­fer­ent an­imosi­ties Veronique had in­no­cent­ly ac­quired, the vir­ulence of par­ty feel­ing now added its pe­ri­od­ical ex­as­per­ation. But as this os­tracism took noth­ing re­al­ly from her, she qui­et­ly left so­ci­ety and lived in books which of­fered her such in­fi­nite re­sources. She med­itat­ed on what she read, she com­pared sys­tems, she widened im­mea­sur­ably the hori­zons of her in­tel­lect and the ex­tent of her ed­uca­tion; in this way she opened the gates of her soul to cu­rios­ity.

Dur­ing this pe­ri­od of res­olute study, in which re­li­gion sup­port­ed and main­tained her mind, she ob­tained the friend­ship of Mon­sieur Gros­setete, one of those old men whose men­tal su­pe­ri­or­ity grows rusty in provin­cial life, but who, when they come in con­tact with an ea­ger mind, re­cov­er some­thing of their for­mer bril­lian­cy. The good man took an earnest in­ter­est in Veronique, who, to re­ward him for the flat­ter­ing warmth of heart which old men show to those they like, dis­played be­fore him, and for the first time in her life, the trea­sures of her soul and the ac­quire­ments of her mind, cul­ti­vat­ed so se­cret­ly, and now full of blos­som. An ex­tract from a let­ter writ­ten by her about this time to Mon­sieur Gros­setete will show the con­di­tion of the mind of a wom­an who was lat­er to give sig­nal proofs of a firm and lofty na­ture:--

"The flow­ers you sent me for the ball were charm­ing, but they sug­gest­ed harsh re­flec­tions. Those pret­ty crea­tures gath­ered by you, and doomed to wilt up­on my bo­som to adorn a fete, made me think of oth­ers that live and die un­seen in the depths of your woods, their fra­grance nev­er in­haled by any one. I asked my­self why I was danc­ing there, why I was decked with flow­ers, just as I ask God why he has placed me to live in this world.

"You see, my friend, all is a snare to the un­hap­py; the small­est mat­ter brings the sick mind back to its woes; but the great­est evil of cer­tain woes is the per­sis­ten­cy which makes them a fixed idea per­vad­ing our lives. A con­stant sor­row ought rather to be a di­vine in­spi­ra­tion. You love flow­ers for them­selves, where­as I love them as I love to lis­ten to fine mu­sic. So, as I was say­ing, the se­cret of a mass of things es­capes me. You, my old friend, you have a pas­sion,--that of the hor­ti­cul­tur­ist. When you re­turn to town in­spire me with that taste, so that I may rush to my green­house with ea­ger feet, as you go to yours to watch the de­vel­op­ment of your plants, to bud and bloom with them, to ad­mire what you cre­ate,--the new col­ors, the un­ex­pect­ed va­ri­eties, which ex­pand and grow be­neath your eyes by the virtue of your care.

"My green­house, the one I watch, is filled with suf­fer­ing souls. The mis­eries I try to lessen sad­den my heart; and when I take them up­on my­self, when, af­ter find­ing some young wom­an with­out cloth­ing for her babe, some old man want­ing bread, I have sup­plied their needs, the emo­tions their dis­tress and its re­lief have caused me do not suf­fice my soul. Ah, friend, I feel with­in me un­told pow­ers --for evil, pos­si­bly,--which noth­ing can low­er, which the sternest com­mands of our re­li­gion are un­able to abase! Some­times, when I go to see my moth­er, walk­ing alone among the fields, I want to cry aloud, and I do so. It seems to me that my body is a prison in which some evil ge­nius is hold­ing a shud­der­ing crea­ture while await­ing the mys­te­ri­ous words which are to burst its ob­struc­tive form.

"But that com­par­ison is not a just one. In me it seems to be the body that seeks es­cape, if I may say so. Re­li­gion fills my soul, books and their rich­es oc­cu­py my mind. Why, then, do I de­sire some an­guish which shall de­stroy the en­er­vat­ing peace of my ex­is­tence?

"Oh, if some sen­ti­ment, some ma­nia that I could cul­ti­vate, does not come in­to my life, I feel I shall sink at last in­to the gulf where all ideas are dulled, where char­ac­ter de­te­ri­orates, mo­tives slack­en, virtues lose their back­bone, and all the forces of the soul are scat­tered,--a gulf in which I shall no longer be the be­ing Na­ture meant me to be!

