Petty Troubles of Married Life, Second Part - Honore de Balzac
PETTY TROUBLES OF MARRIED LIFE
PART SECOND
BY
HONORE DE BALZAC
PREFACE
If, reader, you have grasped the intent of this book,--and
infinite honor is done you by the supposition: the profoundest
author does not always comprehend, I may say never comprehends,
the different meanings of his book, nor its bearing, nor the good
nor the harm it may do--if, then, you have bestowed some attention
upon these little scenes of married life, you have perhaps noticed
their color--
"What color?" some grocer will doubtless ask; "books are bound in
yellow, blue, green, pearl-gray, white--"
Alas! books possess another color, they are dyed by the author,
and certain writers borrow their dye. Some books let their color
come off on to others. More than this. Books are dark or fair,
light brown or red. They have a sex, too! I know of male books,
and female books, of books which, sad to say, have no sex, which
we hope is not the case with this one, supposing that you do this
collection of nosographic sketches the honor of calling it a book.
Thus far, the troubles we have described have been exclusively
inflicted by the wife upon the husband. You have therefore seen
only the masculine side of the book. And if the author really has
the sense of hearing for which we give him credit, he has already
caught more than one indignant exclamation or remonstrance:
"He tells us of nothing but vexations suffered by our husbands, as
if we didn't have our petty troubles, too!"
Oh, women! You have been heard, for if you do not always make
yourselves understood, you are always sure to make yourselves
heard.
It would therefore be signally unjust to lay upon you alone the
reproaches that every being brought under the yoke (_conjugium_)
has the right to heap upon that necessary, sacred, useful,
eminently conservative institution,--one, however, that is often
somewhat of an encumbrance, and tight about the joints, though
sometimes it is also too loose there.
I will go further! Such partiality would be a piece of idiocy.
A man,--not a writer, for in a writer there are many men,--an
author, rather, should resemble Janus, see behind and before,
become a spy, examine an idea in all its phases, delve alternately
into the soul of Alceste and into that of Philaenete, know
everything though he does not tell it, never be tiresome, and--
We will not conclude this programme, for we should tell the whole,
and that would be frightful for those who reflect upon the present
condition of literature.
Furthermore, an author who speaks for himself in the middle of his
book, resembles the old fellow in "The Speaking Picture," when he
puts his face in the hole cut in the painting. The author does not
forget that in the Chamber, no one can take the floor _between two
votes_. Enough, therefore!
Here follows the female portion of the book: for, to resemble
marriage perfectly, it ought to be more or less hermaphroditic.
PETTY TROUBLES OF MARRIED LIFE
HUSBANDS DURING THE SECOND MONTH.
Two young married women, Caroline and Stephanie, who had been early
friends at M'lle Machefer's boarding school, one of the most
celebrated educational institutions in the Faubourg St. Honore, met at
a ball given by Madame de Fischtaminel, and the following conversation
took place in a window-seat in the boudoir.
It was so hot that a man had acted upon the idea of going to breathe
the fresh night air, some time before the two young women. He had
placed himself in the angle of the balcony, and, as there were many
flowers before the window, the two friends thought themselves alone.
This man was the author's best friend.
One of the two ladies, standing at the corner of the embrasure, kept
watch by looking at the boudoir and the parlors. The other had so
placed herself as not to be in the draft, which was nevertheless
tempered by the muslin and silk curtains.
The boudoir was empty, the ball was just beginning, the gaming-tables
were open, offering their green cloths and their packs of cards still
compressed in the frail case placed upon them by the customs office.
The second quadrille was in progress.
All who go to balls will remember that phase of large parties when the
guests are not yet all arrived, but when the rooms are already filled
--a moment which gives the mistress of the house a transitory pang of
terror. This moment is, other points of comparison apart, like that
which decides a victory or the loss of a battle.
You will understand, therefore, how what was meant to be a secret now
obtains the honors of publicity.
"Well, Caroline?"
"Well, Stephanie?"
"Well?"
"Well?"
A double sigh.
"Have you forgotten our agreement?"
"No."
"Why haven't you been to see me, then?"
"I am never left alone. Even here we shall hardly have time to talk."
"Ah! if Adolphe were to get into such habits as that!" exclaimed
Caroline.
"You saw us, Armand and me, when he paid me what is called, I don't
know why, his court."
