Diane and Her Friends
I
THE DEFENSE OF DIANE
I AM a soldier's wife and a soldier's daughter. It is necessary you should know this in order to answer the question which I shall propose to you. Perhaps I ought also to say at the outset that I am a Frenchwoman. But that will soon be evident.
I do not think I am at all what is called "a new woman." Certainly I love to do what I please, which has always been the prerogative of all women. And I approve of many things which other women appear to wish to do, without in the least wishing to do them myself. If a woman wishes to be a lawyer, that is her affair. I recognize obvious reasons why she should wish to "exercise the suffrage," as they say in the Chamber. But I see reasons quite as obvious why I should not claim that privilege myself. I have a very sweet bone in my mouth which I prefer to any other. It is quite enough to work out my own salvation, and if I love to have my own way, it is not through pure selfishness, for I admit that I should never have discovered how absurd a way mine often was if I had not insisted upon having it. All this logical tournament about our rights bores me. When I was a little girl my tutor once wished to compel me to prove that an equation of the first degree had but one root. It was so ridiculously evident, how could any one be expected to prove it? I went to my father in a passion of tears, and he quite approved of me. "Why torment the child with proving what is evident to her?" he said. That remark of my dear simple-hearted father has since saved me many worries.
I have a cousin, Célimène, who married M. de Caraman. She criticizes me unmercifully—behind my back. But I know it just the same. Things done behind your back invariably turn up in front of you sooner or later. Célimène was made for M. de Caraman. It is impossible to believe that she married him in pure luck, for they are the hand and the glove—which must always be fitted. They do everything correctly, and nothing which is not correct escapes them. They dress exquisitely—as, for that matter, I do. But they never quarrel—as Raoul and I sometimes do, amicably. I am quite sure they do not adore each other, as Raoul and I do. They simply adore the same things,—not most things, but everything,—which is something impossible for me to conceive of. For example, Raoul has a kind of shaving-soap which is detestable to me. It is true that I like nearly everything which Célimène likes,—society, dress, gayety, all that is meant by that one word Paris,—but not so much as she does, and an enormity of things which she does not care for at all. My responsive scale covers several octaves not on her register. She sits unconscious as the statue of Memnon when I am shivering with disgust or quivering with ecstasy. That is one reason why Célimène disapproves of me. I am continually sounding notes not on her instrument. It is laughable to hear her freezing, "I do not understand how you," etc. How can she understand what she does not hear, or see, or feel! I am telling you about Célimène because she has taken sides against me, and I wish you to understand why.
It came about in this way. We were staying a week at the Milons' in the Vosges. It is absolutely necessary that I should tell you something about the Milons and their guests, because they are my judges, and I think it is quite as important to know something about the character of the judges as the facts in the case before them. All the trees on the lawn remain the same, but where the shadows fall depends upon the humor of the sun, does n't it? Well, my judges are of various humors.
First, there was M. de Sade. I mention him first because I hate him so. Every one fears him, but he is indispensable. Imagine the most deliciously piquant sauce ever invented by Savarin, biting, but appetizing. No dinner, no house-party, no yachting excursion is complete without M. de Sade. Amiable wits soon bore you. M. de Sade never bores. He bites, he stings, he irritates, he makes you furious, he brings tears to your eyes like paprika, and, worst of all, he fascinates. I always wish to sit near him. He produces a kind of pain that is positively agreeable. Among common people—I mean those accustomed to speak plainly—he would not perhaps appear so clever, so witty, so entertaining, for I suspect that it is because he tells the truth so nakedly that he is so amusing or so hateful to me. But I never feared him, and that I suspect, too, is the reason why he once forgot himself and went too far. There is nothing like the anger of mortification to make one forget one's self.
Then there was General Texier, an old comrade of my father's, who still calls me ma petite,—one of those simple brave men who will die as he has lived, a gentleman. It is not necessary to describe such people, they are so upright. Nor is it necessary to speak of Madame Texier. She has grown so enormous that it incommodes her to move or to think. Besides, she always agrees with "my General." It grieved me to have him take sides against me, to hear him appeal to my father's memory with real tears in those great eyes of his, which look so honestly from under his big white eyebrows. But I am not so sure my father would agree with him. It is one of those things I am dying to ask him.
