Eugénie and I were at a distance from each other; we could not talk, but we glanced furtively at each other and our eyes mutually counselled patience.
The clock struck five, and the ladies left to change their dresses. I escorted my wife to the carriage which was to take her home with her mother. I would have been glad to go with her, but Madame Dumeillan and my mother persuaded me that it was my duty to remain with the guests who were still at table. Eugénie leaned toward me and whispered in my ear:
“Oh! we shall be much happier to-morrow, my dear! we shall not be separated then, I trust.”
Dear Eugénie, you were quite right. I had to return to the table, because it pleased some of our guests to eat and drink through four hours. If only I had been hungry!
We left the table at last, at six o’clock. Several of the gentlemen began to play cards. As courtesy did not require me to watch them lose their money, I left the restaurant and drove to my wife’s house.
The hairdresser had just arrived, and she had abandoned her lovely hair to him. Really, those hairdressers are too fortunate, to be able to pass their fingers through those lovely locks and to gaze constantly at the pretty head which is entrusted to them. That one took at least three-quarters of an hour to arrange Eugénie’s hair, as if it were difficult to make her look charming! But women are wonderfully patient with respect to everything that pertains to their toilet.
Her hair was arranged at last; but they took her away, for she was not dressed. My wife was not yet mine; she was still in the grasp of the conventionalities of that day. I was fain to be patient, until I once had possession of her. But that night I would bolt all the doors, and no one should see her the next morning until I chose.
I saw that Eugénie would not be dressed for at least an hour, so I went out and tried to kill time. I jumped into one of the carriages which were waiting at the door, and was driven to the Tuileries. I alighted on Rue de Rivoli, and entered the garden. The day was drawing to a close; the weather was gloomy and uncertain. There were very few people under those superb chestnuts toward which I walked. I was delighted, for I do not care for a promenade where there is a crowd; the people who stare at you or jostle you every moment prevent you from dreaming, from thinking at your leisure.
I rarely went to the Tuileries; to my mind that great garden was melancholy and monotonous; but on that day it seemed pleasanter to me, for I could think freely of my wife. My wife! those words still had a strange sound to me. I was married, I who had so often laughed at husbands! Had I been wrong to laugh at them, or should I prove an exception to the rule?
I walked at random. Finally I found myself in front of the enclosure where the statues of Hippomenes and Atalanta stand. That reminded me of a certain assignation. It was three years before, in the middle of winter. There had been a heavy fall of snow; the garden, the benches were covered with it, and it was very cold. But I had an assignation, and on such occasions one does not consult the thermometer. It was with a certain Lucile, who, for decency’s sake, called herself Madame Lejeune, and who mended cashmere shawls. She was very pretty, was Lucile. About twenty-three years old at that time, with a pretty, shapely figure, and an almost distinguished face which did not betray the grisette. I had an idea that her portrait was among those that I had preserved. She was accustomed to love madly for a fortnight; during the third week she calmed down, and ordinarily she was unfaithful by the end of the month. As I had been warned, I considered it more amusing to anticipate her, and to take up with another before the fortnight had expired. She did not forgive me; her self-esteem was wounded, for I have no idea that she would have been more constant with me than with others; but she tried to make me believe that she would have, and whenever I met her I could always detect a flavor of bitterness in her speech and anger in her glance.