A Living Lie

by Paul Bourget

René remembered the old beau whom he had once met at her house, with his military bearing, his red, bloated face, and his grey hair. And then he saw her as she had looked only that morning, so fair, so white, so dainty—with her pale blue eyes and that peculiar air of refinement that lent an almost ideal charm to her most passionate embraces. Was it possible that such vile calumnies could have been spread concerning this woman! 'People are too horribly wicked!' exclaimed René aloud. 'And as for Claude——' His affection for him had been so sincere, and it was this man, his dearest friend, who had spoken of Suzanne in such a shameless manner, like a blackguard and a traitor. What a contrast with the poor angel thus insulted, who, knowing it, had taken no further revenge than to say, 'I have forgiven him!' On every other occasion when she had spoken of Claude it had been to admire him for his talents and to pity him for his faults. Another phrase of Suzanne's suddenly struck him. 'That is no reason why he should revenge himself by forcing his attentions upon any woman chance throws in his way. I got quite angry one day when he was seated next to me at table.' 'That is the reason!' said the poet to himself with returning anger; 'he has paid her attentions which she has repelled, and so he slanders her. It is too disgusting!'

A prey to these painful reflections, René had walked as far as the Place de l'Opéra, and, mechanically turning to the right, had ascended the boulevard without really noticing where he was. Hatred and rancour were so repugnant to his soul that these feelings were soon supplanted by the love he bore the beautiful woman so basely reviled by the vindictive actress. What was she doing at that moment? She was yonder, in a box at the Gymnase, obliged to sit out some play with her husband, and, no doubt, sadly dreaming of their love and their last kisses. No sooner had he conjured up her adorable image than he was seized with an instinctive and irresistible longing to see her in the flesh. He hailed a passing cab and gave the driver the name of the theatre. How often had he been similarly tempted to go to some place of amusement when he knew Suzanne would be there! But having given his mistress a promise that he would not do so, he had always scrupulously repelled the temptation. Besides, he took a curious pleasure in dwelling upon the absolute distinction between the two Suzannes—between the woman of fashion and his simple love—above all, he feared to meet Paul Moraines. He had read Ernest Feydeau's 'Fanny,' and was more afraid of the terrible jealousy described in that fine work than of death itself. To an analytical writer, like Claude, this would have been an excellent reason for seeking an encounter with the husband, so as to have a new kind of wound to examine under the microscope. The poets who have not turned their art into a trade nor their hearts into a raree-show are possessed of an instinct which makes them avoid such degrading experiments; they respect the beauty of their own feelings.

Whilst the cab was rolling along towards the Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle all these scruples, which René had once so religiously observed, returned to him. But Colette's words had moved him more deeply than he cared to admit. A hideous vision had flashed across his brain. He half feared that it might come again, and he knew that Suzanne's presence was the best preventive. Lovers frequently have these apparently unwarranted ideas—the results of an instinct of self-preservation which our feelings, like animate beings, possess. The cab rolled on whilst René defended his infraction of the agreement made with his mistress. 'If she could know what I have been obliged to hear, would she not be the first to say, "Come and read my love for you in my face?" Besides, I shall only look at her for a quarter of an hour, and then go away purged of this stain. And what of the husband? Well, I must see him sooner or later, and she tells me he is nothing to her!' Madame Moraines had not failed to make her favourite lover swallow the improbable fable served up by all married women to their paramours, though sometimes the fable is true—for woman will be a riddle to all eternity—as the reports of the divorce cases prove. In the delicacy with which Suzanne had allayed his most secret and least legitimate feelings of jealousy René found an additional pretext for denouncing those who slandered this sublime creature. 'This woman the mistress of Desforges! Why? For money? What nonsense! She, the daughter of a Cabinet Minister and the wife of a business man! Claude, Claude! how could you?'

