Max O'Rell

The Brune and the Blonde — Madame la Comtesse d’A. and Lady B. chat a little about their husbands, discuss their respective merits, and indulge in several little confidences.

(The scene is laid in a small drawing-room. The two friends are seated, engaged in needlework.)

Lady B.—“How beautifully you embroider, dear! You use your needle to perfection. That little pink bird is exquisitely shaded. I should never get to blend my colours as you do. And how your fingers fly!”

La Comtesse.—“Ah Ça! you think, I daresay, that we Frenchwomen only know how to read novels.”

Lady B.—“Indeed I don’t; on the contrary, I know very well that you are wonderfully clever with your needle. But what you are doing there is too delicate for slippers, don’t you think so? Those colours will be so quickly soiled, especially if the Count has my husband’s trick of crossing his feet when he is sitting or lounging in his easy chair.”

La Comtesse.—“They are only for the bedroom. I don’t like men in slippers, it makes them look shorter, and authorises them to take little liberties in one’s company—to cross their legs, and so on; I shall have heels put to these, I will not have my husband lose a particle of his height in my eyes. And you, dear, what is that you are about?”

Lady B.—“A kind of calotte. We call it a smoking-cap in English.”

La Comtesse.—“You don’t mean it?”

Lady B.—“Why not?”

La Comtesse.—“How old is Lord B.?”

Lady B.—“Thirty-two.”

La Comtesse.—“And you are going to let him wear a cap like that? (Laughing heartily.) But, ma chÈre, the forehead is the finest part of a man. If you tolerate a skull cap, we shall soon see you knitting him night-caps. It’s a sloping and dangerous path you are on. There’s divorce ahead....”

Lady B.—“Oh! I like to see men at their ease about the house.”

La Comtesse.—“At their ease! And supposing you do, that’s not a reason for making them frights. They are quite ugly enough as they are. Besides, you will make that poor Lord B. horribly susceptible to cold in the head. Do you know anything more ridiculous than a man with his nose turned into a noisy trumpet? I should never be able to help laughing in his face; it would be no use my trying.”

Lady B.—“For shame!”

La Comtesse.—“It takes such a trifle to spoil a man. Just take the case of the Marquis de P.; he is a splendid-looking man, a gentleman every inch; the carriage of a king. Would you believe it, the marchioness, who, it is said, is as much in love with him as when they were first married, lets him wear spectacles? He looks for all the world like a German doctor in them.”

Lady B.—“But what if he is short-sighted?”

La Comtesse.—“A fine reason that! Les lunettes sont des remÈdes d’amour. As if he couldn’t wear a pince-nez or an eye-glass. I rather like an eye-glass, don’t you?”

Lady B.—“No, indeed, I think them horrid.”

La Comtesse.—“Do you really? Now, I think they give a man a little air of impertinence that is not disagreeable. On young fellows, I admit, they are detestable; but on a man over thirty, I assure you, I rather like them.... Why, dear, nearly every gentleman wears an eye-glass in England!” Lady B.—“That is true, but they do not use them to stare rudely at every woman they meet. I consider Frenchmen dreadful offenders in that respect.”

La Comtesse.—“Englishmen are indifferent towards women.”

Lady B.—“That’s quite a mistake, my dear; their apparent indifference is really respect, and, thanks to that respect, we can go where we like in peace and safety. I don’t mind telling you that I have my doubts about the real motives of the politeness of Frenchmen.”

La Comtesse.—“How can you talk like that? you, who come from a country where a man thinks nothing of pushing past a lady and making her stop in the street, or of entering a railway carriage before her! No matter where he may be, a Frenchman will always stand aside to let a woman pass....”

Lady B.—“Yes, to have a better look at her. Now, at the theatre, for instance, to me they are particularly annoying, your Frenchmen. Between the acts, they come and stand about in the corridors and near the boxes, and there, a yard or two from you, they will examine you in detail through their opera-glasses. You may think yourself lucky if they do not forthwith pass all sorts of remarks about you. That kind of thing annoys and insults a woman. You may call it gallant, if you like; I call it rude.”

La Comtesse.—“Rather impertinent, I will admit.”

Lady B.—“Impertinent, indeed! that is a mild word for it. Do you know, one evening—it was at the Opera—I was in a box ... a little dÉcolletÉe ... en losange, you know ... it was very fashionable in 1880.”

La Comtesse.—“It will come in again, you may be sure, c’Était mutin en diable.”

Lady B.—“What did you say it was?”

La Comtesse.—“I said it was mutin en diable. Does that shock you?”

Lady B.—“Yes, a little: it reminds me of an expression of my husband’s.”