We were all in the library after dinner. Madame Texier was asleep in the largest fauteuil by the fire. M. de Sade was drinking his coffee, his cup in his hand, on the other side of the mantel. The general was playing whist with M. de Milon, Madame de Milon, and Célimène. There were some young people also, whom I did not know, playing billiards in the farther end of the room, or talking with other guests from the neighborhood. None of these people counted, so I pass them over. I only remember that they all seemed stupefied with amazement, as all commonplace people are when anything out of the common happens.
That Jacques took my part did not surprise me. He is my husband's best friend, one of those friends I expected to find at my side, whether he approved of me or not, out of sheer loyalty, just because I am his friend's wife. That is what Monsieur Shakespeare calls "a woman's reason." You shall judge whether Jacques had a better one.
M. de Sade had taken me out to dinner. I was feeling very depressed, because M. de Milon, who is a great friend of the Minister of War, had just told me that it would be impossible to have Raoul recalled from Tonkin before spring. All the time while dressing I was planning how to get to that dismal place which has cost France so many lives and millions. My thoughts were full of this project. I was making my calculations while eating my soup, and was halfway to Hainan before the turbot. Then I realized that M. de Sade had made one or two unsuccessful attempts to converse with me, and had finally turned in despair to Jacques's sister, who sat on his left. Agathe is not at all like Jacques. She is one of those women who become extraordinarily affected at the sound of their own voices. Every subject she introduces immediately begins to bloat up out of all proportion to its importance or interest. You know those people. They step on every sprig of conversation. Finally one ceases to make an effort and thinks of other things. With M. de Sade, on the contrary, conversation flows. One is either immensely amused or choking with indignation. He sets going in me machinery of which I was ignorant. If you think, for example, that you have no malice in your nature, wait till you have found your M. de Sade. Agathe has written a book on psychology which became famous after M. de Sade had remarked of it, "O Psyche, what crimes are committed in thy name!" I think she must have been speaking of it, for after the turbot M. de Sade whispered to me,—
"Why do you go to Africa to look for lions, when in Paris they lie in wait for you?"
Now this requires that I should speak a little of myself. You will not be able to judge fairly if you do not understand me. I have always thought judges erred in taking no account of personality. They make no distinction between A and B, as if by any possibility A could conduct himself like B under the same circumstances. If the circumstances are the same, both heads fall into the basket! I wish you to know at once, therefore, that it is true that I shot a lion in Africa, though I was bred in a convent. It is not my fault that my mother died in giving me birth, though I reproach myself on that account, as one cannot help doing for many things of which one is the most innocent cause. It is not my fault that my father loved me the better because I was all that he had to worship, or that he scandalized my Aunt Julie by taking me with him to Africa. You see, at the very beginning I was the cause of scandal.
When I was sixteen I made with him the campaign against the Kabyles. Please realize what that means. For one thing it means that in the mountains of Africa one cannot ride as in the Bois de Boulogne, and that my Aunt Julie was shocked that I adapted myself to circumstances by preferring safety and ease on a man's saddle to danger and discomfort on a woman's. It goes without saying that I have a good seat on either, and that I do not behave in Paris as in Kabyle. But people like Aunt Julie, when they have worked themselves into a state of receptivity for shocks, are shocked at anything. Do not think I am going to tell you how I shot that lion. I only wish you to know how it happens that I am not like Célimène, who is obliged to rouge and who carries crème de la reine and salts and Heaven knows what in her porte-mouchoir. What would any young girl do in my place? She would drink health and strength in the air of the desert and the mountains. She would learn to keep cool, to be mistress of herself, and to shoot straight. She would have comrades instead of acquaintances. She would learn to dress a wound without shrinking, and to overcome the weakness natural to one who has never seen blood or suffering, without forfeiting the respect due to womanhood. Never among all these men with whom I lived so many years was I made to blush for shame or anger; no, never—till that evening in the library at the Milons.
