“Very well, I don’t mind! I will wait here as long as you wish. I have already said that there should be no formality between friends. You are perfectly right—go ahead and attend to your business. It will not offend me in the least; quite the contrary, it will make me feel much more completely one of the family. Go ahead, my friends, I will wait for you!”
Monsieur and Madame de Meroul left the following day.
He is still waiting for them.
THE EFFEMINATES
How often we hear people say, “He is charming, that man, but he is a girl, a regular girl.” They are alluding to the effeminates, the bane of our land.
For we are all girl-like men in France—that is, fickle, fanciful, innocently treacherous, without consistency in our convictions or our will, violent and weak as women are.
But the most irritating of girl—men is assuredly the Parisian and the boulevardier, in whom the appearance of intelligence is more marked and who combines in himself all the attractions and all the faults of those charming creatures in an exaggerated degree in virtue of his masculine temperament.
Our Chamber of Deputies is full of girl-men. They form the greater number of the amiable opportunists whom one might call “The Charmers.” These are they who control by soft words and deceitful promises, who know how to shake hands in such a manner as to win hearts, how to say “My dear friend” in a certain tactful way to people he knows the least, to change his mind without suspecting it, to be carried away by each new idea, to be sincere in their weathercock convictions, to let themselves be deceived as they deceive others, to forget the next morning what he affirmed the day before.
The newspapers are full of these effeminate men. That is probably where one finds the most, but it is also where they are most needed. The Journal des Debats and the Gazette de France are exceptions.
Assuredly, every good journalist must be somewhat effeminate—that is, at the command of the public, supple in following unconsciously the shades of public opinion, wavering and varying, sceptical and credulous, wicked and devout, a braggart and a true man, enthusiastic and ironical, and always convinced while believing in nothing.
Foreigners, our anti-types, as Mme. Abel called them, the stubborn English and the heavy Germans, regard us with a certain amazement mingled with contempt, and will continue to so regard us till the end of time. They consider us frivolous. It is not that, it is that we are girls. And that is why people love us in spite of our faults, why they come back to us despite the evil spoken of us; these are lovers’ quarrels! The effeminate man, as one meets him in this world, is so charming that he captivates you after five minutes’ chat. His smile seems made for you; one cannot believe that his voice does not assume specially tender intonations on their account. When he leaves you it seems as if one had known him for twenty years. One is quite ready to lend him money if he asks for it. He has enchanted you, like a woman.
If he commits any breach of manners towards you, you cannot bear any malice, he is so pleasant when you next meet him. If he asks your pardon you long to ask pardon of him. Does he tell lies? You cannot believe it. Does he put you off indefinitely with promises that he does not keep? One lays as much store by his promises as though he had moved heaven and earth to render them a service.
When he admires anything he goes into such raptures that he convinces you. He once adored Victor Hugo, whom he now treats as a back number. He would have fought for Zola, whom he has abandoned for Barbey and d’Aurevilly. And when he admires, he permits no limitation, he would slap your face for a word. But when he becomes scornful, his contempt is unbounded and allows of no protest.
In fact, he understands nothing.
Listen to two girls talking.
“Then you are angry with Julia?” “I slapped her face.” “What had she done?” “She told Pauline that I had no money thirteen months out of twelve, and Pauline told Gontran—you understand.” “You were living together in the Rue Clanzel?” “We lived together four years in the Rue Breda; we quarrelled about a pair of stockings that she said I had worn—it wasn’t true—silk stockings that she had bought at Mother Martin’s. Then I gave her a pounding and she left me at once. I met her six months ago and she asked me to come and live with her, as she has rented a flat that is twice too large.”
One goes on one’s way and hears no more. But on the following Sunday as one is on the way to Saint Germain two young women get into the same railway carriage. One recognizes one of them at once; it is Julia’s enemy. The other is Julia!
And there are endearments, caresses, plans. “Say, Julia—listen, Julia,” etc.
The girl-man has his friendships of this kind. For three months he cannot bear to leave his old Jack, his dear Jack. There is no one but Jack in the world. He is the only one who has any intelligence, any sense, any talent. He alone amounts to anything in Paris. One meets them everywhere together, they dine together, walk about in company, and every evening walk home with each other back and forth without being able to part with one another.
Three months later, if Jack is mentioned:
“There is a drinker, a sorry fellow, a scoundrel for you. I know him well, you may be sure. And he is not even honest, and ill-bred,” etc., etc.
Three months later, and they are living together.
But one morning one hears that they have fought a duel, then embraced each other, amid tears, on the duelling ground.
Just now they are the dearest friends in the world, furious with each other half the year, abusing and loving each other by turns, squeezing each other’s hands till they almost crush the bones, and ready to run each other through the body for a misunderstanding.
For the relations of these effeminate men are uncertain. Their temper is by fits and starts, their delight unexpected, their affection turn-about-face, their enthusiasm subject to eclipse. One day they love you, the next day they will hardly look at you, for they have in fact a girl’s nature, a girl’s charm, a girl’s temperament, and all their sentiments are like the affections of girls.
