"Adolphe is right," she said to her friends, "it is I who am unreasonable: he can not, he ought not, have a carriage yet: men know better than we do the situation of their business."
At times Adolphe was perfectly furious! Women have ways about them that demand the justice of Tophet itself. Finally, during the third month, he met one of his school friends, a lieutenant in the corps of physicians, modest as all young doctors are: he had had his epaulettes one day only, and could give the order to fire!
"For a young woman, a young doctor," said our Adolphe to himself.
And he proposed to the future Bianchon to visit his wife and tell him the truth about her condition.
"My dear, it is time that you should have a physician," said Adolphe that evening to his wife, "and here is the best for a pretty woman."
The novice makes a conscientious examination, questions madame, feels her pulse discreetly, inquires into the slightest symptoms, and, at the end, while conversing, allows a smile, an expression, which, if not ironical, are extremely incredulous, to play involuntarily upon his lips, and his lips are quite in sympathy with his eyes. He prescribes some insignificant remedy, and insists upon its importance, promising to call again to observe its effect. In the ante-chamber, thinking himself alone with his school-mate, he indulges in an inexpressible shrug of the shoulders.
"There's nothing the matter with your wife, my boy," he says: "she is trifling with both you and me."
"Well, I thought so."
"But if she continues the joke, she will make herself sick in earnest: I am too sincerely your friend to enter into such a speculation, for I am determined that there shall be an honest man beneath the physician, in me--"
"My wife wants a carriage."
As in the _Solo on the Hearse_, this Caroline listened at the door.
Even at the present day, the young doctor is obliged to clear his path of the calumnies which this charming woman is continually throwing into it: and for the sake of a quiet life, he has been obliged to confess his little error--a young man's error--and to mention his enemy by name, in order to close her lips.
THE CHESTNUTS IN THE FIRE.
No one can tell how many shades and gradations there are in misfortune, for everything depends upon the character of the individual, upon the force of the imagination, upon the strength of the nerves. If it is impossible to catch these so variable shades, we may at least point out the most striking colors, and the principal attendant incidents. The author has therefore reserved this petty trouble for the last, for it is the only one that is at once comic and disastrous.
The author flatters himself that he has mentioned the principal examples. Thus, women who have arrived safely at the haven, the happy age of forty, the period when they are delivered from scandal, calumny, suspicion, when their liberty begins: these women will certainly do him the justice to state that all the critical situations of a family are pointed out or represented in this book.
Caroline has her Chaumontel's affair. She has learned how to induce Adolphe to go out unexpectedly, and has an understanding with Madame de Fischtaminel.
In every household, within a given time, ladies like Madame de Fischtaminel become Caroline's main resource.
Caroline pets Madame de Fischtaminel with all the tenderness that the African army is now bestowing upon Abd-el-Kader: she is as solicitous in her behalf as a physician is anxious to avoid curing a rich hypochondriac. Between the two, Caroline and Madame de Fischtaminel invent occupations for dear Adolphe, when neither of them desire the presence of that demigod among their penates. Madame de Fischtaminel and Caroline, who have become, through the efforts of Madame Foullepointe, the best friends in the world, have even gone so far as to learn and employ that feminine free-masonry, the rites of which cannot be made familiar by any possible initiation.
If Caroline writes the following little note to Madame de Fischtaminel:
"Dearest Angel:
"You will probably see Adolphe to-morrow, but do not keep him too long, for I want to go to ride with him at five: but if you are desirous of taking him to ride yourself, do so and I will take him up. You ought to teach me your secret for entertaining used-up people as you do."
Madame de Fischtaminel says to herself: "Gracious! So I shall have that fellow on my hands to-morrow from twelve o'clock to five."
Axiom.--Men do not always know a woman's positive request when they see it; but another woman never mistakes it: she does the contrary.
Those sweet little beings called women, and especially Parisian women, are the prettiest jewels that social industry has invented. Those who do not adore them, those who do not feel a constant jubilation at seeing them laying their plots while braiding their hair, creating special idioms for themselves and constructing with their slender fingers machines strong enough to destroy the most powerful fortunes, must be wanting in a positive sense.
On one occasion Caroline takes the most minute precautions. She writes the day before to Madame Foullepointe to go to St. Maur with Adolphe, to look at a piece of property for sale there. Adolphe would go to breakfast with her. She aids Adolphe in dressing. She twits him with the care he bestows upon his toilet, and asks absurd questions about Madame Foullepointe.
"She's real nice, and I think she is quite tired of Charles: you'll inscribe her yet upon your catalogue, you old Don Juan: but you won't have any further need of Chaumontel's affair; I'm no longer jealous, you've got a passport. Do you like that better than being adored?
Monster, observe how considerate I am."
So soon as her husband has gone, Caroline, who had not omitted, the previous evening, to write to Ferdinand to come to breakfast with her, equips herself in a costume which, in that charming eighteenth century so calumniated by republicans, humanitarians and idiots, women of quality called their fighting-dress.
Caroline has taken care of everything. Love is the first house servant in the world, so the table is set with positively diabolic coquetry.
There is the white damask cloth, the little blue service, the silver gilt urn, the chiseled milk pitcher, and flowers all round!
If it is winter, she has got some grapes, and has rummaged the cellar for the very best old wine. The rolls are from the most famous baker's.
The succulent dishes, the _pate de foie gras_, the whole of this elegant entertainment, would have made the author of the Glutton's Almanac neigh with impatience: it would make a note-shaver smile, and tell a professor of the old University what the matter in hand is.
Everything is prepared. Caroline has been ready since the night before: she contemplates her work. Justine sighs and arranges the furniture.
Caroline picks off the yellow leaves of the plants in the windows. A woman, in these cases, disguises what we may call the prancings of the heart, by those meaningless occupations in which the fingers have all the grip of pincers, when the pink nails burn, and when this unspoken exclamation rasps the throat: "He hasn't come yet!"
What a blow is this announcement by Justine: "Madame, here's a letter!"
A letter in place of Ferdinand! How does she ever open it? What ages of life slip by as she unfolds it! Women know this by experience! As to men, when they are in such maddening passes, they murder their shirt-frills.
"Justine, Monsieur Ferdinand is ill!" exclaims Caroline. "Send for a carriage."
As Justine goes down stairs, Adolphe comes up.
"My poor mistress!" observes Justine. "I guess she won't want the carriage now."
"Oh my! Where have you come from?" cries Caroline, on seeing Adolphe standing in ecstasy before her voluptuous breakfast.
Adolphe, whose wife long since gave up treating _him_ to such charming banquets, does not answer. But he guesses what it all means, as he sees the cloth inscribed with the delightful ideas which Madame de Fischtaminel or the syndic of Chaumontel's affair have often inscribed for him upon tables quite as elegant.
"Whom are you expecting?" he asks in his turn.
"Who could it be, except Ferdinand?" replies Caroline.
"And is he keeping you waiting?"
"He is sick, poor fellow."
A quizzical idea enters Adolphe's head, and he replies, winking with one eye only: "I have just seen him."
"Where?"
"In front of the Cafe de Paris, with some friends."
"But why have you come back?" says Caroline, trying to conceal her murderous fury.