“This is what my bit­ter com­plain­ings mean. But do not let them hin­der you from send­ing me those flow­ers. Your friend­ship is so sooth­ing and so full of lov­ing kind­ness that it has for the last few months al­most rec­on­ciled me to my­self. Yes, it makes me hap­py to have you cast a glance up­on my soul, at once so bar­ren and so full of bloom; and I am thank­ful for ev­ery gen­tle word you say to one who rides the phan­tom steed of dreams, and re­turns worn-​out.”

At the end of the third year of his mar­ried life, Graslin, ob­serv­ing that his wife no longer used her hors­es, and find­ing a good mar­ket for them, sold them. He al­so sold the car­riages, sent away the coach­man, let the bish­op have his man-​cook, and con­tent­ed him­self with a wom­an. He no longer gave the month­ly sum to his wife, telling her that he would pay all bills. He thought him­self the most for­tu­nate of hus­bands in meet­ing no op­po­si­tion what­ev­er to these pro­ceed­ings from the wom­an who had brought him a mil­lion of francs as a dowry. Madame Graslin, brought up from child­hood with­out ev­er see­ing mon­ey, or be­ing made to feel that it was an in­dis­pens­able el­ement in life, de­served no praise what­ev­er for this ap­par­ent gen­eros­ity. Graslin even no­ticed in a cor­ner of the sec­re­tary all the sums he had ev­er giv­en her, less the mon­ey she had be­stowed in char­ity or spent up­on her dress, the cost of which was much less­ened by the pro­fu­sion of her wed­ding trousseau.

Graslin boast­ed of Veronique to all Limo­ges as be­ing a mod­el wife. He next re­gret­ted the mon­ey spent on the house, and he or­dered the fur­ni­ture to be all packed away or cov­ered up. His wife's bed­room, dress­ing-​room, and boudoir were alone spared from these pro­tec­tive mea­sures; which pro­tect noth­ing, for fur­ni­ture is in­jured just as much by be­ing cov­ered up as by be­ing left un­cov­ered. Graslin him­self lived al­most en­tire­ly on the ground-​floor of the house, where he had his of­fice, and re­sumed his old busi­ness habits with avid­ity. He thought him­self an ex­cel­lent hus­band be­cause he went up­stairs to break­fast and dined with his wife; but his un­punc­tu­al­ity was so great that it was not more than ten times a month that he be­gan a meal with he; he had ex­act­ed, out of cour­tesy, that she should nev­er wait for him. Veronique did, how­ev­er, al­ways re­main in the room while her hus­band took his meals, serv­ing him her­self, that she might at least per­form vol­un­tar­ily some of the vis­ible obli­ga­tions of a wife.

The banker, to whom the things of mar­riage were very in­dif­fer­ent, and who had seen noth­ing in his wife but sev­en hun­dred and fifty thou­sand francs, had nev­er once per­ceived Veronique's re­pug­nance to him. Lit­tle by lit­tle he now aban­doned Madame Graslin for his busi­ness. When he wished to put a bed in the room ad­join­ing his of­fice on the ground-​floor, Veronique has­tened to com­ply with the re­quest. So that three years af­ter their mar­riage these two ill-​as­sort­ed be­ings re­turned to their orig­inal es­tate, each equal­ly pleased and hap­py to do so. The mon­eyed man, pos­sess­ing eigh­teen hun­dred thou­sand francs, re­turned with all the more ea­ger­ness to his old avari­cious habits be­cause he had mo­men­tar­ily quit­ted them. His two clerks and the of­fice-​boy were bet­ter lodged and rather bet­ter fed, and that was the on­ly dif­fer­ence be­tween the present and the past. His wife had a cook and maid (two in­dis­pens­able ser­vants); but ex­cept for the ac­tu­al ne­ces­si­ties of life, not a pen­ny left his cof­fers for his house­hold.

Hap­py in the turn which things were now tak­ing, Veronique saw in the ev­ident sat­is­fac­tion of the banker the ab­so­lu­tion for this sep­ara­tion which she would nev­er have asked for her­self. She had no con­cep­tion that she was as dis­agree­able to Graslin as Graslin was re­pul­sive to her. This se­cret di­vorce made her both sad and joy­ful. She had al­ways looked to moth­er­hood for an in­ter­est in life; but up to this time (1828) the cou­ple had had no prospect of a fam­ily.