“Oh, monsieur!” cried Geneviève, joining her hands together in entreaty and blanching. “Monsieur, let’s not broach that subject again, ever.”
“Well then,” Dixmer went on, bringing his lips to his wife’s brow, “be strong and use your head.”
With that, he spun on his heels and left.
“Oh, my God! My God!” murmured Geneviève in anguish. “Look how they’re hammering me to get me to accept a love to which my whole soul soars!”
The next day, as we have already said, was a décadi1—the tenth day of the new ten-day division of time. There was a practice in the Dixmer family, as in all bourgeois families of the time, to have a longer and more ceremonious lunch on Sunday than on the other days of the week. Since Maurice had become a close friend of the family with a standing invitation to Sunday lunch, he had never missed one. That particular day, he arrived at twelve—even though the meal was never served before two o’clock—but hung back well out of sight without dismounting and waited.
The way he had stomped off last time, Geneviève almost despaired of seeing him. Indeed, it struck twelve without any sign of Maurice; then twelve-thirty, then one o’clock.
Words cannot tell what passed through Geneviève’s heart while she waited. At first she had dressed as simply as possible; then, seeing he was dragging his feet, she had pinned a flower to her bodice and tucked another in her hair with the coquetry that comes so naturally to a woman, and she had gone on waiting, feeling her heart getting tighter and tighter. Finally it was almost time to eat, and still Maurice hadn’t shown.
At ten to two, Geneviève heard the clip-clop of Maurice’s horse, that sound she knew so well.
“Oh! Here he is,” she cried silently. “His pride could not win out over his love. He loves me! He loves me!”
Maurice jumped down from his horse and handed it over to the assistant gardener, though ordering him to stay where he was. Geneviève watched him dismount and saw with anxiety that the gardener was not leading the horse off to the stables.
Maurice entered. That particular day he was resplendent in his big checked coat with wide lapels, his white vest and white cambric shirt, and suede pants that hugged his legs in the Apollo mold; his beautiful hair was brushed back, revealing a broad, polished brow. All in all, he looked the picture of elegant virility.
He entered and his presence filled Geneviève’s heart with joy: she welcomed him, beaming radiantly.
“Ah! Here you are,” she said, holding out her hand. “You will be eating with us, won’t you?”
“On the contrary, citizeness,” said Maurice frostily. “I came to ask your permission to absent myself.”
“Absent yourself?”
“Yes, I’m needed on business at the section. I have come because I was afraid you might wait for me and that you would accuse me of being impolite otherwise.”
Geneviève felt her heart clutch again after a momentary respite.
“Oh, my God!” she said, a little strongly. “But Dixmer’s not here.… He was counting on finding you when he got back and so asked me to keep you here!”
“Ah! Now I understand your insistence, madame. Your husband gave you an order. I might have known! Really, I’ll never get over my conceit.”
“Maurice!”
“But it’s up to me, madame, to take note of what you do, rather than what you say. It’s up to me to figure out that if Dixmer isn’t here that’s all the more reason for me not to stay. His absence would be an added embarrassment for you.”
“How so?” Geneviève asked gingerly.
“Well, because since my return you seem to be at pains to avoid me; because I came back for you, you alone—as you know very well, for God’s sake!—yet since I came back, I’ve only ever found other people buzzing around you.”
“Come now,” said Geneviève, “you’re annoyed again, my friend, yet I’m doing my best.”
“No, you’re not, Geneviève; you can do better than that: you can see me like you used to do or chase me away for good.”
“Please, Maurice,” said Geneviève tenderly, “you must understand my situation, guess at my anguish; stop playing the tyrant with me.”
With that, the young woman strode over to him and looked at him with big, sad eyes. Maurice remained silent.
“What do you want, then?” she continued.
“I want to love you, Geneviève, for I feel now that I can’t live without loving you.”
“Maurice, for pity’s sake!”
“If that’s how you feel, madame,” cried Maurice, “you should have let me die.”
“Die?”
“Yes, die or forget.”