"Yes, I admired him, I thought you very happy, you had found your
ideal, a fine, good-sized man, always well dressed, with yellow
gloves, his beard well shaven, patent leather boots, a clean shirt,
exquisitely neat, and so attentive--"
"Yes, yes, go on."
"In short, quite an elegant man: his voice was femininely sweet, and
then such gentleness! And his promises of happiness and liberty! His
sentences were veneered with rosewood. He stocked his conversation
with shawls and laces. In his smallest expression you heard the
rumbling of a coach and four. Your wedding presents were magnificent.
Armand seemed to me like a husband of velvet, of a robe of birds'
feathers in which you were to be wrapped."
"Caroline, my husband uses tobacco."
"So does mine; that is, he smokes."
"But mine, dear, uses it as they say Napoleon did: in short, he chews,
and I hold tobacco in horror. The monster found it out, and went
without out it for seven months."
"All men have their habits. They absolutely must use something."
"You have no idea of the tortures I endure. At night I am awakened
with a start by one of my own sneezes. As I go to sleep my motions
bring the grains of snuff scattered over the pillow under my nose, I
inhale, and explode like a mine. It seems that Armand, the wretch, is
used to these _surprises_, and doesn't wake up. I find tobacco
everywhere, and I certainly didn't marry the customs office."
"But, my dear child, what does this trifling inconvenience amount to,
if your husband is kind and possesses a good disposition?"
"He is as cold as marble, as particular as an old bachelor, as
communicative as a sentinel; and he's one of those men who say yes to
everything, but who never do anything but what they want to."
"Deny him, once."
"I've tried it."
"What came of it?"
"He threatened to reduce my allowance, and to keep back a sum big
enough for him to get along without me."
"Poor Stephanie! He's not a man, he's a monster."
"A calm and methodical monster, who wears a scratch, and who, every
night--"
"Well, every night--"
"Wait a minute!--who takes a tumbler every night, and puts seven false
teeth in it."
"What a trap your marriage was! At any rate, Armand is rich."
"Who knows?"
"Good heavens! Why, you seem to me on the point of becoming very
unhappy--or very happy."
"Well, dear, how is it with you?"
"Oh, as for me, I have nothing as yet but a pin that pricks me: but it
is intolerable."
"Poor creature! You don't know your own happiness: come, what is it?"
Here the young woman whispered in the other's ear, so that it was
impossible to catch a single word. The conversation recommenced, or
rather finished by a sort of inference.
"So, your Adolphe is jealous?"
"Jealous of whom? We never leave each other, and that, in itself, is
an annoyance. I can't stand it. I don't dare to gape. I am expected to
be forever enacting the woman in love. It's fatiguing."
"Caroline?"
"Well?"
"What are you going to do?"
"Resign myself. What are you?
"Fight the customs office."
This little trouble tends to prove that in the matter of personal
deception, the two sexes can well cry quits.
DISAPPOINTED AMBITION.
I. CHODOREILLE THE GREAT.
A young man has forsaken his natal city in the depths of one of the
departments, rather clearly marked by M. Charles Dupin. He felt that
glory of some sort awaited him: suppose that of a painter, a novelist,
a journalist, a poet, a great statesman.
Young Adolphe de Chodoreille--that we may be perfectly understood
--wished to be talked about, to become celebrated, to be somebody.
This, therefore, is addressed to the mass of aspiring individuals
brought to Paris by all sorts of vehicles, whether moral or material,
and who rush upon the city one fine morning with the hydrophobic
purpose of overturning everybody's reputation, and of building
themselves a pedestal with the ruins they are to make,--until
disenchantment follows. As our intention is to specify this
peculiarity so characteristic of our epoch, let us take from among
the various personages the one whom the author has elsewhere called
_A Distinguished Provencal_.
Adolphe has discovered that the most admirable trade is that which
consists in buying a bottle of ink, a bunch of quills, and a ream of
paper, at a stationer's for twelve francs and a half, and in selling
the two thousand sheets in the ream over again, for something like
fifty thousand francs, after having, of course, written upon each leaf
fifty lines replete with style and imagination.
This problem,--twelve francs and a half metamorphosed into fifty
thousand francs, at the rate of five sous a line--urges numerous
families who might advantageously employ their members in the
retirement of the provinces, to thrust them into the vortex of Paris.
