Madame Heurtebise
by
She was certainly not intended for an artist’s wife, above all for such an artist as this outrageous fellow, impassioned, uproarious and exuberant, who, with his nose in the air and bristling moustaches, rushed through life defiantly flaunting the eccentric and whirlwind-like name of Heurtebise,* like a challenge thrown down to all the absurd conventionalities and prejudices of the bourgeois class. How, and by what strange charm had the little woman, brought up in a jeweller’s shop, behind rows of watch chains and strings of rings, found the means of captivating this poet?
* Hit the blast (literally).
Picture to yourself the affected graces of a shopwoman with insignificant features, cold and ever-smiling eyes, complacent and placid physiognomy, devoid of real elegance, but having a certain love for glitter and tinsel, no doubt caught at her father’s shopwindow, making her take pleasure in many-coloured satin bows, sashes and buckles; and her hair glossy with cosmetic, stiffly arranged by the hairdresser over a small, obstinate, narrow forehead, where the total absence of wrinkles told less of youth than of complete lack of thought. Such as she was, however, Heurtebise loved and wooed her, and as he happened to possess a small income, found no difficulty in winning her.
What pleased her in this marriage was the idea of wedding an author, a well-known man, who would take her to the theatre as often as she wished. As for him, I verily believe that her sham elegance born of the shop, her pretentious manners, pursed up mouth, and affectedly uplifted little finger, fascinated him and appeared to him the height, of Parisian refinement; for he was born a peasant and in spite of his intelligence remained one to the end of his days.
Tempted by a quiet happiness and the family life of which he had been so long deprived, Heurtebise spent two years far from his friends, buried in the country, or in out-of-way suburban nooks, within easy distance of that great city Paris, which overexcited him even while he yet sought its attenuated atmosphere, just like those invalids who are recommended sea air, but who, too delicate to bear it in all its strength, are compelled to inhale it from a distance of some miles. From time to time, his name appeared in a newspaper or magazine at the end of an article; but already the freshness of style, the bursts of eloquence, were lacking by which he had been formerly known. We thought: “He is too happy! his happiness has spoilt him.”
However, one day he returned amongst us, and we immediately saw that he was not happy. His pallid countenance, drawn features contracted by a perpetual irritability, the violent manners degenerated into a nervous rage, the hollow sound of his once fine ringing laugh, all showed that he was an altered man. Too proud to admit that he had made a mistake, he would, not complain, but the old friends who gathered round him were soon convinced that he had made a most foolish marriage, and that henceforth his life must prove a failure. On the other hand, Madame Heurtebise appeared to us, after two years of married life, exactly the same as we had beheld her in the vestry on her wedding day. She wore the same calm and simpering smile, she had as much as ever the air of a shopwoman in her Sunday clothes, only she had gained self-possession. She talked now. In the midst of artistic discussions into which Heurtebise passionately threw himself, with arbitrary assertions, brutal contempt, or blind enthusiasm, the false and honeyed voice of his wife would suddenly make irruption, forcing him to listen to some idle reasoning or foolish observation invariably outside of the subject of discussion. Embarrassed and worried, he would cast us an imploring glance, and strive to resume the interrupted conversation. Then at last, wearied out by her familiar and constant contradiction, by the silliness of her birdlike brain, inflated and empty as any cracknel, he held his tongue, and silently resigned himself to let her go on to the bitter end. But this determined silence exasperated Madame, seemed to her more insulting, more disdainful than anything. Her sharp voice became discordant, and growing higher and shriller, stung and buzzed, like the ceaseless teasing of a fly, till at last her enraged husband in his turn, burst out brutal and terrific.