You might shower attentions on him, embroider waistcoats for him, buy him purses and cravats, work his monogram in hair, nothing would prevent him from being himself; that is to say sulky, capricious, making scenes on the slightest excuse-because Louise had chatted with one of Moitte's pupils, because she had been to see Croemer, her piano teacher, because their opinions differed regarding such and such a writer. One day, for instance, when Mme Moitte took it into her head to read some passages from Rollings work aloud, our hedgehog rolled himself up in a ball. 'Taunay opposed the reading from M. Rollin. I tried to go on. He sulked! He played draughts with Moitte and went away without saying good night to his beloved/ Quarrelling about Rollin;' wasn't that the last straw!
Other, more serious, disagreements came about. At first the fiance had been all impatience, now he began to withdraw, appealing to the state of his finances, the difference between his age and Louise's - multiplying the ifs and buts. And when plied with questions he ended by confessing that he had a mistress, a cruel creature, 'with whom he was ashamed to be living, but whom he could not leave, because she would betray the secret of a friend'.
We need not try to penetrate the mystery, nor take this liaison tragically. Taunay was not long in liquidating it. At the cost of certain 'sacrifices* he was soon 'relieved of his burden*, as he expressed it, and the two women were the happier for it: Louise, thinking of the future, and Mme Moitte, thinking of the past. For there is no age limit to jealousy.
Henceforth, so it would seem, there could be no obstacle to the marriage. The young man promised to behave seriously, to be circumspect in his relations and to leave off going to the cafe. But why was his temper still so whimsical? Why couldn't he make up his mind? Weeks passed, they quarrelled, they made it up, and M. le Maire was still waiting.
For the Moittes the Taunay affair was becoming a sort of nightmare. One morning the lady of the house, determined to discover the truth, asked her cousin to come down to her room. c He came in with his face all distorted, and wet with tears, and made as if to embrace me. I repulsed him and sent him into the drawing-room. I called Louise, who started to have it out with him. I went in soon after. He confessed himself vanquished, but went on resorting to commonplaces about his age, and being afraid of not being loved. All sorts of rubbish. How long is this to go on?
At this game the nerves of the whole family were bound to give way. Louise was the first to fall ill, then Mme Moitte, and finally Taunay himself. Upstairs and down, they nursed one another, exchanging cups of tisane, comforting one another, begging one another's pardon. A regular madhouse.
The year 1806 was nearly at an end, and the situation was still just as confused. At last, on December 31 there came a thunder-clap. Moitte returned from the studio earlier than usual. 'He shocked us both by saying in a shaking voice that Taunay was a rogue, and then he handed us a letter from him, addressed to me, in which he tells me that I am really quite right; he is not fit to undertake the responsibilities of marriage, and he feels he should not be seen in this house any more; in view of which he begs me to have his belongings ready to be handed over to the porter who will come to fetch them/
If these explanations appear a little vague., we have only to wait another twenty-four hours to see what a handsome New Year present Mme Moitte was to receive on the morning of January 1. 'When I got home I found the key of the studio and another letter from Taunay which upset me and gave me the greatest pain. In this letter he confesses to c a malady hardly suitable to the marriage tie 9 , and says that it was on this account that he felt he ought not to enter into a union unworthy of a young lady in radiant health; that not daring to make such a painful confession, although, he says, he has not incurred it by licentious living, he had preferred to show the difficult side of his character, to which he now appealed, for the sake of dragging out an unhappy life that could not last much longer, far away from us/
Thus ended the Taunay romance, begun in the style of the troubadours and ending in a hospital report. But suppose its hero was having recourse to this hindrance to get out of the venture without loss? We may well suspect this when we learn that, two or three days later, a doctor he tad gone to consult prescribed... drinking Bordeaux! His case cannot have been very serious.
What was far more so was to have betrayed a young affection, disturbed the peace of a household of which he was the guest, and gone on for months repeating promises, indulging in fits of tears and scenes of jealousy, only to hoax everybody in the end and play the Malade imaginaire for fear of a Mariage force.
We have not many more pages of Mme Moitte's Diary to turn over, for the poor woman's health, already failing, became suddenly worse, and it was not long before she was forced to lay down her pen. What was the nature of her disease? The doctors attending her-and God knows there were enough of them — seem to have been at a loss. One shook his head, affirming that 'the abdomen was full of air, and after the air comes the water'. Another prescribed 'soapy pills'. A third advised laying e an omelet fried in oil and sprinkled with fennel* on the swollen part of her body. Alas, they might break as many eggs as they liked, the result of this cookery was nil.
As the attacks grew more frequent, Moitte, used as he was to bemoaning his own sufferings, became really anxious. He forgot his old selfishness, and even consented to sleep in another room so as not to disturb the patient. 'At last', she sighs, c we have arranged for him to sleep on the other side of the house tonight, of which I am very glad/ A sad twilight of conjugal life, in which the prospect of sleeping in peace is greeted as deliverance!
But the two old people were still really attached to each other, and Mme Moitte was to prove this a few weeks before her death. She disclosed to her husband that she possessed a * woollen stocking* - 25,000 francs saved sou by sou, day after day, out of the household expenses, after the fashion of one of Labiche's heroines, the estimable Mme de Montaudoin, Thanks to this small fortune - for such it was at that day - old Moitte would be able to end his days in peace.
*He was so taken aback by this windfall', writes our heroine, 'that he began to weep for emotion. I hope it will give him the courage to go on working, if I live; and if I die he will bless me, for after all, though it's an asset he could have done without, he will find it very pleasant,*
In these last lines the poor woman, who was to die a few days later, reveals her whole self. She had her faults: too quick a temper, too frequent fits if grizzling, but a heart of fold nevertheless. And her husband knew it, for he was not a ad fellow himself.
We should not laugh at the old couple; they represent two perfect types of middle-class Parisians of the first half of the century, a race that was by no means contemptible after all.
Writers and artists, not long after, entertained us at their expense by showing us only their absurdities. We cannot help smiling at Henri Monnier's dowagers and Daumier's old men. But we should not forget that the stringed bonnets of the former and the rabbit-skin hats of the latter often sheltered very good people. Such as we see them, with their little ambitions, their harmless crazes, their unconscious absurdity, they are related to the Moitte couple, and can be considered the ancestors of our middle class of today.
As to the merits of the latter, opinions are greatly divided. All the same, it is permissible to suggest that if its qualities and defeats were weighed one against the other, the good would outweigh the bad.
And could not the same be said of M. and Mme Moitte?
CHAPTER XVII. PUBLIC MORALS AS AN INVESTMENT