The young man who is the object of this exportation, invariably passes
in his natal town for a man of as much imagination as the most famous
author. He has always studied well, he writes very nice poetry, he is
considered a fellow of parts: he is besides often guilty of a charming
tale published in the local paper, which obtains the admiration of the
department.
His poor parents will never know what their son has come to Paris to
learn at great cost, namely: That it is difficult to be a writer and
to understand the French language short of a dozen years of heculean
labor: That a man must have explored every sphere of social life, to
become a genuine novelist, inasmuch as the novel is the private
history of nations: That the great story-tellers, Aesop, Lucian,
Boccaccio, Rabelais, Cervantes, Swift, La Fontaine, Lesage, Sterne,
Voltaire, Walter Scott, the unknown Arabians of the _Thousand and One
Nights_, were all men of genius as well as giants of erudition.
Their Adolphe serves his literary apprenticeship in two or three
coffee-houses, becomes a member of the Society of Men of Letters,
attacks, with or without reason, men of talent who don't read his
articles, assumes a milder tone on seeing the powerlessness of his
criticisms, offers novelettes to the papers which toss them from one
to the other as if they were shuttlecocks: and, after five or six
years of exercises more or less fatiguing, of dreadful privations
which seriously tax his parents, he attains a certain position.
This position may be described as follows: Thanks to a sort of
reciprocal support extended to each other, and which an ingenious
writer has called "Mutual Admiration," Adolphe often sees his name
cited among the names of celebrities, either in the prospectuses of
the book-trade, or in the lists of newspapers about to appear.
Publishers print the title of one of his works under the deceitful
heading "IN PRESS," which might be called the typographical menagerie
of bears.[*] Chodoreille is sometimes mentioned among the promising
young men of the literary world.
[*] A bear (_ours_) is a play which has been refused by a multitude of
theatres, but which is finally represented at a time when some
manager or other feels the need of one. The word has necessarily
passed from the language of the stage into the jargon of
journalism, and is applied to novels which wander the streets in
search of a publisher.
For eleven years Adolphe Chodoreille remains in the ranks of the
promising young men: he finally obtains a free entrance to the
theatres, thanks to some dirty work or certain articles of dramatic
criticism: he tries to pass for a good fellow; and as he loses his
illusions respecting glory and the world of Paris, he gets into debt
and his years begin to tell upon him.
A paper which finds itself in a tight place asks him for one of his
bears revised by his friends. This has been retouched and revamped
every five years, so that it smells of the pomatum of each prevailing
and then forgotten fashion. To Adolphe it becomes what the famous cap,
which he was constantly staking, was to Corporal Trim, for during five
years "Anything for a Woman" (the title decided upon) "will be one of
the most entertaining productions of our epoch."
After eleven years, Chodoreille is regarded as having written some
respectable things, five or six tales published in the dismal
magazines, in ladies' newspapers, or in works intended for children of
tender age.
As he is a bachelor, and possesses a coat and a pair of black
cassimere trousers, and when he pleases may thus assume the appearance
of an elegant diplomat, and as he is not without a certain intelligent
air, he is admitted to several more or less literary salons: he bows
to the five or six academicians who possess genius, influence or
talent, he visits two or three of our great poets, he allows himself,
in coffee-rooms, to call the two or three justly celebrated women of
our epoch by their Christian names; he is on the best of terms with
the blue stockings of the second grade,--who ought to be called
_socks_,--and he shakes hands and takes glasses of absinthe with the
stars of the smaller newspapers.
Such is the history of every species of ordinary men--men who have
been denied what they call good luck. This good luck is nothing less
than unyielding will, incessant labor, contempt for an easily won
celebrity, immense learning, and that patience which, according to
Buffon, is the whole of genius, but which certainly is the half of it.
You do not yet see any indication of a petty trouble for Caroline. You
imagine that this history of five hundred young men engaged at this
moment in wearing smooth the paving stones of Paris, was written as a
sort of warning to the families of the eighty-six departments of
France: but read these two letters which lately passed between two
girls differently married, and you will see that it was as necessary
as the narrative by which every true melodrama was until lately
expected to open. You will divine the skillful manoeuvres of the
Parisian peacock spreading his tail in the recesses of his native
village, and polishing up, for matrimonial purposes, the rays of his
glory, which, like those of the sun, are only warm and brilliant at a
distance.
