Chapter II: Great Events Caused by a Jig and a Snuff Box

“How pretty she is! What a fine figure she has! What charm and freshness!” said the young men, and even the fathers, to one another, as they watched the bride and followed her every motion when she danced. “Ah! what a lucky fellow that Edouard is!”

Such was the general opinion.

Edouard heard all this; he was in fact as happy as a man can be when he is on the point of becoming entirely happy. To conceal his desires, his impatience, he skipped and danced about, and did not keep still one minute. From time to time he went into the corridor to consult his watch; it was still too early--not for him! but he must spare his wife’s blushes; and what would the company say; what would his wife’s mother say? Well! he must wait; oh! how long that day had been! Poor husband and wife! It is the brightest day in all your lives, and yet you wish that it were already passed! Man is never content.

“The bridegroom looks to be very much in love!” said all the married ladies; the unmarried ones did not say so, but they thought it.

“Ah! Monsieur Volenville, that is the way you looked at me twenty-two years ago,” said, with a sigh, to her husband, a lady of forty-five, overladen with rouge, flowers, laces and ribbons, who sat in a corner of the ball-room, where she had been waiting in vain since dinner for a partner to present himself. Monsieur Volenville, formerly a frequent attendant at the balls at Sceaux, and now an auctioneer in the Marais, did not answer his wife, but took a pinch of snuff and went into the next room to watch a game of écarté.

Madame Volenville testily changed her place, which she had done already several times. She placed herself between two young women, hoping apparently that that side of the room would be invited in a body, and that she would thus be included in the dancers. But her hope was disappointed once more; she saw young men coming toward her, she nodded her head gracefully, smiled, and put out her foot, which was not unshapely. They approached; but oh, woe! they addressed themselves to her right or to her left, and seemed to pay no attention to her and her soft glances and her pretty foot.

It is really most unpleasant to be a wall-flower, and Madame Volenville, not knowing what method to employ to attract a partner, deliberated whether to show the lower part of her leg; it had formerly performed miracles, and it would be as well to try its power, as the foot produced no effect.

She decided to do it; the lower part of the calf was about to be shown as modestly as possible, when suddenly there was a loud call for a fourth couple to fill up a quadrille. There were no more ladies remaining; some had left the party, and all the rest were on the floor. A young man, well-curled and well-perfumed, glanced about the ball-room; he spied the auctioneer’s wife, resigned himself to his fate, and walked gravely toward her to ask her to dance. Madame Volenville did not give the young man time to finish his invitation; she rose, darted toward him, seized his hand, and squeezed it so that she almost made him cry out. Our dandy jumped back; he concluded that the poor woman was subject to hysterical attacks; he gazed at her uneasily, not knowing what course to pursue; but Madame Volenville gave him little time for reflection: she dragged him roughly away toward the incomplete quadrille; she took her place, bowed to her partner, and led him through the cat’s tail and the ladies’ chain, before he had recovered from his bewilderment.

The heroic and free-and-easy manner of Madame Volenville’s dancing created a sensation; a confused murmur ran through the salon and the young men left the card-table for the place where our auctioneeress was performing. She considered this eagerness to watch her very flattering, and was enchanted by it; she danced with redoubled fire and animation, and tried to electrify her partner, who did not seem to share her vivacity; flushing with rage when he saw the circle which had formed about him, and heard the sarcastic compliments which the young men addressed to him, and the spiteful remarks of the young women, he bit his lips, clenched his fists, and would have given all that he possessed to have the quadrille come to a close. But Madame Volenville left him but little time to himself; she was almost always in the air; she insisted upon balancing, or going forward and back, all the time, despite the remonstrances of her partner, who said to her until he was hoarse:

“It isn’t our turn, madame; in a minute; that figure is finished; pray stop!”

