A HAPPY UNION

There are happy marriages, whatever novelists say. There are married couples who love each other, and live happily together to the end of their days. The conditions of this happiness, the circ.u.mstances of this harmony may not always, perhaps, be such as one solely interested in the aesthetic aspects of society might advocate. But what can we do? For many centimes there is no virtue but the loftiest minds have commended it to the world with arguments as attractive in form as they have been sublime in purport. And have they changed us? What is the history of the past if not the history of to-day?

There are happy unions. There are unions middling happy. And there are unhappy unions. "I alone know where my shoe pinches," said a celebrated American, when congratulated upon his happy home. Men or women, great numbers can say the same, for Providence seems not to have cared to shoe us all according to our measurements. Our subsequent behaviour is the important thing. Advice on this point is not lacking, which is not surprising, since we have expressly entrusted to a corps of celibates the direction of domestic life, and the instruction of man and wife separately in the most secret details of a relation which, by his very profession, the instructor cannot practically know.

The authority of this advice being all that gives it interest, each takes as much of it as he sees fit, and goes on doing what he pleases.

One cries out and the other is silent. One philosophically resigns himself to limping all the way to the grave. Another prefers amputation and the hope of comparative comfort with a wooden leg. Who is right and who is wrong? Let him decide who has attained certainty in such matters.

As for me, all I dare affirm is that it is easier to theorize than to prove, considering the variety of the problems and the complexity of the psychology in which their solution might be found.

Let me, by way of example, briefly sketch the history, as simple as it is true, of the happiest couple I have ever known. I will admit that it is not a tale proper for publication in a Manual of Morals. Rarely do bare facts, unembellished by fiction, authentically ill.u.s.trate precepts which we are more inclined to advocate than to follow. The sole merit of this tale is that it is true, from first to last. I leave out nothing and add nothing. I knew the people. I kept them in sight all along the hard road that led them from crime to perfect conjugal felicity. I am not attempting to prove any theory. I am telling what I have known and seen.

Adele was a handsome girl according to country esthetics. Large, strong, of brilliant colouring, with a mop of tangled red hair and iron-gray eyes which never dropped before those of any man. She helped her father, Girard the fishmonger, to carry on his business. In a lamentable old broken-down cart, behind a small, knock-kneed horse, who knew no gait but a walk, Girard would set out at nightfall for Lucon, the large town, and come back in time to sell his fish before midday. Immediately upon arrival, the fishmonger, his wife and their children, each loaded with a basket of sh.e.l.l fish, mullet, sole, and whiting, packed under sticky seaweed, would disperse over the village, the outlying hamlets, the farms, and peddle their wares.

This trade entails much travelling about and seeing many people. Bold, and pleasant to the eye, Adele was welcomed everywhere. No speech or behaviour from the country lads was likely to fl.u.s.ter her. Peasants, who are no more obtuse than city men, have long since recognized the value in business of an agreeable young person to attract trade. Any country inn that wants to prosper must first adorn itself with a pretty servant.

There is everywhere a demand for beauty. For lack of anything better, men will philosophically fall back upon ugliness. Life takes upon itself to accommodate almost everybody.

Adele, not being one of those young women who are only chosen when there is scarcity, early became the blessing of her family. The fish in her basket seemed to leap of its own accord into the frying pan, although the pretty wheedler took pride in selling it at a high price. Any chance meeting on the road furnished occasion for selling her wares. Often a kiss was added as a premium. Occasionally something more. What she lost or what she won at this game would to-day be hard to reckon. On Sunday, at the fair, she exhibited herself in fine attire and ornaments: these were her profit. Her name ran from mouth to mouth accompanied by tales to which public malice did not always need to add lies: this was her loss. But far from being disturbed by the "_chronique scandaleuse_" she insolently gloried in it, declaring that the hard-favoured meddlers would have been altogether too happy had she found a chance to talk scandal about them.

"When they are done tattling, they will stop," she used to say.

Which proved true. So that one day, when there was nothing else that Adele could do to astonish people, the report spread that she was about to become the legitimate wife of Hippolyte Morin, the shoemaker. I must add that the event was accepted by all as a decent ending to a tempestuous youth.

"He will certainly beat her," thought the women, when they saw Morin's infatuation.

"He will not make a troublesome husband," said the men, as they looked at the sallow and weakly though choleric shoemaker.

Public approval was therefore unanimous. The circ.u.mstances of the marriage were simple. Girard owed Morin 500 francs, and could not even manage to pay the interest on them. Seeing his creditor prowling with smouldering eyes about the stalwart Adele, he had proposed to him to marry the girl and give a receipted bill, and the shoemaker, overjoyed at the thought of possessing such a marvel all to himself, had gladly closed the bargain. As for Adele, she had said yes without difficulty, as she had to so many others. Hippolyte owned land. He was a good match.

They had a fine wedding, and for a full half year happiness appeared to reign in the new establishment. Six months of fidelity were surely, for Adele, a sufficient concession to _Monsieur le Maire's_ injunctions.

Presently lovers reappeared, to Morin's lively displeasure. Adele was thrashed, as the public had foreseen. The muscular young swains none the less made game of the husband, at best a puny adversary, as public opinion had equally foretold. The worst of it was that the unaccommodating shoemaker had a way of watching his rivals with a vicious eye, while drawing the sharp blade of his knife across the whetstone. No one in a village is afraid of kicks and blows. But no one likes the thought of steel coming into play. And so, when the belief was established that Morin would some day "do something desperate," the ardour of the followers began to abate. They gradually dropped away, and it was Adele's turn to experience the fiercest resentment against her sullen lord.

