“Ah, mademoiselle!” I exclaimed, “or rather madam, for I regard you from this moment as my lawful wife, is it credible that such a charming creature should have existed on the earth without fame informing me of her existence? Blessed be the misfortunes which I have experienced and the pecks which my father has given me, since Heaven reserved me a consolation so unhoped-for! Until this day I thought myself condemned to an eternal solitude, and, to speak frankly to you, it was a heavy burden to bear; but when I see you I feel within me all the qualities of a father of a family. Accept my hand without delay; let us be married English fashion, without ceremony, and go away together to Switzerland.”
“I won’t hear of that,” said the young lady blackbird; “I mean our marriage to be magnificent, and all the blackbirds in France, who are anything like well-born, to be solemnly gathered to it. People like us owe it to their own reputation not to get married like cats in the gutter. I have brought a supply of bank-notes with me. Write out your invitations, go to your tradesmen, and don’t be stingy with the refreshments.”
I conformed blindly to the white lady blackbird’s orders. Our wedding was of overwhelming magnificence; they ate ten thousand flies at it. We received the nuptial benediction from a Reverend Father Cormorant, who was archbishop in partibus. The day finished up with a superb ball; in short nothing was wanting to my happiness.
The more deeply I understood the character of my charming wife, the more my love increased. She united in her little person all advantages of soul and body. Her only fault was that she was somewhat strait-laced; but I attributed this to the influence of the English fogs in which she had lived hitherto, and I had no doubt that the climate of France would soon dissipate this slight cloud.
A thing which disquieted me more seriously was a sort of mystery, in which she sometimes wrapped herself with singular strictness, locking herself in with her lady’s maids, and so passing hours together at her toilette, as she pretended. Husbands do not much like such whims in their households. A score of times it happened that I knocked at my wife’s apartments without getting the door opened. This vexed me cruelly. One day I insisted with so much ill temper, that she found herself obliged to accede and open to me for a moment, not without complaining bitterly of my importunity. I noticed, on entering, a great bottle full of a sort of paste made with flour and Spanish whiting. I asked my wife what she did with that concoction, and she replied that it was a soothing application for some chilblains that she had.
This soothing application seemed to me just a little suspicious; but what distrust could be excited in me by a person so gentle and discreet, who had surrendered herself to me with such enthusiasm and such perfect sincerity? I did not know at first that my well-beloved was a woman of the pen; she made the avowal in course of time, and she even went so far as to show me the manuscript of a novel in which she had imitated at one and the same time Walter Scott and Scarron. I leave you to imagine the agreeable surprise which such a discovery caused me. Not only did I see myself the possessor of an incomparable beauty, but I also acquired the certainty that the intelligence of my companion was in every respect worthy of my genius. From that moment we worked together. While I composed my poems, she blotted reams of paper. I recited my verses to her aloud, which did not in the least hinder her from writing all the time. She laid her novels with a facility almost equal to my own, always choosing the most dramatic subjects, parricides, rapes, murders, and even knaveries, always taking care to attack the Government by the way and to preach the emancipation of women blackbirds. In a word, no task was too great for her mind, no daring too much for her modesty; she never once had to strike out a line or to form a plan before setting to work. She was the type of the literary woman blackbird.
One day when she was applying herself to her work with unaccustomed ardour, I noticed that she was sweating great drops, and I was astonished to see at the same time that she had a great black stain on her back.
“Why, good gracious, I said to her, “whatever is that! Are you unwell?”
She seemed rather frightened, and even put out at first; but her great experience of the world soon helped her to regain the admirable command which she always exercised over herself. She told me that it was a spot of ink, and that she was very liable to it in her moments of inspiration.
“Can it be that my wife is going off colour?” I asked myself in a whisper. This thought prevented me from sleeping. The bottle of paste came to my mind. “O Heaven!” I exclaimed, “What a suspicion! Can this celestial creature be nothing but a painting, a touch of whitewash? Can she have varnished herself to impose upon me?... When I thought I was pressing to my heart the sister of my soul, the privileged being created for me alone, can it be that I wedded nothing but flour?”