CHAPTER XXV
THE SYMMETRY OF THE COMIC MUSE
July came, making the perfume of the meadows more fragrant, the stench of the Paris streets more foul.
Madeleine had adopted Jacques’s rationalism, and, having discarded all supernatural aids, was applying her energies to the quelling of her ‘passions.’
It stood to reason that l’amitié tendre could only spring from the seeds of Admiration. It behoved her, then, to make herself worthy of Admiration. The surest way of achieving this was to perfect herself in the air galant, and she had the great good fortune to procure the assistance of one of the most eminent professors of this difficult art. For the Chevalier de Méré wrote an elaborate Epistle asking her to grant him the privilege of waiting on her, which she answered in what she considered a masterpiece of elegant discretion, consisting of pages of obscure preciosity ending in the pleasant sting of a little piquant ‘yes.’
He became an almost daily visitor, and, unfailingly suave and fluent, he would give her dissertations on life and manners, filled with that tame, fade common sense which had recently come to be regarded as the last word in culture.
She was highly flattered by his attentions, naturally enough, for he was considered to have exquisite taste in ladies and had put the final polish on many an eminent Précieuse. Under his tuition she hoped to be, by the time of her visit to Conrart, a past-mistress in the art of pleasing, and to have her ‘passions’ in such complete control as to be quite safe from an attack of bashfulness.
A July of quiet progress—then August and Mademoiselle de Scudéry! She awaited the issue of this next meeting with quiet confidence. There is a comfortable solidity about four weeks, like that of a square arm-chair in which one can sit at one’s ease, planning and dreaming. If Madeleine had been gifted with clarity of vision she would have realised that, for her, true happiness was to be found nowhere but in that comfortable, sedentary posture. Only those very dear to the gods can distinguish between what they really want and what they think they want.
Berthe was full of sly hints with regard to the Chevalier, and his visits elicited from her many an aphorism on the tender passion. She had evidently given to him the rôle formerly played by Jacques in her version of Madeleine’s roman.
And what of Jacques? He was naturally very jealous of the Chevalier and very angry with Madeleine.
He was now rarely at home in the evenings. Monsieur Troqueville, who, during the first week of July, was forced to keep his room by a severe attack of gout, seemed strangely uneasy.
Suddenly Jacques ceased coming home even to sleep, and at the mention of his name Monsieur Troqueville would be threatened by a fit of apoplexy.
When alone with Madeleine he was full of vague threats and warnings such as: ‘When I get hold of that rascally cousin of yours, I would see him that dares prevent me strangling him!’ ‘Have a care lest that scoundrel Jacques stick a disgrace upon you, as he has done to me!’ ‘If you’ll be ruled by me you’ll have none of that fellow! ’Tis a most malicious and treacherous villain!’
A sinister fear began to stir in Madeleine’s heart.
After a week’s absence, Jacques appeared at supper, dishevelled and debonair, with rather a wicked gleam in his narrow eyes. The atmosphere during the meal was tense with suppressed emotion, and it was evident that Monsieur Troqueville was thirsting for his blood.
Supper over, Madeleine made a sign to Jacques to follow her.
‘Well?’ she asked him, once they were in her own room.
‘Well?’ he answered, smiling enigmatically.
‘You have been about some mischief—I know it well. Recount me the whole business without delay.’
‘Some mischief? ’Tis merely that I have been driving the playwright’s trade and writing a little comedy, on life instead of on foolscap.’
‘I do not take your meaning.’
‘No? Have you ever remarked that Symmetry is the prettiest attribute of the Comic Muse? Here is my cast—two Belles and one Gallant. Belle I. loathes the Gallant like the seven deadly sins, while he most piteously burns with her flame, and has been hoodwinked by his own vanity and the persuasions of a friend that she burns as piteously with his. Now, mark the inverted symmetry—the Gallant loathes Belle II., while she burns with his flame and is persuaded that he does with hers. Why, the three are as prettily interrelated as a group of porcelain figures! I am of opinion that Comedy is naught but Life viewed geometrically.’
‘You talk in riddles, Jacques, and I am entirely without clue to your meaning—save that it is some foolishness,’ cried Madeleine with intense irritation. Jacques’s only answer was an inscrutable smile.
‘Read me your riddle without delay, or you’ll have me stark mad with your nonsense!’ she cried with tears of suspense and impatience in her eyes.
So Jacques told her how after his first rebuff Monsieur Troqueville had for a time ceased to pester Ariane with his addresses, and had found balm for his hurt vanity in pretending to his tavern companions that his success with Ariane had been complete, and that he held her heart in the hollow of his hand. He had almost come to believe this himself, when one evening his friends in the tavern, who had of course never believed his story, had insisted on seeing Ariane in the flesh. It was in vain that Monsieur Troqueville had furiously reiterated that ‘the lady being no common bawd, but exceeding dainty of her favours, would never stoop to such low company as theirs.’ The company was obdurate, reiterating that unless they saw her with their own eyes they would hold his ‘Chimène’ to be but a ‘chimère,’ and that like Troy in Euripides’ fable, it was but for a phantom lady that he burned. Finally, Monsieur Troqueville, goaded beyond all endurance, vowed that the lady would be with them ere an hour was passed. The company agreed that if he did not keep his word he would have to stand drinks all round and kiss their grim Huguenot hostess, while if Ariane appeared within an hour they would give him as brave a petite-oie as their joint purses could afford. (At the words ‘petite-oie’ Madeleine went pale.) Once outside the tavern Monsieur Troqueville gave way to despair, and Jacques was so sorry for him that although he felt certain the business would end in ridicule for them both, he rushed to Ariane’s house to see if he could move her to pity. Fortunately he found her alone and bored—and took her fancy. To cut a long story short, before the hour was up, amid the cheers of the revellers and the Biblical denunciations of the hostess, Ariane made her epiphany at the tavern and saved Monsieur Troqueville’s face. After that Jacques went often to see Ariane, and delivered the love-letters he carried from Monsieur Troqueville, not to her but to her ancient duenna, in whose withered bosom he had easily kindled a flame for his uncle. Finally, having promised him a meeting with his lady, he had thrown him into the arms of the duenna.
When Jacques had finished his story, Madeleine, who had gazed at him with a growing horror in her eyes, said slowly,—
‘To speak truth, you seem to me compact of cruelty.’ At once he looked penitent. ‘No, Chop, ’tis not my only humour. One does not hold Boisrobert and the other writers of Comedy to be cruel in that they devise droll situations for their characters.’
‘That is another matter.’
‘Well, maybe you are in the right. ’Twas a scurvy trick I played him, and I am ashamed. Are you grievously wroth with me, Chop?’
‘I can hardly say,’ she answered and, her eyes wandering restlessly over the room, she twisted her hands in a way she had when her nerves were taut. ‘There are times when I am wont to wonder ... if haply I do not somewhat resemble my father,’ she added with a queer little laugh.
The idea seemed to tickle Jacques. She looked at him angrily.
‘You hold then that there is truth in what I say?’ and try as she would she could not get him to say that there was not.