But before I speak of that there is one thing more you must know—that I fence—I might as well say it, for it is true—admirably. The sword or the foil, it makes no difference which. It is quite important that you should understand this, therefore I speak plainly, without any wish to boast. Moreover, you may ask Raoul. He will tell you, a little ruefully, that my wrist is more supple than his. I think it is also as strong. Almost invariably in our bouts together I have the advantage in hits. I even know a trick which I have not dared to practice upon him, because it is not rigorously correct. It is not disloyal, but it is not in the manuals. You see, I began in mere fun with my father. He was so proud of me that he used to laugh when I touched him. At his age, naturally, he was a little stiff, so I began to tease some of the young officers. I confess I took great satisfaction in worsting them, for that happened sometimes. Then I begged of my father to permit me to take lessons—that is the way I put it—with an old maître d'armes who was reputed to be the best sword in the army. It was he who taught me that trick, of which I will tell you more presently.
Naturally, when I married Raoul we kept in practice together. Raoul never disapproved of anything which I wished to do. He has only one serious fault which sometimes annoys me—he wishes to prove everything, like the tutor of whom I told you. It is a positive mania. We quarrel occasionally, but only about things or other people, never about each other. No one except my father and Jacques begins to understand me like Raoul. When I recollect that, I do not much care about what has happened. When I have talked to him he will entirely approve of what I have done.
Well, all this is what the lawyers call the extenuating circumstances. Now I come to the pièce de conviction.
As I said before, we were in the library after dinner. There had been introduced in the Chamber some bill about the rights of women. I do not know what it was exactly. M. de Sade was relating the incident. He is a Deputy. I only recall that I was thinking about Raoul and how I should get to Tonkin. We had been separated nearly a year, and my head was so full of my project to go to him at all hazards that I had taken Jacques from his partner on the plea that I must consult him about something of great importance. We sat down in the embrasure of the window looking on the terrace. At first he had his cue in his hand, but when he found I was so serious he gave his cue to M. de Caraman and begged him to continue his game. Then he returned to me. I told him that Raoul was not coming back and that I simply must go to Tonkin. I was very earnest, and I suppose I became excited. I knew he would oppose me at first, so I waited patiently while he said all that I knew beforehand he would say—that I ought to consult Raoul, that it was a long journey, one a woman ought not to take alone, that Raoul might be ordered somewhere else before I reached there, and that Tonkin was not a fit place for a woman anyway. As if I had not thought of all these things, or that they amounted to anything after I had made up my mind! I only said, "What is fit for Raoul is fit for me." Please remember that remark, because it is the key to my character and to what followed.
Well, Jacques took my hands in both of his, and then I became tranquil, for I knew he would help me.
"My dear Diane," he said, "you are disappointed and excited. This is a serious undertaking. Promise me you will do nothing without consulting me. Promise me to think of it overnight."
As I had already consulted him and was sure to think of nothing else, I almost laughed at his dear simplicity.
"I am going to Paris to-morrow," he continued. "I will go to the Ministry and make inquiries."
Jacques and I, you know, are like brother and sister. He was on my father's staff in Africa. I love him next to Raoul—if one can use the same word about such different things. His emotion touched me.
"Dear Jacques," I replied, "I promise you solemnly."
Then he kissed me, laughing, evidently quite relieved, and said,—
"You are a good girl."
Then we rose.
M. de Sade was finishing his account of the sitting, and, as usual when M. de Sade is en veine, everybody was listening. You can imagine how entrancing he is when even General Texier forgets the trump.
"It is quite simple," he was saying. "With privileges go duties; with rights, responsibilities. Madame Célimène wishes the suffrage. Let her serve, then, in Africa like Madame Diane. Of what account is her complexion when the State is in danger? Place aux dames! They wish to earn their own living, to drive cabs, to study anatomy on the benches of the École de Médecine, to descend with the latest hat à la mode into the pit where men struggle—"
"Really, M. de Sade," I interrupted, "do you, then, struggle so hard? I had not observed it."
