The Clock of the Centuries

by Albert Robida

  “Well, today the preoccupations are suppressed, the turmoil and the torment abolished, since the people who are born—or reborn—re-enter into marriage, as into life, at the end! He recovers a beloved spouse…”

  Jollyvat from Paris groaned and Jollyvat from Tours sighed, while the horrible old bachelor François Jollyvat released a lugubrious moan.

  “….She reconquers a spouse once loved! In every case, there can be no surprises; the spouses know one another: no more lottery, no more hazards, no more disappointments, no more errors, no more unexpected disasters or sudden catastrophes! And if things go badly regardless, as was sometimes seen in the old life—if there was open warfare, quarreling, even divorce—will not time, now far better than before, not set everything in order and inevitably bring back the happy days of the honeymoon?” Palluel darted a sideways glance at Robert and Berthe Laforcade, who were sitting side by side. “And permit me to tell you that I have known spouses whom the feverish and uncertain former existence, so different from the calm and tranquil times we are now fortunate enough to relive, had precipitated into irritation, misunderstanding and open disagreement, which were bound to end in separation and divorce. Look at them now, these unhappy spouses of yesteryear: by virtue of fortunate modifications and agreeable changes, to the great delight of their friends, they have returned to honeymoon bliss, to the tender and rosy days of the commencement of their union…”

  Berthe Laforcade blushed and, with a graceful movement, hid her face behind Robert’s shoulder, whose ear the smiling grandfather pinched gently. Some time before, Berthe had told him, in confidence, about the sad previous years, the conjugal misunderstandings that had almost finished so badly, and whose very memory was, fortunately, gradually being effaced.

  “…There is nothing more edifying than the sight of today’s households, their happiness expended, being repairing themselves of their own accord and being re-established by the force of events: the households most tragically upset by storms and tempests, existences shattered into little pieces, all coming back together and healing themselves! The gravest resentments forgotten, even hatreds eased away; nothing is any longer irreparable! Don’t we have extraordinary examples set before our eyes every day? For instance, I dined with friends the other day seated beside a charming woman whose name suddenly reminded me of an old scandal—yes, a crime, a very melodramatic crime! My charming neighbor, a gentle and exquisite creature, had once caused her husband—a jolly fellow seated opposite—to drink poison. Well, there was no longer any trace of it as the criminal wife and the victim husband exchanged tender looks across the table; ferocious hatred had turned back into gentle harmony, and my people would have struck you as a delightful little household. All hail the new time, for correcting the errors of the old world!”

  With his eternal everything will sort itself out, Palluel, a confirmed and reinforced optimist, returned to the Jollyvats, preaching the gospel of resignation and temporary but inevitable annoyances. By virtually admonishing François Jollyvat, forcing him to restrain his moans, and joking with Jollyvat from Tours and Jollyvat from Paris, he persuaded them to view their situations a little more calmly. And Jollyvat from Paris, as happy as the Laforcades to be rid of the old bachelor, was able that same evening to send François Jollyvat and Jollyvat from Tours back to their respective destinies.

  CHAPTER XIV

  Monsieur de Chastelandry’s Reminiscences

  While Robert gladly made his way the environs of Laval in search of his grandmother, awaited with great excitement by grandfather Laforcade, the latter, in order to take the edge off his understandable impatience, was obliged to endure a few unpleasant moments by courtesy of Houquetot’s terrible father, the rather difficult Lord Houquetot de Mont-Héricourt, Marquis de Chastelandry.

  You will recall that father Houquetot and grandfather Laforcade had already recovered vague memories of an old quarrel—that both of them, while staring at one another, had almost quarreled without knowing why, purely motivated by confused feelings of anger that they could not explain.

  Where had they seen one another before? When? They did not know. But they had seen one another before, and must have been animated then by sentiments with regard to one another that were less than amicable. That evening, the grandfather had been genuinely upset; he was at a loss to say exactly why he had been carried away so violently, but carried away he had been. He had suddenly remembered that the old quarrel has taken place in the Jardin Turc, under the Restoration, but the memory had been imprecise and he had lost its thread immediately.