But Madame Volenville was started, and she was determined to make up to herself for five hours of waiting; and when by chance she did pause for a second, her glance rested complacently upon the large crowd which surrounded her; and as with her handkerchief she wiped away the drops of perspiration which stood on her brow, her eyes seemed to say to the throng:

“You didn’t expect to see such dancing as this, eh? Another time, perhaps you will ask me!”

Meanwhile the torture of Belcour--that was the name of Madame Volenville’s partner--was approaching its end; the quadrille was almost finished; already they had thrice performed the famous _chassez les huit_; once more, and all would have been over, when a young notary’s clerk, a mischievous joker, who loved a laugh, like most of his fellows, conceived the idea of running to the orchestra, and asking for a jig in the name of the whole company. The musicians at a wedding party never refuse any request, and they began to play a jig at the moment that Belcour bowed to Madame Volenville and attempted to slink away.

The voice of Orpheus imploring the gods of the infernal regions did not produce so much effect upon Pluto as the strains of the violins and the air of the jig produced upon Madame Volenville.

“Monsieur! monsieur! it isn’t over yet,” she cried to Belcour, who was walking away. He pretended not to hear, and was already near the door of the salon, when Madame Volenville ran after him, caught him and arrested his steps.

“Monsieur, what are you doing? Don’t you hear the violins? Ah! what a pretty tune! it’s a jig; come quickly!”

“A thousand pardons, madame, but I thought----”

“It is a jig, monsieur, and I love that dance to madness!”

“Madame, I do not feel very well, and----”

“You shall see my English steps; it was while dancing the jig that I used to make so many conquests.”

“Madame, I would like a breath of fresh air----”

“And indeed that I fascinated--I attracted my husband, at the ball at Sceaux.”

“But, madame----”

In vain did Belcour seek to resist; Madame Volenville would not let him go, but dragged him toward the dance, paying no heed to his excuses. Seeing that a longer discussion would intensify the absurdity of his position, he yielded at last and returned to the quadrille. The crowd of curious onlookers hastily stood aside to make room for the couple upon whom all eyes were fixed.

The signal was given and everyone started off, the men to the right, then the ladies, Madame Volenville among the first. With what ardor she ran to the other men and swung them round as on a pivot! The perspiration rolled down her cheeks, and streaked her rouge; two of her _mouches_ fell from her temple to a spot below the ear; her curls became loosened, her wreath of roses was detached and took the place of a collar; but none of those things was capable of stopping her: in an instant she had made the circuit of the quadrille and had returned to her place. Belcour was no longer there. He had taken advantage of the confusion occasioned by the figure, to steal away. But Madame Volenville must have a partner, and she took the first one who came to hand; it was an old attorney in a hammer wig, who happened to be standing opposite her. The excellent man had joined the crowd, impelled by curiosity; he had forced his way to the front and was gazing enviously at a pretty little breast of twenty years, as white and fresh and solid as a rock, that belonged to a pretty dancer. The old attorney remarked, with the lecherous gaze of a connoisseur, that the exertion of dancing scarcely shook the two lovely globes; he was amazed thereat, because it was a long while since he had seen anything of the sort at a ball, whether fancy dress, public, in fashionable or middle-class society, or even at open air fêtes. Overjoyed by his discovery, and to manifest his satisfaction to the pretty dancer, he displayed the tip of his tongue and smiled pleasantly; a method adopted by old rakes to declare their passion without words.

But the pretty dancer paid no heed to the attorney and his grimaces, and he, tired of showing his tongue without obtaining a glance, was deliberating whether, during a moment of crowding and confusion, he might venture to take her hand, when Madame Volenville, with the rapidity of a bomb, arrived between him and the young lady he was admiring, and began to execute her English steps, accompanied by an alluring simper.

The old libertine gazed with a bewildered air at the flushed, disfigured face, the disordered headdress and the limp form of Madame Volenville; he tried to retreat; but she took both his hands, whirled him about and made him jump into the air.

“Madame, I don’t know this!” cried the attorney, struggling to free himself.

“Come on, all the same, monsieur! I must have a partner!”

