And there was, to be sure, something in that.
XXI
A HAPPY UNION
There are happy marriages, whatever novelists say. There are married couples who love each other, and live happily together to the end of their days. The conditions of this happiness, the circumstances of this harmony may not always, perhaps, be such as one solely interested in the aesthetic aspects of society might advocate. But what can we do? For many centimes there is no virtue but the loftiest minds have commended it to the world with arguments as attractive in form as they have been sublime in purport. And have they changed us? What is the history of the past if not the history of to-day?
There are happy unions. There are unions middling happy. And there are unhappy unions. "I alone know where my shoe pinches," said a celebrated American, when congratulated upon his happy home. Men or women, great numbers can say the same, for Providence seems not to have cared to shoe us all according to our measurements. Our subsequent behaviour is the important thing. Advice on this point is not lacking, which is not surprising, since we have expressly entrusted to a corps of celibates the direction of domestic life, and the instruction of man and wife separately in the most secret details of a relation which, by his very profession, the instructor cannot practically know.
The authority of this advice being all that gives it interest, each takes as much of it as he sees fit, and goes on doing what he pleases. One cries out and the other is silent. One philosophically resigns himself to limping all the way to the grave. Another prefers amputation and the hope of comparative comfort with a wooden leg. Who is right and who is wrong? Let him decide who has attained certainty in such matters. As for me, all I dare affirm is that it is easier to theorize than to prove, considering the variety of the problems and the complexity of the psychology in which their solution might be found.
Let me, by way of example, briefly sketch the history, as simple as it is true, of the happiest couple I have ever known. I will admit that it is not a tale proper for publication in a Manual of Morals. Rarely do bare facts, unembellished by fiction, authentically illustrate precepts which we are more inclined to advocate than to follow. The sole merit of this tale is that it is true, from first to last. I leave out nothing and add nothing. I knew the people. I kept them in sight all along the hard road that led them from crime to perfect conjugal felicity. I am not attempting to prove any theory. I am telling what I have known and seen.
Adèle was a handsome girl according to country esthetics. Large, strong, of brilliant colouring, with a mop of tangled red hair and iron-gray eyes which never dropped before those of any man. She helped her father, Girard the fishmonger, to carry on his business. In a lamentable old broken-down cart, behind a small, knock-kneed horse, who knew no gait but a walk, Girard would set out at nightfall for Luçon, the large town, and come back in time to sell his fish before midday. Immediately upon arrival, the fishmonger, his wife and their children, each loaded with a basket of shell fish, mullet, sole, and whiting, packed under sticky seaweed, would disperse over the village, the outlying hamlets, the farms, and peddle their wares.
This trade entails much travelling about and seeing many people. Bold, and pleasant to the eye, Adèle was welcomed everywhere. No speech or behaviour from the country lads was likely to fluster her. Peasants, who are no more obtuse than city men, have long since recognized the value in business of an agreeable young person to attract trade. Any country inn that wants to prosper must first adorn itself with a pretty servant. There is everywhere a demand for beauty. For lack of anything better, men will philosophically fall back upon ugliness. Life takes upon itself to accommodate almost everybody.