"Ah, madame," he replied, with that malicious urbanity of which he is master, "when that day comes when in defiance of nature you have possessed yourself of that phantom equality which you are in pursuit of, on that day I should ask you to do me the honor to explain a remark which women who have not descended to equality are privileged to make with impunity."
"And if I refused?"
"I should be privileged then to throw my glove in your charming face and await your seconds."
There was a storm of protestations.
"I have no wish to drive cabs," I remarked dryly, "but I agree with you, and if occasion arises I shall hold you to your theory."
"I shall be at your service, madame."
"Are you sure, M. de Sade?" I could not resist pushing him over the precipice.
"Absolutely," he said, bowing.
"Bravo!" cried M. de Milon, patting my shoulder.
"Qu'il est bête!" muttered the general, under his breath.
"Un vrai fou," said his wife, whose nap had been disturbed.
And then Jacques put an end to it all by saying it was too silly for discussion.
No one paid any further attention to what had been said. The boutades of M. de Sade were never taken seriously. But I could not rid my mind of it. I felt that something momentous had taken place and that something more momentous was inevitable. If I were not resolved to be quite truthful, I should pretend that my disappointment about Raoul accounted for my agitation—I mean my inward agitation, for outwardly I was growing frigid. But I will bare my whole heart. Besides, you have foreseen already that M. de Sade had seen Jacques kiss me. I cannot tell you how that thought irritated me. Not because he had seen,—all the world might have seen, but because in his eyes there was such a wicked smile. When such an atmosphere exists as that I was breathing, it is impossible to avoid an explosion. The only way to peace is through a storm.
The storm came in this way. The general, having heard from M. de Milon that Raoul was not to be ordered home for another year, came over beside me and in his fatherly manner endeavored to cheer me. Indeed, I had a great desire to cry. One must cry sometimes whether one has been educated in Africa or a convent. They all became interested and gathered about me.
"At our age," said Célimène, "a year is not so long. Do not think of it and it will pass quickly."
Imagine! She is five years older than I, and has M. de Caraman for a husband!
"I do not think of it," I said resolutely, "because I have decided to go to Raoul."
Before any one could express astonishment, M. de Sade spoke.
"Excellent idea," he said.
My tears were dry in an instant. I stood up and confronted him.
"Why do you say that?" I flashed, looking him in the eyes. If I am to blame in any respect, it was at that moment, for I felt the challenge in my voice and that he could not resist it.
"Because," he replied, slowly, returning my gaze,—"because since the days of King David it is dangerous to separate wives and husbands."
No one at first fully comprehended what was transpiring, except Jacques. He sprang to his feet.
"Wait," I said, pushing him aside; "this is my affair."
Then I turned to M. de Sade.
"Monsieur," I said, "I have not, to employ your words, descended to equality with you, but I do not for that reason claim the immunity you offer me. On the contrary, I accept full responsibility for what I shall say to you. You have insulted me, and it is to me, not to another, that you shall make reparation. You will apologize for what you have said, now, in the presence of those who heard you, or—"
"Or?" he interrupted, with that wicked smile of his, lighting a cigarette as if it were only a pleasantry.
I tore off my long white glove and struck him across the face with all my strength.
For a moment no one moved. Every one was stupefied. I saw distinctly the red mark of my glove, and I heard Célimène cry, "Oh!" Then I gathered up my dress and left the room.
As was to be expected, they all came to expostulate with me. First, M. de Milon and the general. They said M. de Sade's conduct was infamous, that I had behaved with spirit under great provocation, but that of course it was impossible for a gentleman to cross swords with a woman.
"Why?" I said, "if it is possible for him to insult one."
"Old as I am," said the general, "he shall answer for this to me. Be reasonable." And then he began to walk up and down, gesticulating and saying, "It is impossible, my child, impossible."
I will not repeat all they said because you know it already. But please try to keep my point of view.
Afterwards came Célimène, poor Célimène! with her tears and salts and her "No one ever heard of such a thing."