  Since then, the old Marquis, wrinkled but more and more solid in his powerful build, and more spruced-up too, with his moustache curled and his buttonhole blooming, had returned to the Laforcades’ house several times. The two old men had looked at one another coldly, hardly speaking to one another, but the old quarrel remained dormant. The grandfather continued to search for the reason for the very marked antipathy that he felt towards the marquis. What had happened between them during their earlier meeting in the Jardin Turc under the Restoration?

  It was Chastelandry who suddenly remembered one day. Poor Houquetot’s father always had one bee in his bonnet, if not several. He had recently tormented his son unmercifully with regard to a lady he had seriously compromised towards the end of his first youth, during the reign of Louis-Philippe, and it was only with great difficulty that he had been prevented from setting off on a journey in search of her. He had only decided to refrain because he was trying to persuade money-lenders, whom he stunned by his loquacity, to lend money at interest to the son of a ruined family—but the money-lenders were still standing on ceremony and drawing the matter out. Extremely annoyed, with his pockets empty, tormented by all his appetites and desires, the old beau wandered sadly along the boulevards, swagger-stick in hand and a luxuriant, but unlit, cigar between his lips. With all his concentration, this man ahead of his time yearned for the good times of his long youth, which was taking far too long to return—the time when, finally, his patrimony would come back bit by bit and he would recover all the advantages and pleasures of the high life.

  One day when he was beating the pavement in this manner, in an even worse humor than usual because of certain debts that an ill-bred creditor was refusing to suffer any longer, Chastelandry—who was walking, contrary to his habit, with his head bowed and his brows furrowed—bumped rather violently into a pink umbrella, which was turned inside out.

  “I beg your pardon, Madame—a thousand apologies,” said the Marquis, raising his hat to the pink umbrella. “I mean, a hundred thousand apologies!”

  The umbrella unmasked a lovely lady, very blonde, who displayed pretty teeth and a mischievous—but no less pretty—dimple at the corner of her mouth, smiling at the old man’s insistent apologies.

  “Malvina!” cried Chastelandry.

  “You’re mistaken, Monsieur,” replied the lady with the mischievous dimple. “I don’t know you.”

  “I’m not mistaken, Malvina. There was a time when you deceived me, but let’s not dwell on old errors… Malvina, oh my dear Malvina, how happy I am to see you again! Please accept this freshly-plucked rose!”

  Chastelandry had snatched the rose from his buttonhole and was offering it gallantly.

  “But once again, I’m not Malvina!”

  “Impossible! You’re Malvina from the Théâtre Montansier! I recognized you at first glance, you little tease! See here, Malvina, I repeat that I’m prepared to forget everything…everything! Have you been angry and bearing a grudge for all this time? Will you refuse to forgive me…your sins? When I tell you that the joy of seeing you makes my heart turn upside-down? You had been very naughty, the last time I saw you…no, it wasn’t you—there! It’s me who was entirely in the wrong. I was brutal and nasty. Listen, Malvina, you’re prettier, more fragrant, more delightfully innocent and graceful than ever, in spite of the time…”

  “I don’t know you, Monsieur, I don’t know Malvina, and I beg you not to
follow me!” cried the lady, turning around abruptly and presenting the umbrella to the Marquis’s face.

  “Impossible!” said the Marquis. “Do you remember the summer of 1828, Malvina?”

  “1828! You’re out of your mind, my good sir. Do I look like a grandmother?”

  The lady fled. Chastelandry hesitated.

  “Well, what about me—do I look like a grandfather?” he murmured, frustratedly. “Damn it! Malvina! Malvina! Is it Malvina? Isn’t it Malvina? Am I mistaken? It’s definitely her nose, it’s definitely her dimple. Was I seeing things, or didn’t she want to recognize me because...? Let’s follow her!”

  But the lady was already some way off, having crossed the road. A surfeit of carriages prevented Chastelandry from crossing as swiftly, and by the time he reached the other pavement he could no longer see the pink umbrella.

