It was therefore decided to hold a meeting: the count, the marquis, Madame d’Olincourt, and her charming sister went to dine at a modest house the marquis owned in the Bois de Boulogne, and there the stern Areopagus decided, in an enigmatic style reminiscent of the answers given by the Cumaean Sybil,4 or of the decrees rendered by the Court of Aix (which, by virtue of its Egyptian origins, has certain claims to the use of hieroglyphics), that the good judge should indeed be “wed and yet not wed.”
The sentence having been passed, and the actors clearly rehearsed as to their roles, the group returns to the baron’s house, where the young lady in question offers her father no opposition. D’Olincourt and his wife are, they assure, delighted about such a well-suited marriage; they insinuate themselves to an astonishing degree into the judge’s good graces, are very careful not to laugh whenever he appears, and so worm their way into the hearts of both future son-in-law and father-in-law that they both readily consent to celebrate the mysteries of Hymen at the Château d’Olincourt not far from Melun, a magnificent estate belonging to the marquis. Everyone approves of the plan; only the baron offers his regrets at being unable to attend such a lovely celebration, but he will, he says, come and pay them a visit there if he can.
The day arrives at last, the happy couple is joined in holy matrimony at the Saint-Sulpice Church, in an early morning service, without any great to-do, and that very same day they set out for d’Olincourt. Count d’Elbène, bearing the name and in the garb of one La Brie, the marquis’s personal valet, receives the group when it arrives, and, when the evening meal is over, escorts the newlyweds to the bridal chamber, whose furnishings and machinery he has arranged and for whose operation he has been made fully responsible.
“Verily, my pretty one,” said the amorous native of Provence as soon as he found himself alone with his wife-to-be, “your charms are those of Venus herself, capistal* I don’t know where you got them, but one could scour the length and breadth of all Provence without finding anything to match them.”
Saying which, he began to caress the poor little Téroze through her many layers of petticoats, while she tried to make up her mind whether to laugh or be frightened.
“May the Good Lord above damn me here and now,” he went on, his hands roaming hither and thither, “and may I never judge another whore if these are not the shapes of love itself concealed beneath her mother’s glittering petticoats.”
Just then La Brie entered the room bearing two gold goblets, one of which he offered to the bride, the other to Monsieur de Fontanis.
“Drink, chaste couple,” he said, “and may you both find the presents of love and the gifts of hymen in this drink. Your Honor,” said La Brie when the good judge had seen fit to inquire about the reason for this drink, “this is a Parisian custom whose origins date back to the baptism of Clovis. It is a custom among us that, before celebrating those mysteries which will shortly occupy you both, you should partake of this potion which has been blessed by the bishop and receive therefrom the strength necessary for the undertaking.”
“Ah, parbleu!”5 cried the man of law, “I should be only too happy to observe the custom. Let me have the goblet, my friend, hand it to me … But, be forewarned, if you set a match to the wick, there’s no telling what your young mistress may have to contend with; I’m already chafing at the bit, and if you push me past the breaking point, I can no longer be held responsible for my actions.”
The judge drank up, his young bride followed suit, the valet withdrew, and the couple climbed into bed. But no sooner were they abed than the judge was stricken with such acute intestinal pains, with a need so urgent to relieve his frail nature on the side opposite from that which ought to have been seeking release, that, without the slightest regard for where he was, without the slightest respect for the fair person who was sharing his couch, he flooded the bed and the surrounding area with such a deluge of bile that the terrified Mademoiselle de Téroze barely had time to jump out of bed and call for help. Help came; Monsieur and Madame d’Olincourt, who had been careful not to go to bed, hurriedly arrived; the judge, dismayed beyond description, draped the sheets around himself in an effort to hide, not realizing that the more he tried to conceal himself the filthier he was becoming, until at last he was the object of such horror and disgust that his young wife, and the other people present, withdrew with loud protestations of pity over his condition and assurances that the baron would be informed of the matter without a minute to lose, so that he could dispatch forthwith one of the best doctors in Paris to the château.
“O Merciful Heaven,” cried the poor appalled judge, as soon as he was alone, “what a fine kettle of fish this is! I thought it was only in our royal palace, and on the fleur-de-lis itself, that one could overflow in this manner; but on one’s wedding night, in the wench’s own bed, that I must confess I cannot conceive.”
A lieutenant in d’Olincourt’s regiment whose name was Delgatz and who, in order to take care of the medical needs of the regiment’s horses, had taken two or three courses at the veterinary school, duly arrived the following morning in the guise of, and heralded as, one of the most famous disciples of Asclepius. It had been suggested to Monsieur de Fontanis that he appear in his most casual attire, and Madame de Fontanis—who in point of fact we ought not yet refer to by this name— went out of her way to tell her husband how attractive she found him in this outfit: he was wearing a dressing gown of pale yellow, with red stripes down to the waist, adorned with facings and lapels, beneath which he wore a little waistcoat of rough brown muslin, with sailor’s breeches of a matching color and a red wool bonnet: all of this, enhanced even more by the interesting pallor caused by his accident of the night before, overwhelmed Mademoiselle de Téroze with such a wave of renewed love that she refused to leave his side for a quarter of an hour.