"Well, they will hear of it now," I said.
"You were most imprudent, my dear," she continued. "That does not excuse M. de Sade. He was abominable. But do not add to the scandal. A woman in your position cannot conduct herself like a common scold. Thank Heaven, we have not yet come to that! Instead of becoming a hero"—what a nasty insinuation!—"you will make M. de Sade one."
None of these arguments moved me. Moreover, I had not failed to observe that Jacques had not come to me. I was sure that he would not. Being married, I know the habits of men tolerably well. For that reason, after the house became quiet, I went to bed as usual, resolved to be awake early. There was no need to tell my maid to call me, for I have the habit of waking when I wish to. To prove to you that I had a good conscience, I slept soundly and woke with the sun. My maid was still sleeping. I dressed myself quickly, pulling on the short skirt and jacket I wear when there is a battue in the forest—but without corsets. Then I sat down by the window. It looked out upon the terrace, over the gardens and pond to the wood. I was not mistaken, for presently Jacques, with M. de Caraman and the general, came out from the library, crossed the terrace, and disappeared in the shrubbery. When I reached the spot they were talking, the general, M. de Caraman, M. de Milon, and two others whom I did not know. M. de Sade and Jacques were in their shirt-sleeves. It was an open space, across which the morning sun threw long shadows, and I waited on the edge till they took their places. Then I went forward. M. de Sade was facing me. He smiled when he saw me, and shrugged his shoulders as if much amused. I admit that when one has no protection, no mask, and no button on one's foil, one feels quite differently. But that shrug of the shoulders was all I needed. I was beside Jacques before he saw me.
"Give it me," I said—I ordered, grasping the guard. At first he held back.
"Jacques!" I said.
For just a second he hesitated, our eyes together. Then he let go.
M. de Sade had thrown down his weapon and stood with his arms folded, still smiling.
"Stand back!" I cried to those who were advancing. "Messieurs, you will pardon my ignorance of etiquette. We have passed beyond the need of it." Then I turned to M. de Sade and saluted him.
"En garde!" I said.
"There is a coat which is not precisely a coat of mail," he sneered, "but which is quite the equivalent of one. Will madame assure me—"
Viper to the last!
"M. de Sade," I said, advancing a step, "if you do not resume your sword, you will compel me to do with mine what last night I did with my glove."
He stooped, white with rage, and took up his sword.
"Gentlemen," he asked, "will you permit me to defend myself?"
Without losing a precious second I attacked him. I heard the two strangers protest. The others seemed paralyzed, it was all so unexpected and so sudden. I think the general was about to part us, when I heard dear Jacques's voice saying, "I will answer for her."
As for myself I was too busy to pay attention to them. I perceived at once that M. de Sade was only defending himself. Then I thought of the lesson of the old maître d'armes. With every resource at my command I attacked, obliging him to use all his own to parry, forcing him back at every thrust—for he would not reply—till he began to get worried, and then—well, this time it was not he who threw down his sword.
He was astounded. I was tempted to laugh at him, it was so comical. I am not vindictive. When I have had my way I am satisfied. But I had not quite finished.
"Resume your sword, monsieur," I said. "I have not done with you. "
"Enough, enough!" cried the general, running forward.
But M. de Sade held up his hand. I had not observed before the little red stream trickling from his wrist.
"Gentlemen," he said, "I admit freely that madame is my superior with the sword and"—bowing to me very sweetly—"in manners." It was a little late; but, you see, after all, at heart he was a gentleman.
Well, I ask you, did I not do right?
No one but Jacques will admit it. M. de Milon is quite obstinate about it. The general shakes his head at me from time to time,—on principle, you know,—and madame sighs without speaking. Célimène had hysterics, at breakfast. She cannot understand, she keeps repeating, how M. de Caraman permitted it. I tell her it was because I was there. But you should hear Agathe. She says it is a case of atavism!
Jacques has kissed me again,—with both arms, too,—only this time in private.
To-morrow I start for Tonkin, to prove to Célimène that I have no wish to pose as a hero—and to see my husband.