“Stop this, madame; I never waltzed in my life!”

“This isn’t a waltz, monsieur; it’s a jig.”

“Stop, madame, I beg! I am dizzy; I shall fall!”

“You dance like an angel!”

Madame Volenville was a very devil; she considered herself still as fascinating as at twenty; she was persuaded that her steps, her graces, her vivacity and her little mincing ways were calculated to fascinate everybody; she did not realize that years entirely change the aspect of things. That which is charming at twenty becomes affectation at forty; the frivolity natural to youth seems folly in maturer years, and the little simpering expressions which we forgive on a childish face, later are mere absurdities and sometimes downright grimaces.

It is possible, nevertheless, for a woman of mature years to please; but she does not succeed in so doing by aping the manners of youth. Nothing can be more agreeable to the eye, more calculated to attract favorable notice, than a mother dancing without any affectation of youthful graces, opposite her daughter; nothing more absurd than an old coquette, with her hair dressed as if she were sixteen, trying to rival girls of that age in agility.

Madame Volenville was, as you see, an indefatigable dancer; she strove to infect her partner with the ardor that animated her; but the old attorney, red as a cherry, rolled his eyes wildly, unable to distinguish objects; everything about him was going round and round; the jig, the heat and his wrath combined to make him helplessly dizzy. He held his face as far from his partner’s as possible; but, to put the finishing touch to his discomfiture, his wig came off, fell to the floor, where it was trampled under foot by the dancers, and the attorney’s head was revealed to the eyes of the guests, as bare as one’s hand.

This last mishap, adding tenfold to the old fellow’s rage, gave him the strength to break loose from his partner; he pushed her away with great force. Madame Volenville fell into the lap of a stout clerk, who was sitting peacefully on a bench at the end of the room, running over in his mind with keen enjoyment the names of all the dishes he had eaten at dinner.

The corpulent party uttered a sharp exclamation when Madame Volenville landed on him; he swore that he was being suffocated; but she did not stir, because no woman in good society ought to fall upon anyone without swooning. Monsieur Tourte--that was the clerk’s name--called for help, while Monsieur Robineau--our attorney--loudly demanded his wig, which he sought in vain in every corner of the room, but could not find, because the young notary’s clerk had obtained possession of it first and had thrown it out of the window onto the boulevard, where it fell on the nose of a cab-driver, who was looking at the sky to see if it was likely to rain the next day.

Meanwhile Edouard and Madame Germeuil strove to restore tranquillity and to bring order out of chaos. Adeline, for her part, could not help laughing, with all the other young women, at Madame Volenville’s attitude, Monsieur Tourte’s face and Monsieur Robineau’s fury.

Monsieur Volenville finally left his game of écarté, went to get a carafe of water, and approached his wife, whom he did not recognize, so great was the havoc wrought upon her dress and her face. After taking his pinch of snuff, he relieved his wife of her wreath of roses and began to slap her hands, while Madame Germeuil held a phial of salts under her nose. But nothing availed, nothing had any effect on the benumbed senses of the formidable dancer. Madame Germeuil was at her wit’s end. Monsieur Tourte swore that he would bite Madame Volenville in the arm or somewhere else, if somebody did not instantly remove the burden that was suffocating him, and the auctioneer resorted to his snuff-box in quest of ideas.

At that moment Monsieur Robineau was rushing about the ball-room in the guise of a cherub, and feeling angrily under the furniture and even under people’s feet, in search of his wig. He drew near the group surrounding the auctioneer’s unconscious wife; he spied something gray under the bench that supported his late partner and the stout clerk. Instantly he darted forward, pushed aside Monsieur Volenville, who was in front of him, threw himself on his hands and knees, and put his hand between the auctioneer’s legs to grasp the object which he believed to be his dear wig.

Monsieur Robineau’s manœuvre was executed so suddenly that Monsieur Volenville lost his balance; as he was stooping forward, he fell almost upon his wife, and the snuff-box, which he had just opened, emptied itself entirely into his loving better half’s nose and mouth.