La Comtesse.—“What expression?”

Lady B.—“I don’t like to tell you.”

La Comtesse.—“What nonsense, dear; it’s only between ourselves: nobody else can hear.”

Lady B.—“Well then, it was one evening on coming home from a banquet, he told me I was damned pretty.”

La Comtesse.—“Did he? (kissing her.) Well, so you are.”

Lady B.—“How would you say that in French? Would you say jolie À faire ... damner?”

La Comtesse.—“Jolie en diable would be better.” Lady B.—“I forgave him that night; he had been dining, as only our husbands in England know how to dine.... When my husband comes home late, I always wait up for him. Do you for yours?”

La Comtesse.—“Of course I do, always. Besides, when the Count has dined out, he is so entertaining.”

Lady B.—“I cannot say the same of Lord B.: he is a little bit dull in his cups.”

La Comtesse.—“Well, dear, you were saying that you were at the Opera one night in a low-necked dress, and that....”

Lady B.—“Yes, true. I was forgetting; do lend me a needleful of your pink silk.... Oh! that is soon told: it was neither an event nor an adventure. As I told you, I was seated in my box.... Well, during one of the entr’actes, two gentlemen came and took up their position in front of me, and never took their eyes off my corsage the whole time. I was indignant.”

La Comtesse.—“You were wrong. When we indulge our coquetry to satisfy our vanity, we ought to be willing to put up with the consequences.”

Lady B.—“To satisfy our vanity! How do you mean?”

La Comtesse (smiling).—“Come now, I appeal to you: is it simply to be a little cooler that we have our bodies cut low?”

Lady B.—“No, of course not; we like to be dÉcolletÉes, because it is the fashion; because, if we did not, we should appear ridiculously prudish and outlandish. Alas! we are the slaves of fashion!”

La Comtesse.—“My dear, if your form resembled the poor little Baronne de S.’s, do you believe that any fashion in the world would make you wear a low-necked dress?... You would soon reconcile to yourself the thought of appearing prudish, ridiculous, and outlandish.”

Lady B.—“Then you excuse those two impertinent creatures?”

La Comtesse.—“I am almost inclined to do so. I do not see why a man should not take a pleasure in looking at that which it seems to give us pleasure to show.”

Lady B.—“Well, I can only tell you that such a thing would never have happened to me in England.”

La Comtesse.—“I can quite believe that. I have seen your countrymen look at Vesuvius as unmoved as if they had been looking at the chimneys of St. Etienne or Birmingham.... Besides, my dear, had you not a fan with you to protect you?”

Lady B.—“I have taken note of what you said just now, you know; that if women are coquettish, it is to satisfy their vanity. Perhaps you will succeed in explaining to me why there are women who carry their coquetry as far as la galanterie?”

La Comtesse (seriously).—“A coquette satisfies her own vanity; a woman who misconducts herself satisfies the vanity of a man. She is a fool.”

Lady B.—“Ah! that is better (a few moments’ silence). By the bye, have you seen Lady G. lately? Poor little woman! is she not an inconsolable widow?...”

La Comtesse.—“I saw her last Tuesday. I found her better ... she was beginning to be a little more reasonable.”

Lady B.—“I saw her the day after Lord G.’s death. She was in a pitiable state.”

La Comtesse.—“So did I; but that was nothing ... it was on the day itself that you should have seen her.... She was beside herself ... she had completely lost her reason.... You should have heard her reciting the litany of her husband’s good qualities. What qualities, what virtues people discover in their dead relatives, to be sure: did it never strike you so?... They say Lord G. has left her all his fortune, at least all that he could leave her.... It is no light matter being left a widow in England: ... your husbands are very shrewd, do you know! English wives have a great interest in taking every care of their husbands.” Lady B.—“Such is not Lady G.’s case, however. Her husband leaves her his fortune on condition she remains a widow. If she re-marries, she loses all her rights.”

La Comtesse.—“Well, well, that is tyranny, or I never understood the word. Not content with having been a despot all his life, he must continue after his death to make his wife feel an authority that he can only exercise by proxy. There! really, it is only in England that you find husbands of that stamp.”

Lady B.—“I don’t agree with you. I think a husband shows his wisdom in protecting his wife against the fortune-hunters that might be attracted by her money.”

La Comtesse.—“But a woman is not a baby that does not know one thing from another ... and if your husbands did not treat you as minors....”

Lady B.—“Besides, after all, you must admit that if a man loves his wife, it is not pleasant for him to think that there is perhaps an individual who is only waiting for him to die, in order to marry his widow and enjoy comfortably a fortune that has perhaps cost him great trouble to amass.”