From Madame Claire de la Roulandiere, nee Jugault, to Madame Adolphe
de Chodoreille, nee Heurtaut.
"VIVIERS.
"You have not yet written to me, and it's real unkind in you. Don't
you remember that the happier was to write first and to console her
who remained in the country?
"Since your departure for Paris, I have married Monsieur de la
Roulandiere, the president of the tribunal. You know him, and you can
judge whether I am happy or not, with my heart _saturated_, as it is,
with our ideas. I was not ignorant what my lot would be: I live with
the ex-president, my husband's uncle, and with my mother-in-law, who
has preserved nothing of the ancient parliamentary society of Aix but
its pride and its severity of manners. I am seldom alone, I never go
out unless accompanied by my mother-in-law or my husband. We receive
the heavy people of the city in the evening. They play whist at two
sous a point, and I listen to conversations of this nature:
"'Monsieur Vitremont is dead, and leaves two hundred and eighty
thousand francs,' says the associate judge, a young man of
forty-seven, who is as entertaining as a northwest wind.
"'Are you quite sure of that?'
"The _that_ refers to the two hundred and eighty thousand francs. A
little judge then holds forth, he runs over the investments, the
others discuss their value, and it is definitely settled that if he
has not left two hundred and eighty thousand, he left something near
it.
"Then comes a universal concert of eulogy heaped upon the dead man's
body, for having kept his bread under lock and key, for having
shrewdly invested his little savings accumulated sou by sou, in order,
probably, that the whole city and those who expect legacies may
applaud and exclaim in admiration, 'He leaves two hundred and eighty
thousand francs!' Now everybody has rich relations of whom they say
'Will he leave anything like it?' and thus they discuss the quick as
they have discussed the dead.
"They talk of nothing but the prospects of fortune, the prospects of a
vacancy in office, the prospects of the harvest.
"When we were children, and used to look at those pretty little white
mice, in the cobbler's window in the rue St. Maclou, that turned and
turned the circular cage in which they were imprisoned, how far I was
from thinking that they would one day be a faithful image of my life!
"Think of it, my being in this condition!--I who fluttered my wings so
much more than you, I whose imagination was so vagabond! My sins have
been greater than yours, and I am the more severely punished. I have
bidden farewell to my dreams: I am _Madame la Presidente_ in all my
glory, and I resign myself to giving my arm for forty years to my big
awkward Roulandiere, to living meanly in every way, and to having
forever before me two heavy brows and two wall-eyes pierced in a
yellow face, which is destined never to know what it is to smile.
"But you, Caroline dear, you who, between ourselves, were admitted
among the big girls while I still gamboled among the little ones, you
whose only sin was pride, you,--at the age of twenty-seven, and with a
dowry of two hundred thousand francs,--capture and captivate a truly
great man, one of the wittiest men in Paris, one of the two talented
men that our village has produced.--What luck!
"You now circulate in the most brilliant society of Paris. Thanks to
the sublime privileges of genius. You may appear in all the salons of
the Faubourg St. Germain, and be cordially received. You have the
exquisite enjoyment of the company of the two or three celebrated
women of our age, where so many good things are said, where the happy
speeches which arrive out here like Congreve rockets, are first fired
off. You go to the Baron Schinner's of whom Adolphe so often spoke to
us, whom all the great artists and foreigners of celebrity visit. In
short, before long, you will be one of the queens of Paris, if you
wish. You can receive, too, and have at your house the lions of
literature, fashion and finance, whether male or female, for Adolphe
spoke in such terms about his illustrious friendships and his intimacy
with the favorites of the hour, that I imagine you giving and
receiving honors.
"With your ten thousand francs a year, and the legacy from your Aunt
Carabas, added to the twenty thousand francs that your husband earns,
you must keep a carriage; and since you go to all the theatres without
paying, since journalists are the heroes of all the inaugurations so
ruinous for those who keep up with the movement of Paris, and since
they are constantly invited to dinner, you live as if you had an
income of sixty thousand francs a year! Happy Caroline! I don't wonder
you forget me!
"I can understand how it is that you have not a moment to yourself.