“So you could forget, could you?” cried Geneviève, tears stinging her eyes.
“Oh, no, no!” murmured Maurice, falling to his knees. “No, Geneviève, die maybe, but forget—never!”
“And yet,” Geneviève went on firmly, “it would be for the best, Maurice, for your love is a crime.”
“Have you told Monsieur Morand that?” said Maurice, brought back to his senses by her sudden coldness.
“Monsieur Morand is not mad like you, Maurice, and I have never needed to point out to him how he should conduct himself in a friend’s house.”
“What do you bet,” replied Maurice with a nasty smile, “what do you bet that if Dixmer’s dining elsewhere, Morand hasn’t absented himself, eh? Ha! That’s what you need to hit me with, Geneviève, if you want to stop me from loving you. For as long as Morand is there by your side, not leaving you for a second,” he spat out with contempt, “oh, then, no, no! I won’t love you, or at least I won’t admit to myself that I love you.”
“And I,” cried Geneviève, pushed to the limit by this everlasting suspicion, and squeezing the young man’s arm in a sort of frenzy, “I swear to you, listen to me, Maurice, and let it be said once and for all time, let it be said so we never return to the subject again, I swear to you that Morand has never addressed a single word of love to me, that Morand has never loved me, that Morand will never love me; I swear to you on my honor, I swear to you on my mother’s soul.”
“Alas! Alas!” cried Maurice. “I’d like nothing better than to believe you!”
“Oh! Believe me, you poor lunatic!” she said with a smile that for anyone other than a jealous man would have been a thrilling confession. “Believe me; besides, do you want to know more? Well then, Morand loves a woman before whom all women on earth pale into insignificance—just as the flowers in the field are eclipsed by the stars in the heavens.”
“What woman,” asked Maurice, “could eclipse all others when you are numbered among them?”
“The one a man loves,” Geneviève said smiling, “tell me, isn’t she always the masterpiece of all creation?”
“But,” said Maurice, “if you don’t love me, Geneviève …”
The young woman waited anxiously for the rest of the sentence.
“If you don’t love me,” Maurice resumed, “can you at least swear to me that you’ll never love another?”
“Oh! If that’s all, Maurice, I swear to you and with all my heart,” cried Geneviève, delighted that Maurice was himself offering her this trade-off with her conscience.
Maurice seized both hands Geneviève had raised heavenward and covered them with hot kisses.
“Well then, now I’ll be good, docile, confident,” he said. “Now I’ll be generous. I want to laugh with you, I want to be happy.”
“And you won’t ask for anything more?”
“I’ll try not to.”
“Now,” said Geneviève, “I think it’s pointless having your horse held for you like this. The section can wait.”
“Oh, Geneviève! I wish the whole world could wait and that I could make it wait for you.”
Steps were heard in the courtyard.
“Someone’s coming to tell us lunch is served,” said Geneviève.
They squeezed each other’s hand furtively.
It was Morand who’d come t
o tell them that everyone was waiting only for them to sit down at the table.
He, too, had dressed up for the occasion.
19
THE REQUEST
Maurice was most interested to see Morand decked out so luxuriously. The most refined young fop of a muscadin would have found nothing to reproach him with in the knot of his tie, the fold of his boots, the fineness of his linen. It has to be admitted, though: it was the same old hair and the same old glasses. But Maurice was so reassured by Geneviève’s vow that it seemed to him he was seeing this hair and these glasses for the first time as they really were.
“Damn me,” said Maurice to himself as he went to meet him, “and the devil take me if I’m ever jealous of you again, excellent citizen Morand! You can put on your décadi-best dove-grey frock coat every day of the week if you like, and get yourself a décadi frock coat of spun gold. Starting from today, I promise to see only your lank hair and your goggles, and in particular never to accuse you of loving Geneviève again.” You can imagine how much more frank and cheerful than usual was the handshake he gave to citizen Morand.
For once, there was only a small gathering for lunch. Only three places were set at a small table. Maurice realized that he could touch Geneviève’s foot under the table and that their feet would be able to carry on the quietly amorous conversation their hands had begun.