This accident recalled Madame Volenville to life; she sneezed five times in rapid succession, rubbed her eyes, opened her mouth, swallowed a large quantity of snuff, made such horrible faces that they put to flight her husband and all the other persons who were near her, squirmed about and spat violently into the face of Monsieur Robineau, who at that moment withdrew his hand from under the bench and rose, swearing like the damned--who swear a great deal in this world, to say nothing of what they will do when they are roasting in hell like pork pies.

And why did Monsieur Robineau swear? Why, reader? Because, instead of putting his hand on his wig, which, as you know, was reposing on the boulevard, the unlucky attorney had seized the tail of a cat, which, vexed at being pulled so violently by a sensitive part, had, in accordance with the custom of its kind, buried its claws in the cruel hand that had grasped it.

“It is very unpleasant to be unlucky!” said a worthy bourgeois of the Marais the other evening at a performance of _La Pie Voleuse_, as he wept over the misfortunes of Palaiseau’s little maid-servant. To interpret what I presume to be that gentleman’s meaning, I will say that it is very painful to experience so many misfortunes as Monsieur Robineau did in one evening. When one has danced against one’s will and has lost one’s wig; when one has been clawed on the hands and has been spat upon, one is quite justified in being angry. The poor attorney was so angry that he turned yellow, red and white, almost at the same instant; in his frenzy, he had no idea what he was doing, and, regardless of sex, was about to assault Madame Volenville, when some of the guests interposed between him and the person whom he justly regarded as the cause of all his misfortunes.

They had much difficulty in pacifying Monsieur Robineau and in making him understand that madame had expectorated without malicious intent. Edouard succeeded at last in calming him a little; and while he wiped his face, the young bridegroom took from his pocket a dainty silk handkerchief, which he offered the attorney to put over his head. Monsieur Robineau accepted it, covered his head with the handkerchief, and placed his round hat on top; which gave him the appearance of a Spanish rebel, or a bandolero, or a guerilla, or battueca; or, if you prefer, of one of those little dogs, dressed in human garb, which ride majestically along the boulevard in baskets borne by a learned donkey.

The attorney left the salon without paying his respects to the ladies, and without kissing the bride; he hurried from the Cadran-Bleu, but as he passed the waiters and scullions from the restaurant he could not help hearing their laughter and jests. He did not take a cab, because he lived on Rue du Perche; and when he reached home, he went to bed, cursing waltzes and jigs, and calculating what a new wig would cost him.

As for Madame Volenville, of whom Monsieur Tourte finally succeeded in ridding himself, it was most essential to induce her to leave the ball-room, for the snuff which she had swallowed produced a most unpleasant effect on her stomach. The expectoration became more frequent, and began to change to hiccoughs and symptoms of nausea, that presaged an accident which one is never desirous to witness, and which, moreover, it is prudent to avert in a room where people are dancing.

So the poor woman was taken away, almost carried, from the scene of her exploits. When she passed a mirror, she thought that she would die of chagrin, or swoon again; in truth, her snuff-besmeared face, her dishevelled hair, her disordered clothing, were well adapted to drive to despair a woman with pretensions; and we have seen that Madame Volenville possessed rather a large supply for her years.

They looked for her husband, and had some difficulty in inducing him to go to his wife, upon whom he insisted that someone had put a mask. At last they were placed in a cab, which took them home, where, if you please, we will leave them, to return to the newly-married pair.

Terpsichore had banished cruel Discord, who, since the nuptials of Peleus and Thetis, to which, foolishly enough, she was not bidden, has adopted the habit of coming unexpectedly to sow confusion in marriage festivities; that was the reason, I presume, that she deigned to attend the bourgeois wedding at the Cadran-Bleu; for it is said that a couple can never escape a visit from the ill-omened goddess; and if she does not appear on the first day, she makes up for it during the year.