Your bliss is the cause of your silence, so I pardon you. Still, if,
fatigued with so many pleasures, you one day, upon the summit of your
grandeur, think of your poor Claire, write to me, tell me what a
marriage with a great man is, describe those great Parisian ladies,
especially those who write. Oh! I should _so_ much like to know what
they are made of! Finally don't forget anything, unless you forget
that you are loved, as ever, by your poor
"CLAIRE JUGAULT."
From Madame Adolphe de Chodoreille to Madame la Presidente de la
Roulandiere, at Viviers.
"PARIS.
"Ah! my poor Claire, could you have known how many wretched little
griefs your innocent letter would awaken, you never would have written
it. Certainly no friend, and not even an enemy, on seeing a woman with
a thousand mosquito-bites and a plaster over them, would amuse herself
by tearing it off and counting the stings.
"I will begin by telling you that for a woman of twenty-seven, with a
face still passable, but with a form a little too much like that of
the Emperor Nicholas for the humble part I play, I am happy! Let me
tell you why: Adolphe, rejoicing in the deceptions which have fallen
upon me like a hail-storm, smoothes over the wounds in my self-love by
so much affection, so many attentions, and such charming things, that,
in good truth, women--so far as they are simply women--would be glad
to find in the man they marry defects so advantageous. But all men of
letters (Adolphe, alas! is barely a man of letters), who are beings
not a bit less irritable, nervous, fickle and eccentric than women,
are far from possessing such solid qualities as those of Adolphe, and
I hope they have not all been as unfortunate as he.
"Ah! Claire, we love each other well enough for me to tell you the
simple truth. I have saved my husband, dear, from profound but
skillfully concealed poverty. Far from receiving twenty thousand
francs a year, he has not earned that sum in the entire fifteen years
that he has been at Paris. We occupy a third story in the rue Joubert,
and pay twelve hundred francs for it; we have some eighty-five hundred
francs left, with which I endeavor to keep house honorably.
"I have brought Adolphe luck; for since our marriage, he has obtained
the control of a feuilleton which is worth four hundred francs a month
to him, though it takes but a small portion of his time. He owes this
situation to an investment. We employed the seventy thousand francs
left me by my Aunt Carabas in giving security for a newspaper; on this
we get nine per cent, and we have stock besides. Since this
transaction, which was concluded some ten months ago, our income has
doubled, and we now possess a competence, I can complain of my
marriage in a pecuniary point of view no more than as regards my
affections. My vanity alone has suffered, and my ambition has been
swamped. You will understand the various petty troubles which have
assailed me, by a single specimen.
"Adolphe, you remember, appeared to us on intimate terms with the
famous Baroness Schinner, so renowned for her wit, her influence, her
wealth and her connection with celebrated men. I supposed that he was
welcomed at her house as a friend: my husband presented me, and I was
coldly received. I saw that her rooms were furnished with extravagant
luxury; and instead of Madame Schinner's returning my call, I received
a card, twenty days afterward, and at an insolently improper hour.
"On arriving at Paris, I went to walk upon the boulevard, proud of my
anonymous great man. He nudged me with his elbow, and said, pointing
out a fat little ill-dressed man, 'There's so and so!' He mentioned
one of the seven or eight illustrious men in France. I got ready my
look of admiration, and I saw Adolphe rapturously doffing his hat to
the truly great man, who replied by the curt little nod that you
vouchsafe a person with whom you have doubtless exchanged hardly four
words in ten years. Adolphe had begged a look for my sake. 'Doesn't he
know you?' I said to my husband. 'Oh, yes, but he probably took me for
somebody else,' replied he.
"And so of poets, so of celebrated musicians, so of statesmen. But, as
a compensation, we stop and talk for ten minutes in front of some
arcade or other, with Messieurs Armand du Cantal, George Beaunoir,
Felix Verdoret, of whom you have never heard. Mesdames Constantine
Ramachard, Anais Crottat, and Lucienne Vouillon threaten me with their
_blue_ friendship. We dine editors totally unknown in our province.
Finally I have had the painful happiness of seeing Adolphe decline an
invitation to an evening party to which I was not bidden.
"Oh! Claire dear, talent is still the rare flower of spontaneous
growth, that no greenhouse culture can produce. I do not deceive
myself: Adolphe is an ordinary man, known, estimated as such: he has
no other chance, as he himself says, than to take his place among the
_utilities_ of literature. He was not without wit at Viviers: but to
be a man of wit at Paris, you must possess every kind of wit in
formidable doses.