“In God’s truth,”6 said the judge. “The girl does love me. Truly, she is the woman heaven has sent to make me happy. I acted very badly last night, but it isn’t every day one has an attack of diarrhea.”
At length the doctor arrived, took his patient’s pulse, and, expressing surprise at how weak he found him, proved to him by aphorisms culled from Hippocrates and commentaries from Galen that unless he fortified himself at dinner that evening with half a dozen bottles of Spanish and Madeira wine, he would find it impossible to manage the deflowering he had in mind. As for the attack of indigestion he had suffered the evening before, he assured him it was nothing.
“That attack, my dear sir,” he said to him, “was a direct result of a failure on the part of the liver’s ducts to filter the bile properly.”
“But,” said the marquis, “the accident was not dangerous.”
“I beg to differ with you, Monsieur,” the disciple of Epidaurus’s temple7 replied with great solemnity, “in medicine we have no minor causes which cannot become major unless they are arrested immediately by the profundity of our science. This minor accident might very well lead to a considerable change in Monsieur’s organism. This unfiltered bile, borne by the arch of the aorta into the sub-clavicular artery, and thence transported by the carotids into the delicate membranes of the brain, could very well have produced madness by altering the circulation of animal spirits and suspending their natural activity.”
“Oh, Heavens!” cried Mademoiselle de Téroze, bursting into tears. “My husband mad! Did you hear that, sister, my husband mad!”
“Please set your mind at ease, Madame. Thanks to the dispatch with which I have dealt with the problem, there is nothing to worry about, and I can now assure you the patient is on the road to recovery.”
With these words, joy was seen to return to every heart; the Marquis d’Olincourt tenderly embraced his brother-in-law, showed in a lively and provincial manner how profoundly interested he was in his welfare, and pleasure was, once again, the sole order of the day.
That same day, the marquis having invited his vassals and neighbors, the judge expressed a desire to deck himself out in proper
attire for the occasion. They kept him from doing so, however, and reveled in the pleasure of introducing him in that same bizarre attire to the entire society of the region.
“But he is so charming like that,” the wicked marquise was saying at every opportunity. “Truly, if I had known before I met you, Monsieur d’Olincourt, that the sovereign magistrature of Aix included such amiable gentlemen as my dear brother-in-law, I swear to you that I would never have chosen a husband other than from among that august and respected body.”
The judge thanked her; he bowed and scraped with a grating laugh, occasionally simpering in front of the mirror, muttering to himself, “There’s no denying it, old boy, you’re not bad, not bad at all.”
At length the evening meal was announced. The conspirators had invited the pseudo-doctor to stay over and, as he himself drank like a fish, he had little trouble persuading his patient to follow his good example. They had been careful to place within close reach of the two men some especially heady wines which, very quickly befuddling the organs of their brains, soon put the judge into the state they desired. The guests arose; the lieutenant, after his superb performance, retired to bed and disappeared the following day. As for our hero, his dear little wife took him in hand and led him toward the nuptial bed, escorted in triumphant procession by the entire company. The marquise, whose usual charming self was made even more so when she had imbibed a bit of champagne, told the judge she was sure that he had overindulged and that she was very much afraid that, overheated by the fumes of Bacchus, he would once again remain unfettered by love’s bonds that night
“Don’t fret about it for a single moment, Marquise,” the judge replied. “These beguiling gods are, when joined together, but more formidable. As for reason, what does it matter—assuming one can manage very well without it—whether one loses it in wine or in the flames of love? What does it matter whether one has sacrificed it to one or the other of these twin divinities? As far as we judges are concerned, reason is the one thing in the world we manage to do without most easily: we banish it from our tribunals as we do from our heads; we make a sport of riding roughshod over it. This is what makes our decrees such masterpieces, for, although they are completely devoid of common sense, we carry them out as resolutely as though we knew precisely what they meant. As I live and breathe,” the judge went on, stumbling slightly and stooping to pick up his red wool bonnet, which a moment’s loss of equilibrium had separated from his hairless head, “yes, indeed, as I live and breathe, I declare without fear of false modesty that I am one of the best legal minds in my troop. It was I who last year talked my learned colleagues into exiling from the province for a period of ten years—and thereby ruining forever—a nobleman who had already served his king faithfully and well. And all that over a party of females.8 They resisted, I kept on arguing, and the flock eventually came round to my way of seeing things … Goodness, I love morality, don’t y’know, I love temperance and sobriety. Anything that offends these twin virtues is anathema to me, and I deal with it accordingly. One must be severe, severity is the daughter of justice … and justice is the mother of… of… I beg your pardon, Madame, there are times when I sometimes suffer a slight lapse of memory…”
“Yes, indeed, you are quite right,” replied the mad marquise as she withdrew, taking the rest of the company with her. “Only do take care that there are no further lapses tonight such as those memory lapses you mention. For we must finally bring this matter to a conclusion, and my little sister—who worships you—cannot be expected to put up with such abstinence forever.”