They sat down. Maurice watched Geneviève out of the corner of his eye. She sat with her back to the light, between him and the window, her black hair gleaming with a blue reflection like a crow’s wing, her complexion sparkling, her eyes moist with love.
When Maurice sought and found Geneviève’s foot, he watched her face for a reflection of the first contact and saw her at once blush and turn white; but her tiny foot remained peacefully under the table, happily wedged between both of his.
With his dove-grey frock coat, Morand seemed to have resumed his décadi-best wit, that brilliant rapier wit Maurice had previously seen spurt from the lips of this strange man and which would no doubt have been beautifully accompanied by the flame in his eyes if those dreadful green spectacles hadn’t extinguished any such fire.
He said heaps of hilarious things without once laughing: what gave Morand’s jokes their punch, what lent a strange charm to his sallies, was his imperturbable cool. This merchant who had traveled so widely in the skin trade, seeking out all kinds of skins, from the coats of panthers to rabbit fur; this chemist with arms stained red with dye; he knew Egypt as well as Herodotus did, Africa as well as Levaillant and the opera and the boudoir1 as well as any young blade of a muscadin.
“But I’ll be damned, citizen Morand,” said Maurice, “you not only know everything, you’re wise with it.”
“Oh! I’ve seen a lot, all right—or I’ve read a lot, more to the point,” said Morand. “But then, shouldn’t I prepare myself a bit for the life of leisure I count on throwing myself into as soon as I’ve made my fortune? It’s time, citizen Maurice, it’s high time.”
“Bah!” said Maurice. “You talk like an old man! How old are you, anyway?”
Morand gave a start at the question, innocent as it was.
“I’m thirty-eight years old,” he said. “Ah! That is what it is to be a savant,2 as you call it: you are no longer any age in particular, you are ageless.”
Geneviève giggled and Maurice chimed in; Morand made do with a small smile.
“So you’ve traveled a lot?” Maurice asked, trapping Geneviève’s foot between his own, as it was tending imperceptibly to disengage.
“Part of my youth,” replied Morand, “was spent abroad.”
“You’ve seen so much! Pardon me, I should say observed so much,” Maurice went on, “for a man like you can’t see without observing.”
“Good gracious, yes, I’ve seen a lot,” Morand agreed. “I’d almost say I’ve seen it all.”
“All, citizen, is a lot, indeed,” Maurice went on, laughing. “And, if you think about it …”
“Ah, yes! You’re right. There are two things I’ve never seen. It’s true that, nowadays, these two things are harder and harder to see.”
“And what are they?” said Maurice.
“The first,” Morand answered gravely, “is a god.”
“Ah!” said Maurice. “I don’t have a god, citizen Morand, but I could show you a goddess.”
“How do you mean?” Geneviève broke in.
“Yes, a goddess of a quite modern creation: the Goddess of Reason. I have a friend you’ve sometimes heard me speak of, the great Lorin, who has a heart of gold and only one fault, which is to speak in doggerel and puns.”
“And so?”
“And so, he has just bestowed on the city of Paris a Goddess of Reason, in perfect mint, and with whom no one can find fault. She is the citizeness Artemisia, a former dancer with the Opera and now a perfumer in the rue Martin. As soon as she’s officially crowned a goddess, I can take you to see her.”
Morand thanked Maurice gravely with a nod and took up where he left off.
“The other thing I haven’t seen,” he said, “is a king.”
“Oh! That, that’s more difficult,” said Geneviève, forcing herself to smile. “There aren’t any anymore.”
“You should have seen the last one,” said Maurice. “That would have been prudent.”
“The result is,” said Morand, “that I haven’t a clue what a crowned head looks like: it must be extremely sad?”
“Extremely sad, yes,” said Maurice. “I can tell you, since I see one every month, just about.”
“A crowned head?” asked Geneviève.
“Or at least,” said Maurice, “one that has borne the heavy and painful burden of a crown.”