But let us leave Terpsichore, Discord and all mythology; let us abandon metaphors and figures of speech; let us leave to the authors of octavo romances, flowers, cascades, the moon, the stars, and above all, those poetical inversions of language which tell you at the end of a sentence what the hero meant to say at the beginning; those delightful détours, whereby a father will say: “At last toward me stepped forth my daughter;” instead of saying simply: “My daughter stepped toward me;” which, in my judgment, would be much more clear, but which would resemble the ordinary way of talking in the world, in society; a vulgar jargon, which should not be employed by persons who live in underground dungeons without breaking their necks, or who constantly scale perpendicular cliffs without being tired when they reach the top.

Moreover, will our lovely women, our _petites-maîtresses_ extol a novel to the clouds, if the hero does not speak another language than that of their husbands and lovers?--”Bah! that is a book for the servants’ hall!” they will say, as they disdainfully cast aside a novel which is neither English, nor German, nor romantic! “It is an insufferable sort of work! forbidden words are used in it! I find the word _cuckold_ there! Mon Dieu! it is shocking! But our newspaper critic will belabor that author soundly for us!”

And in fact the critic reads the work and considers it revoltingly immoral! The author’s cynicism, his obscenity are beyond words! he uses the word _cuckold_ when he finds it necessary! Did anyone ever hear of such indecency?--To be sure, Molière often used the same word, and some others even stronger, in several of his works; but what a difference! one must be very careful not to print in a novel what one may say on the stage before a large audience!--Make your inversions, ye novelists; go back to the Syntax; adopt a style _ad usum tyronum linguæ Latinæ_; monopolize mythology, astronomy, mineralogy, ornithology, zoology, aye, even conchology; mingle with it all a little ancient and sacred history, much about dreams and ghosts, minstrels, druids, or hermits, according to the scene of your plot; indulge in sonorous phrases, which used to be called fustian, and you will surely have a fashionable success! Some ladies will faint when they are reading you, others after they read you; there will even be some who will not understand you; but you will appear all the nobler to them! To be unintelligible is to be sublime in your kind. Great geniuses wrap themselves in mystery.--Ask Cagliostro rather,--he ought not to be dead, as he was a sorcerer,--or Lord Byron, or Mademoiselle Lenormand.

As for you, young authors, who claim to be simple and natural, who seek to arouse laughter or interest with events which may happen any day before our eyes, and who describe them for us in such wise as to be readily understood, away with you to oblivion! or go to see _George Dandin_ and _Le Malade Imaginaire_; those plays are worthy of you; but you will never be read by our vaporish ladies, and you will not cause the hundred mouths of Renown to sound.

Despite all this, we have the unfortunate habit of writing as we should speak, and we shall continue so to do; you are at liberty, reader, to drop us here and now if our method does not suit you.

So the dancing continued at the Cadran-Bleu; but the fête drew toward its close, to the great satisfaction of Edouard, and doubtless of Adeline, who blushed and smiled whenever her fond husband glanced at her.

At last the clock struck the hour to retire; Madame Germeuil herself took her daughter away; they entered a carriage, drove off, and in due time arrived at Boulevard Montmartre, where the young couple were to live, and with them the dear mamma, who did not wish to part from her Adeline, who, she hoped, would close her eyes.

A dainty apartment was all arranged. Madame Germeuil embraced her daughter lovingly, then went to her own room, not without a sigh. That was quite natural; the rights of a mother cease when those of a husband begin! But what do rights matter when hearts remain the same? Nature and love easily find lodgment in a sensitive heart, and have no power over a cold and selfish one. Men make the laws, but the feelings are not to be commanded.

Luckily for Edouard, the charming Adeline loved him because he pleased her, and not simply because the Church ordered her to love him. That is why, when she was alone with her husband, she threw herself into his arms without a tear; that is why she did not make a great fuss about allowing herself to be undressed, and why she was so soon in bed; and lastly, that is why we shall say no more about it.