  “That Malvina has always been a strange creature! Coquettish and fickle! No talent as an actress but so pretty, so mischievous! Let’s see, how did we come to fall out in 1828? It was definitely 1828, I remember that—the year of the Martignac ministry. But of course! The Jardin Turc adventure—that was Malvina! It all comes back to me now—what I was trying to remember at the Laforcades. Yes, in the Jardin Turc! I must clear up that business—I’ll run along to the Laforcades’ house! No one laughs at me and gets away with it! I’ve lost Malvina again, but I still have the other one!”

  Chastelandry felt his bad mood get worse. In addition to the refusals of his money-lenders and the scornful attitude of the false Malvina, life was full of annoyances and vexations. He chewed his cigar and did not find it very tasty. The hunting season was imminent and he knew that not a single invitation had arrived from anywhere, that he would not have the pleasure of taking aim at the smallest deer or the tiniest rabbit. If only he had been able to rejoin his old regiment, his company of black musketeers, and some nice riot somewhere—no matter what sort—had furnished him with an opportunity to work off some of his anger by kicking up a fuss, with noise and action!

  He arrived, grumbling in this manner, at the Laforcade house and rang the bell vigorously.

  The grandfather was alone, his son having gone to his crinoline factory, recovered some time before, and Robert not having yet brought back his grandmother, of whom there was good news, but who could not travel very rapidly.

  The grandfather welcomed Chastelandry with his most gracious smile, although he did not like him at all. At that moment, full of joy, he found himself disposed to see everything—men and events alike—in the most favorable colors. Chastelandry as exquisitely polite. He had lost one of his ill humor, and he eyes were still glittering with wrath, but he had put on his finest airs and called upon all his gentlemanliness, in order to come down from a greater height on the wretch of a shopkeeper who had stolen Malvina’s heart in 1828.

  “Delighted to see you, Monsieur,” said the grandfather. “Your health is still brilliant? And your amiable son? It’s several days since we last saw him.”

  “My health is delightful, my dear Monsieur, and I hope that ours is no less flourishing,” Chastelandry replied.

  “Not bad, not bad,” said the grandfather.

  “By the way, your petty memories of 1828, have they come back clearly yet?”

  “Of 1828? What memories?”

  “But you know full well—the Jardin Turc? Rather bourgeois for me, the Marais, and the Jardin Turc, but I was tired of the Tivoli and I was looking for Malvina…”

  “Oh, the Jardin Turc, about which we talked a little while ago… I’d forgotten about it again. Yes, on due reflection, I must have seen you at that time… One evening in the Jardin Turc. Oh, it was a long time ago. We must have had some little history together—you looked somewhat ill at ease, as I recall… I don’t know any longer what it was about, doubtless some trifle, a quarrel between young men!”

  “A trifle! Damn it! Try to recall that trifle, my dear Monsieur.”

  “I’m trying. I have a vague memory of an altercation, but the reason escapes me…”

  “Malvina, Monsieur, Malvina! Whom I encountered just now, and the mere sight of whom was sufficient to remind me of everything…”

  “Which Malvina? It might have been sufficient for you but not for me…”

  “The Malvina you had on your arm in the Jardin Turc!”

  “I had Malvina on my arm in the Jardin Turc? You must have been seeing things.”

  “My dear Monsieur, that statement gives me as much cause as everything else… I beg you, though, to deign to clarify your memory somewhat. I met you in the Jardin Turc—you were there?”

  “I was there, certainly, I grant you that, as I’ve already said.”

  “You had Malvina on your arm.”

  “I certainly didn’t have any Malvina on my arm. There is no Malvina in my life—not the slightest Malvina, my dear Monsieur!”

  “Tell me that she has no talent, tell me that she sings off-key, tell me that she has her own ideas regarding orthography, but…”

  “Very well, I’ll tell you that—but…?”

  “I am magnanimous, and might possible overlook those allegations, but if you dare to tell me that you do not remember Malvina, stop there!”

  “I repeat, Monsieur, that I have no idea who your Malvina might be!”