They treat their friends as women treat their pet dogs.
It is the dear little Toutou whom they hug, feed with sugar, allow to sleep on the pillow, but whom they would be just as likely to throw out of a window in a moment of impatience, whom they turn round like a sling, holding it by the tail, squeeze in their arms till they almost strangle it, and plunge, without any reason, in a pail of cold water.
Then, what a strange thing it is when one of these beings falls in love with a real girl! He beats her, she scratches him, they execrate each other, cannot bear the sight of each other and yet cannot part, linked together by no one knows what mysterious psychic bonds. She deceives him, he knows it, sobs and forgives her. He despises and adores her without seeing that she would be justified in despising him. They are both atrociously unhappy and yet cannot separate. They cast invectives, reproaches and abominable accusations at each other from morning till night, and when they have reached the climax and are vibrating with rage and hatred, they fall into each other’s arms and kiss each other ardently.
The girl-man is brave and a coward at the same time. He has, more than another, the exalted sentiment of honor, but is lacking in the sense of simple honesty, and, circumstances favoring him, would defalcate and commit infamies which do not trouble his conscience, for he obeys without questioning the oscillations of his ideas, which are always impulsive.
To him it seems permissible and almost right to cheat a haberdasher. He considers it honorable not to pay his debts, unless they are gambling debts—that is, somewhat shady. He dupes people whenever the laws of society admit of his doing so. When he is short of money he borrows in all ways, not always being scrupulous as to tricking the lenders, but he would, with sincere indignation, run his sword through anyone who should suspect him of only lacking in politeness.
OLD AMABLE
PART I
The humid gray sky seemed to weigh down on the vast brown plain. The odor of autumn, the sad odo
r of bare, moist lands, of fallen leaves, of dead grass made the stagnant evening air more thick and heavy. The peasants were still at work, scattered through the fields, waiting for the stroke of the Angelus to call them back to the farmhouses, whose thatched roofs were visible here and there through the branches of the leafless trees which protected the apple-gardens against the wind.
At the side of the road, on a heap of clothes, a very small boy seated with his legs apart was playing with a potato, which he now and then let fall on his dress, whilst five women were bending down planting slips of colza in the adjoining plain. With a slow, continuous movement, all along the mounds of earth which the plough had just turned up, they drove in sharp wooden stakes and in the hole thus formed placed the plant, already a little withered, which sank on one side; then they patted down the earth and went on with their work.
A man who was passing, with a whip in his hand, and wearing wooden shoes, stopped near the child, took it up and kissed it. Then one of the women rose up and came across to him. She was a big, red haired girl, with large hips, waist and shoulders, a tall Norman woman, with yellow hair in which there was a blood-red tint.
She said in a resolute voice:
“Why, here you are, Cesaire—well?”
The man, a thin young fellow with a melancholy air, murmured:
“Well, nothing at all—always the same thing.”
“He won’t have it?”
“He won’t have it.”
“What are you going to do?”
“What do you say I ought to do?”
“Go see the cure.”
“I will.”
“Go at once!”
“I will.”
And they stared at each other. He held the child in his arms all the time. He kissed it once more and then put it down again on the woman’s clothes.
In the distance, between two farm-houses, could be seen a plough drawn by a horse and driven by a man. They moved on very gently, the horse, the plough and the laborer, in the dim evening twilight.
The woman went on:
“What did your father say?”
“He said he would not have it.”
“Why wouldn’t he have it?”
The young man pointed toward the child whom he had just put back on the ground, then with a glance he drew her attention to the man drawing the plough yonder there.
And he said emphatically:
“Because ’tis his—this child of yours.”
The girl shrugged her shoulders and in an angry tone said:
“Faith, every one knows it well—that it is Victor’s. And what about it after all? I made a slip. Am I the only woman that did? My mother also made a slip before me, and then yours did the same before she married your dad! Who is it that hasn’t made a slip in the country? I made a slip with Victor because he took advantage of me while I was asleep in the barn, it’s true, and afterward it happened between us when I wasn’t asleep. I certainly would have married him if he weren’t a servant man. Am I a worse woman for that?”
The man said simply:
“As for me, I like you just as you are, with or without the child. It’s only my father that opposes me. All the same, I’ll see about settling the business.”
She answered:
“Go to the cure at once.”
“I’m going to him.”
And he set forth with his heavy peasant’s tread, while the girl, with her hands on her hips, turned round to plant her colza.
In fact, the man who thus went off, Cesaire Houlbreque, the son of deaf old Amable Houlbreque, wanted to marry, in spite of his father, Celeste Levesque, who had a child by Victor Lecoq, a mere laborer on her parents’ farm, who had been turned out of doors for this act.
The hierarchy of caste, however, does not exist in the country, and if the laborer is thrifty, he becomes, by taking a farm in his turn, the equal of his former master.