This tumult of ideas was somewhat stilled by the necessity for action as soon as the poet reached the doors of the Gymnase. He was most anxious that he should not be seen by Suzanne, and stood on the steps outside for a moment lost in reflection. The first act was just over, as he could see by the people flocking out, and this circumstance furnished him with an idea for beholding his mistress without being observed by her. He would first take a ticket for one of the cheaper seats in order to get into the house; then, having found out where Suzanne was sitting—which he could easily do during the interval from the corridor at the side of the stalls—he would take a better seat, from which he could safely feast his eyes upon her adorable features.

As he entered the theatre he was startled for a moment by coming face to face with the Marquis de Hère, one of the swells he had seen at Madame Komof's; the young nobleman, wearing a sprig of heather in his button-hole, was swinging his stick and humming an air from the then popular 'Cloches de Corneville' so lightly that he could hardly hear it himself. He brushed past René without recognizing him, or appearing to do so, any more than Salvaney had done an hour ago. The poet quickly made his way to one of the entrances to the stalls. He had not long to look; Madame Moraines was in the third box from the stage, almost opposite him. She occupied the front seat, and there were two men in the background; one, a fine young fellow, with a long beard and a pale complexion—the husband, no doubt—was standing up. The other, who was seated——

But why had chance—it could only be chance—brought into that box on this very night the man whose name the wretched actress had just coupled with Suzanne's? Yes, it was indeed Desforges who occupied the chair behind Madame Moraines. The poet had not the slightest difficulty in recognizing the Baron's energetic countenance, his piercing brown eyes, his fair moustache, his high colour, and his forehead surmounted by a wealth of almost white hair. Why did it distress René to see this old beau talking so familiarly to Suzanne as she sat there fanning herself, her face turned towards him, whilst Moraines scanned the boxes with his opera-glass? Why did it cause him such pain as to make him turn hastily away? For the first time since he had had the happiness to catch sight of this woman on the threshold of the Komof mansion, looking so fair and slim in her red gown, suspicion had entered his soul.

What suspicion? He could not possibly have expressed it in words. And yet? When Suzanne had spoken to him about the theatre that morning she had told him that she was going alone with her husband. What motive had led her to pervert the truth? The detail, it was true, was of no importance. But a lie, be it great or small, is still a lie. After all, perhaps Desforges was only visiting them in their box during the interval. This explanation seemed so natural as well as acceptable that René adopted it on the spot.

Returning to the box-office, he asked for an outside stall, on the left, having calculated that from this seat he would have the best opportunity of watching the Moraines without being seen himself. Meanwhile the audience had again settled down and the curtain rose. Desforges did not leave the box. He kept his seat at the back, leaning forward to talk to Suzanne. But why not? Could not his presence be explained in a thousand ways without Suzanne having lied? Could not Moraines have invited him without his wife's knowledge? He spoke familiarly to the woman, it is true, and she answered him in a similar manner. But had not he, René, met him at her house? A gentleman is sitting down in a theatre talking to a lady he knows. Does that prove that there is a vile bond of sin existing between them?

The poet argued in this fashion, and his arguments would have seemed to him irrefutable if he had seen on Suzanne's face a single one of those traits of melancholy he had expected to find. On the contrary, as she sat there in her elegant theatre-gown of black lace, with a little pink bonnet on her fair hair, eating, with dainty fingers, from the box of crystallised fruit that stood before her, she looked thoroughly happy, and as though she had not a care in the world. She laughed so heartily at the jokes in the piece, and her eyes were so bright and sparkling as she chatted with her two companions, that it seemed impossible to imagine she had only that morning paid a visit to the shrine of her most secret and heartfelt love. The emotions called forth by her meeting with her lover had left so few traces on her face, now beaming with pleasure, that René scarcely believed his own eyes. He had expected to find her so very different.

The husband, too, with cordial joviality expressed in his manly features, seemed by no means the crabbed and suspicious recluse Suzanne had led her credulous lover to imagine. The unhappy fellow had come to the theatre to get rid of the pain which Colette's words had caused him, but when he reached home his distress had only increased. It has often been said that we should not keep many friends if we could hear those to whom we give that title speak of us behind our back. It is an even less satisfactory experiment to take by surprise the woman we love. René had just tried it, but he was too passionately fond of Suzanne to believe in this first vision of his Madonna's duplicity.