“Ah, yes! The Queen!” said Morand. “You’re right, Monsieur Maurice, it must be a gloomy sight.…”
“Is she as beautiful and as haughty as they say?” asked Geneviève.
“Haven’t you ever seen her, then, madame?” Maurice asked in turn, amazed.
“Me? Never!…” replied the young woman. “Really,” said Maurice, “that’s strange!”
“Why strange?” said Geneviève. “We lived in the country till ‘91; since then I’ve lived here in the old rue Saint-Jacques, which is like living in the country, except that you never see the sun and there’s not as much air and very few flowers. You know what my life is like, citizen Maurice: it has always been the same. So how do you expect me to have seen the Queen? The occasion has never presented itself.”
“And I don’t think you will take advantage of the occasion that probably will present itself, unfortunately, fairly soon,” said Maurice.
“What do you mean?” asked Geneviève.
“Citizen Maurice,” said Morand, “is alluding to something that is no longer a secret.”
“What?” asked Geneviève.
“The probable condemnation of Marie Antoinette and her death on the same scaffold where her husband died. The citizen is saying, I think, that in order to see her, you are not likely to take advantage of the day she leaves the Temple to go to the place de la Révolution.”
“Oh, I certainly won’t do that, no!” cried Geneviève to these words uttered by Morand with glacial sangfroid.
“Well then, say your good-byes now,” continued the impassive chemist, “for the Austrian woman is heavily guarded, and the Republic is a fairy whose magic wand can make anyone it likes disappear.”
“I must admit,” said Geneviève, “I really would have liked to have seen that poor woman, though.”
“Listen,” said Maurice, anxious to fulfill all of Geneviève’s dreams, “are you really so keen to see her? Just say the word: the Republic is a fairy, I grant citizen Morand that; but as a municipal officer, I’m something of a wizard.”
“You could get me in to see the Queen, monsieur?” cried Geneviève.
“I certainly could.”
“How so?” asked Morand, exchanging a rapid look with Geneviève that passed unnoticed by the young man.
“Nothing easier,” said Maurice. “Of course, there are municipal officers who are considered a bit on the nose and not entirely to be trusted. But I’ve given enough proof of my devotion to the cause of liberty not to be counted among them. In any case, entry into the Temple depends jointly on the municipal officers and the post commanders. Now, the particular day I’m on duty again, the post commander is my friend Lorin, who I reckon will be appointed to replace General Santerre in a few months’ time—he’s shot up from the grade of corporal to that of adjutant-major in no time.…3 So come and get me at the Temple the day I’m on duty, which is next Thursday.”
“Well,” said Morand, “I hope they look after you. Do you know how to get there?”
“Oh, no!” said Geneviève. “No, I can’t go.”
“Why not?” cried Maurice, who could only view this visit to the Temple as a means of seeing Geneviève on a day when he thought he’d be deprived of such bliss.
“Because,” said Geneviève, “it might mean exposing you, dear Maurice, to some kind of nasty conflict … and if anything happens to you, our friend, any strife caused by satisfying one of my whims, I would never forgive myself—not as long as I live.”
“You’re absolutely right, Geneviève,” said Morand. “Believe me, there is so much mistrust that the best patriots are suspect these days; you’re better off giving up the whole idea, which, as you say, is just a simple whim of curiosity.”
“Anyone would think you were jealous, Morand—as though, not having seen a king or a queen yourself, you don’t want anyone else to see one. Come, enough talk. Why don’t you join us?”
“Me? Good grief, no.”
“It’s no longer a matter of citizeness Dixmer’s wanting to come to the Temple; it’s I who am entreating her, along with you, to come and distract a poor prisoner. For once the main door is shut on me, I am just as much a prisoner for the next twenty-four hours as any king or prince of the blood.”
Squeezing Geneviève’s foot with both of his, he went on, “Please come, I beseech you.”
“Go on, Morand,” said Geneviève. “Come with me.”
“It would mean losing a whole day,” said Morand, “which means delaying by as much the day I retire from commerce.”