Three years pa.s.sed in quarrels, in hourly battles. There were no children. Gra.s.s does not grow on the high road, as Michelet observes.

One morning the news ran that Morin was seriously ill, then that he was dead. On the day before, he had been playing bowls without any sign of ill health. The doctor who had been sent for, shook his head gravely, and asked to speak to Adele in private. At the end of the interview the bystanders noticed that Adele kept out of sight, while the doctor, without a word, poured the contents of the soup tureen into a jug, and carried it away in his gig. That evening, two gendarmes came to arrest "Hippolyte Morin's wife," accused of poisoning her husband.

Conversations in the village were not dull that evening.

The inquiry was brief. Bits of the blue shards of cantharides floating among the bread and potatoes in the soup permitted no denial. Adele confessed that pa.s.sing under an ash tree, and seeing some of those insects lying dead in the gra.s.s, she picked them up, "to play a joke on her husband." Later on, after she had been instructed by her lawyer, she said that the aphrodisiacal properties attributed to the beetle gave the obvious reason for the matrimonial "joke." But it being proved that her extra-*conjugal resources in that line were rather calculated to foster a desire to rid herself of an inconvenient husband, the story gained small credence. Morin, who had not consented to die, was the only witness for the defence.

"Of course it was a joke," he repeated, stupidly. "The proof of it is that she had told me."

"And you deliberately took the poison?"

"As long as it was a joke, of course I did, your Honour."

The jury, which readily absolves husbands for a too prompt use of the revolver in the direction of their wives, always shows itself resolutely hostile to women who attempt to rid themselves of their legitimate master. Two years' imprisonment were considered by the representatives of social order a just retribution for Adele, as well as a practical incentive to virtue in the home.

Morin returned to his shoes, grieving over his long separation from Adele.

"All that was our own affair," he said. "What business was it of the judge's?"

And many shared his opinion. A lot of noise about a "joke!" Adele was too good hearted a girl to have aroused any deep hatreds. As long as Morin defended her, why should others hurl obloquy? Husbands looking at their wives, and wives at their husbands, mostly refrained from comment.

Morin, furthermore, sure, now, of his wife's fidelity for at least two years, poured himself out in eulogies of the great Adele, and declared that he had often been in the wrong.

"To whom did she ever do any harm?" he would ask everyone that came along.

"Not to me!" "Not to me!" all would answer.

The man had received the gift of a lofty philosophy or rather, he had a dim feeling that from all this "fuss" a great good might result from his wife and for himself.

"When she comes back," he would say, "it will not be as it was before."

"Surely," replied the others, "a little bad luck gives one a lot of sense!"

"Two years, that is not so much," answered Morin, who was counting the days.

Meanwhile Adele was silently sewing shirts, and vaguely dreaming. It would never have occurred to her to complain. She even found a certain contentment in this quiet after the agitations of her youth. She tranquilly awaited the release which would take her back to her friendly village, and to that good Morin who loved her, and whom she loved, too, in spite of all "the judges had done to cross them," as she said after her trial. From the very first day, Morin placed to the account of the prisoner all the money permitted by the regulations. But she rarely touched it, and when, on his visits, he urged her to spend it:

"I need nothing," she would say. "Keep it for yourself, my man. You must not be ailing when I come out of jail."

And this allusion to the past made them both laugh in great good humour.

Finally the day of liberation came. Morin, as you would know, was on the spot to fetch his wife. They flew to each other's arms, laughing aloud, for lack of words to express their joy. It was Sunday. Adele and her husband reached home just as ma.s.s was over. In a twinkling they were surrounded by the crowd, and acclaimed like conquerors. There was mutual embracing and shedding of happy tears, and asking of a thousand absurd questions from sheer need to talk and show how glad they were to see one another again. Upon arrival at her house Adele found the table spread; at this, twenty guests sat down to celebrate her return with proper ceremony. A grand feast, which lasted until daylight. At dessert, friends came in, and merest acquaintances, too, swept along by the current of universal sympathy. Bottle after bottle was emptied. There was a great clinking of gla.s.ses. The women kissed Morin, and the men Adele. Never in their lives was there a more wonderful day.

And yet, from that time forward, good days followed one another without break. Adele remained gay, easy, and approachable, quick in the uptake of broad jests, but Morin had her heart, and never was word or deed charged to her account which could have given umbrage to the most suspicious husband. Her spouse, proud of his conquest, tasted the joys of a well-earned happiness.

They were during forty years the model of a perfect match. How many of the people around them, with an irreproachable past, could boast an advantage so rare?

XXII

A WELL-a.s.sORTED COUPLE

They were not good. They were not bad. They had neither virtues nor faults of their own from never having done or said anything except in conformity with what others were doing or saying. Never had it entered their minds to desire anything on their own initiative. Nothing had ever made them reflect upon themselves, and take a decision according to an idea, whether good or bad, that was the result of their own individuality rather than "established opinions."

He had been born into the cork business. She had seen the light of day in the Elbeuf cloth trade. The arrest of a lawyer, unable to return several millions to the people whom he had deprived of them, united their parents in a common expression of indignation against impecunious embezzlers. In court, under the eyes of the Christ who bids us forgive, and amidst the encouragements of avenging law, cork and wool came together to destroy the unfortunate lawyer whose activities were proclaimed criminal because lacking the success which would have made his reputation for integrity. The cork merchant and the cloth merchant, both of them noisy about their small losses, conceived a "high" mutual "esteem," which subsequent acquaintance converted into "friendship."

The heir to corks was twenty-three years old.

"A good sort of boy," said his father.

He was, as a matter of fact, soft, flabby, and spiritless.

The cloth heiress had just completed her twentieth year.

"The sweetest child!" bleated her mother.