  “Are you claiming that you have completely forgotten Malvina, Monsieur?” cried Chastelandry, who was beginning to set aside his determination to remain calm and correct. “To forget Malvina, to forget her perpetually laughing eyes, her blonde hair, the dimple at the corner of her mouth, hr success at the Théâtre Montansier, to cast Malvina disdainfully into forgetfulness after having stolen her from me, is one insult more, and that makes, if I count correctly, three grievances: firstly, Malvina; secondly, your remark about seeing things; thirdly, obliviousness of the injury! That is more than sufficient for me to be desirous of granting you six inches of my sword in your abdomen, the abdomen of an impertinent lady-killer!”

  “Lady-killer! Me, a lady-killer!” cried the grandfather. “Despite your six inches of steel, you’re deluded, doubly deluded and triply deluded, as you were in 1828 if you saw me with a Malvina on my arm! In 1828, I was recently married, Monsieur!”

  “Good! That’s an aggravating circumstance! I shall, therefore, in washing away the insult to me with your blood, have the honor of simultaneously avenging the insult inflicted by you upon Madame your spouse! You will therefore receive a visit from my seconds, two of my comrades from the royal guard! To the pleasure of seeing you on the dueling-ground, Monsieur!”

  “Go to the Devil!” cried Monsieur Laforcade, furiously.

  “And of skewering you, my dear Monsieur, in the honor and memory of Malvina!” said Chastelandry, bowing with exquisite politeness. He was on his way out and had already closed the door behind him, but he opened it again to add: “Besides, that’s already happened to you in 1828. You won’t escape! It’s coming back to me now—I skewered three opponents the day after that business in the Jardin Turc. See you soon!”

  This time he had gone. Grandfather Laforcade shouted for the maid and forbade her ever to let Monsieur Chastelandry in again.

  “He’s completely mad,” the grandfather said to himself. “Malvina? Royal guards? We had an encounter, a little altercation, perhaps, but nothing more, so far as I can remember. What the Devil—if he’d skewered me already in 1828, I’d remember it!”

  However, as he was slightly anxious, in spite of everything, he wrote to Palluel, who was fortunately at liberty and able to come to see him immediately.

  “Bah, don’t worry!” said Palluel, when the grandfather had told him the story of the row over Malvina. “That terrible old man, in whom all the instincts of life, carousal and relentless fighting of a strong family are being revived, won’t cleave you asunder for so little. If he waits for his old companions in the guard to send them, his whim will have time to pass, for we haven’t got there yet—he’s still ahead of his time! In any case, I’ll have a word
with his son to see if he can be persuaded to see reason…”

  “You see what an ugly business it would be,” said the grandfather, “if he had come to pick a quarrel with me over his Malvina in two days time, when my wife will have returned! It’s absolutely essential that the affair is settled before then.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  Without losing a minute, Palluel leapt into a cab and was driven to Houquetot’s domicile. As he arrived, he saw the tall figure of Chastelandry on the pavement outside the door. The latter seemed to be in conference with two burly fellows buttoned up to the chin, their hats titled over their ears and stout canes under their arms, and a third individual of a scrawnier appearance.

  “What!” said Palluel to himself, as he jumped down from the cab. “Has he got his seconds already?” Advancing towards the group with a smile on his face, he said: “Bonjour, Marquis. Is all well?”

  “Very well, my dear Monsieur Palluel,” said the Marquis. “You find me with my two guards.”

  “What? Are you trying to tell me that you’ve already arranged your seconds for this ridiculous business from 1828. The worthy grandfather Laforcade has just told me about it—but Marquis, we need an explanation of it. What is this adventure concerning a Mademoiselle Malvina—very charming, apparently—who is still troubling your thoughts?”

  “Malvina? It does indeed concern Malvina! Permit me to introduce you to these gentlemen, two excellent bailiffs assisting Monsieur the Guardian of Commerce here present, who has come to arrest me and take me to Clichy by reason of a few little promissory notes inscribed to a crooked broker—notes which I had, on my honor, completely forgotten. These gentlemen were waiting for me at my door and have pinched me without resistance—that is the reason why you find me in such amiable company.”

  “Ah! Very good!” said Palluel.