So Cesaire Houlbieque went off, his whip under his arm, brooding over his own thoughts and lifting up one after the other his heavy wooden shoes daubed with clay. Certainly he desired to marry Celeste Levesque. He wanted her with her child because she was the wife he wanted. He could not say why, but he knew it, he was sure of it. He had only to look at her to be convinced of it, to feel quite queer, quite stirred up, simply stupid with happiness. He even found a pleasure in kissing the little boy, Victor’s little boy, because he belonged to her.
And he gazed, without hate, at the distant outline of the man who was driving his plough along the horizon.
But old Amable did not want this marriage. He opposed it with the obstinacy of a deaf man, with a violent obstinacy.
Cesaire in vain shouted in his ear, in that ear which still heard a few sounds:
“I’ll take good care of you, daddy. I tell you she’s a good girl and strong, too, and also thrifty.”
The old man repeated:
“As long as I live I won’t see her your wife.”
And nothing could get the better of him, nothing could make him waver. One hope only was left to Cesaire. Old Amable was afraid of the cure through the apprehension of death which he felt drawing nigh; he had not much fear of God, nor of the Devil, nor of Hell, nor of Purgatory, of which he had no conception, but he dreaded the priest, who represented to him burial, as one might fear the doctors through horror of diseases. For the last tight days Celeste, who knew this weakness of the old man, had been urging Cesaire to go and find the cure, but Cesaire always hesitated, because he had not much liking for the black robe, which represented to him hands always stretched out for collections or for blessed bread.
However, he had made up his mind, and he proceeded toward the presbytery, thinking in what manner he would speak about his case.
The Abbe Raffin, a lively little priest, thin and never shaved, was awaiting his dinner-hour while warming his feet at his kitchen fire.
As soon as he saw the peasant entering he asked, merely turning his head:
“Well, Cesaire, what do you want?”
“I’d like to have a talk with you, M. le Cure.”
The man remained standing, intimidated, holding his cap in one hand and his whip in the other.
“Well, talk.”
Cesaire looked at the housekeeper, an old woman who dragged her feet while putting on the cover for her master’s dinner at the corner of the table in front of the window.
He stammered:
“’Tis—’tis a sort of confession.”
Thereupon the Abbe Raffin carefully surveyed his peasant. He saw his confused countenance, his air of constraint, his wandering eyes, and he gave orders to the housekeeper in these words:
“Marie, go away for five minutes to your room, while I talk to Cesaire.”
The servant cast on the man an angry glance and went away grumbling.
The clergyman went on:
“Come, now, tell your story.”
The young fellow still hesitated, looked down at his wooden shoes, moved about his cap, then, all of a sudden, he made up his mind:
“Here it is: I want to marry Celeste Levesque.”
“Well, my boy, what’s there to prevent you?”
“The father won’t have it.”
“Your father?”
“Yes, my father.”
“What does your father say?”
“He says she has a child.”
“She’s not the first to whom that happened, since our Mother Eve.”
“A child by Victor Lecoq, Anthime Loisel’s servant man.”
“Ha! ha! So he won’t have it?”
“He won’t have it.”
“What! not at all?”
“No, no more than an ass that won’t budge an inch, saving your presence.”
“What do you say to him yourself in order to make him decide?”
“I say to him that she’s a good girl, and strong, too, and thrifty also.”
“And this does not make him agree to it. So you want me to speak to him?”
; “Exactly. You speak to him.”
“And what am I to tell your father?”
“Why, what you tell people in your sermons to make them give you sous.”
In the peasant’s mind every effort of religion consisted in loosening the purse strings, in emptying the pockets of men in order to fill the heavenly coffer. It was a kind of huge commercial establishment, of which the cures were the clerks; sly, crafty clerks, sharp as any one must be who does business for the good God at the expense of the country people.
He knew full well that the priests rendered services, great services to the poorest, to the sick and dying, that they assisted, consoled, counselled, sustained, but all this by means of money, in exchange for white pieces, for beautiful glittering coins, with which they paid for sacraments and masses, advice and protection, pardon of sins and indulgences, purgatory and paradise according to the yearly income and the generosity of the sinner.
The Abbe Raffin, who knew his man and who never lost his temper, burst out laughing.
“Well, yes, I’ll tell your father my little story; but you, my lad, you’ll come to church.”
Houlbreque extended his hand in order to give a solemn assurance:
“On the word of a poor man, if you do this for me, I promise that I will.”
“Come, that’s all right. When do you wish me to go and find your father?”
“Why, the sooner the better—tonight, if you can.”
“In half an hour, then, after supper.”
“In half an hour.”
“That’s understood. So long, my lad.”
“Good-by till we meet again, Monsieur le Cure; many thanks.”
“Not at all, my lad.”
And Cesaire Houlbreque returned home, his heart relieved of a great weight.
He held on lease a little farm, quite small, for they were not rich, his father and he. Alone with a female servant, a little girl of fifteen, who made the soup, looked after the fowls, milked the cows and churned the butter, they lived frugally, though Cesaire was a good cultivator. But they did not possess either sufficient lands or sufficient cattle to earn more than the indispensable.
The Guy De Maupassant Megapack: 144 Novels and Short Stories Page 111