“Have no fear, Madame, have no fear,” the judge went on, making an effort to accompany the marquise with a step that can only be described as slightly unsteady, “you may set your mind at ease. I shall return her to you tomorrow as Madame de Fontanis, and that I swear to you as surely as I am a man of honor. Isn’t that true, my dear?” the man of law continued, coming back to his companion, “Don’t you agree that tonight will see our mission successfully accomplished? You can see how much everyone wishes it; there is not a single member of your family who is not honored to be united with me by marriage; there’s nothing more flattering for a household than to have a judge as one of its members.”
“Who can say you nay, Monsieur,” the young lady answered. “I can only assure that, speaking personally, I have never felt as proud as when I have heard myself referred to as ‘the judge’s wife.’“
“I can easily believe it. Come now, get undressed, my turtle dove, I feel myself growing a trifle heavy, and I should like to have done with our little business if possible before I fall completely asleep.”
But as Mademoiselle Téroze—as is often the case with young brides—took forever primping and preparing herself for the nuptial bed: she could never find quite what she needed, was forever scolding her maids, and simply could not seem to finish; the judge, who had had his fill of waiting, decided to climb into bed, and from there he spent the next quarter of an hour calling out to her:
“Come on, parbleu, hurry up now! I can’t understand what can be taking you so long. If you don’t come soon it will be too late!”
In spite of his pleas, however, nothing happened, and since, given the state of drunkenness our modern Lycurgus9 was in it was rather difficult to find one’s head on a pillow without falling asleep thereon, he yielded to the most urgent of needs and was already snoring, as though he had just finished sentencing some Marseilles whore, before Mademoiselle de Téroze had even slipped out of her chemise.
“Fast asleep!” said Count d’Elbène as he tiptoed into the room. “Come, my love, come and grant me the happy moments this coarse beast wanted to steal from us.”
So saying, he spirited away with him the beloved object of his affection. The lights were extinguished in the bridal chamber, whose floor was immediately covered with mattresses. At a given signal, that part of the bed occupied by our man of the long robe was separated from the rest and, by means of a system of pulleys, raised to a height of twenty feet without our legal warrior, because of his inebriated state, ever being one whit the wiser.
At about three in the morning, however, wakened by a slight fullness of the bladder, and remembering that he had seen a night table containing the chamber pot necessary to relieve it, he reached out for it; at first surprised to find nothing but emptiness around him, he groped further; but the bed, which was suspended only by the ropes, responded in accordance with the movements of the person leaning out of it and, eventually passing the point of no return, tipped completely over, spilling out the load wherewith it was charged into the middle of the room.
The judge tumbled onto the mattresses that had been prepared for him, and so great was his surprise that he began to bellow like a calf being led to slaughter.
“What the devil’s going on here!” he said to himself. “Madame, Madame! I assume you’re not far off, in which case will you kindly explain to me what this fall is all about? Last night I went to bed no more than four feet above the floor, and all of a sudden, while reaching for my chamber pot, I fell more than twenty!”
But since no one responded to these tender laments, the judge, who when all was said and done was not all that uncomfortable where he was lying, forsook his efforts to find out what had happened and spent the rest of the night there, as though he were in his lowly bed in Aix.
After the judge had fallen, our friends had been careful to gently lower the bed which, fitting snugly back into the part from which it had been separated, seemed once again to be part and parcel of the same marriage couch. At about nine o’clock in the morning, Mademoiselle de Téroze tiptoed back into the room. As soon as she was inside, she opened all the windows and rang for her maids.
“I must tell you, Monsieur,” she said to the judge, “that your company is not exactly what I would call pleasant, and I can assure you that I intend to complain to my family about the way you have been treating me.”
“What do you mean?” said the judge, coming to his sens
es and rubbing his eyes, still totally in the dark as to the accident that had landed him on the floor.
“What do you mean, what do I mean!” said his young wife, thoroughly enjoying her husband’s discomfiture. “Last night when I came over to you, impelled by the sentiments that perforce must bind me to you, hoping to receive assurances from you of the same sentiments, you pushed me away with repugnance and threw me onto the floor! …”
“Oh, Good Lord!” said the judge. “Listen, my pet, I think I’m beginning to understand what happened … I offer you my most profound apologies. Last night, when I awoke with a rather urgent need, I did everything I could to relieve it, and in my thrashing about I not only threw myself out of bed but must have kicked you out as well. Besides which, the other extenuating circumstance is that I was most certainly dreaming, for I thought I had fallen from a height of twenty feet. Come, come, my angel, it’s nothing, nothing at all. We shall merely have to postpone our little game until tonight, and I promise you that I shall remain as sober as a judge. I shall drink nothing but water. But at least give me a kiss, my sugarplum, let’s kiss and make up before we face the others, or else I shall be quite convinced that you are holding a grudge against me, and that I wouldn’t want for all the world.”
The Mystified Magistrate Page 3