La Comtesse.—“I do not admit any such injunctions. A woman is capable of devotion and fidelity. But as for imposing upon her a sacrifice for which she is to be paid, I call it insulting. I should never feel anything but contempt for the memory of a husband who had treated me in such a way.... I should marry again and have done with him and his money.”

Lady B.—“I can forgive jealousy in those who love deeply; at least I excuse it.”

La Comtesse.—“And so can I, but what you were speaking of a moment ago is not jealousy, it is vanity, the vanity of a tyrant.... A propos of vanity and wills, have you heard about the will of M. de R.... No? Well then, this is the kind of vanity I admit of: M. de R. kept up his reputation of a humorist and a good husband to his last moment. What did he do the night before his death but send for his notary, and, before his friends and relatives who were present, dictate to him the following will: ‘I have loved my wife dearly, and I know that my wife has loved me dearly, and will regret me. I leave her all I have, to do as she pleases with, without having to consult anyone. I authorise her to marry again; I even advise her to do so; I do not fear competition.’ Now, I can assure you that though Madame de R. is only thirty-five, and very pretty, she will never marry again. That is a French husband, my dear.”

Lady B.—“I am very willing to believe all you tell me about French husbands, and love in married life, but why do not your novels show us something of that domestic happiness?”

La Comtesse.—“Ah! I stop you. You are going to speak to me of novels that treat of impossible society, of blasÉ men and light women: but we have others, my dear Lady B. If we have ‘Nana,’ we have also ‘Le Roman d’un Brave Homme,’ ‘L’AbbÉ Constantin,’ ‘Le MaÎtre de Forges;’ ... I could name them by the hundred. By the bye, have you ever read ‘Monsieur, Madame, et BÉbÉ’?”

Lady B.—“Have I read it! Ten times at least, and I shall read it many times more yet.”

La Comtesse.—“I congratulate you.”

Lady B.—“It was Lord B. who made me read it.”

La Comtesse.—“Lord B. is a sensible man. That delightful book ought to be in every household ... like the Bible: it is a regular treatise on happiness in married life. How many times have the Count and myself passed delightful hours together reading a chapter or two of those charming descriptions!—My husband is a very good reader.—And how many chapters have we put in practice! How many of those lovely little scenes have we played!”

Lady B.—“How fond of you your husband must be!” La Comtesse.—“It is twelve years ago that we were married: twelve years of cloudless happiness.... The Count grows handsomer every year. He is rather stern-looking, you know, but I like that in a man. When he frowns, he is superb ... and then, it is so easy to chase his frowns away: he is so good, so generous, ... so attentive. Would you believe it? he makes me a regular declaration every time he sees me in a new dress.”

Lady B. (laughing).—“Really! He must have a pretty milliner’s bill to pay at the end of the year! Ha! ha! ha! There now, positively, I have broken my needle. Lend me another, dear, will you?”

La Comtesse (giving her a needle).—“There is one.”

Lady B.—“Thank you! Oh! what a lovely marquise you have on. Those diamonds are magnificent; I never saw you wear it before.”

La Comtesse.—“No, it is one of the Count’s last follies. I must tell you that yesterday I had a little shopping to do at the Louvre. The Count proposed to accompany me. I accepted with joy, and we set off. But just as we arrived at the door of the shops his heart failed him, he hesitated. ‘After all, my dear,’ he said to me, ‘I will not go in, I will come and fetch you. Do you think you will be long getting what you want?’ ‘I don’t know, two hours perhaps; what are you going to do all that while?’ ‘Don’t trouble about me, I shall be here at five o’clock exactly ... do not keep me waiting.’ A rendez-vous with my husband is something sacred; I have never yet kept him waiting. Men always hate to be kept waiting, military men especially, it makes them horribly ill-tempered. So at five o’clock I came out and found my gallant husband at the door. ‘Where have you been?’ I asked him. ‘Oh, I have been strolling about dear.’ He looked a little bit mysterious; I immediately guessed that he had been up to mischief. Between you and me, men are not very clever you know in hiding their secrets. The Count betrays his like a child. His eyes publish them immediately: you can read there as in an open book. He did not attempt to defend himself long. Monsieur had been strolling in the galleries of the Palais Royal and had bought me the ring that you see: the diamonds are worth at least a hundred pounds. Now I ask you, my dear Lady B., if after that one dare trust one’s husband out of sight an instant?... It did not prevent his having a good kiss when he reached home though, I can assure you. Heaven knows how near I was to giving it to him in the Place du Palais Royal.”

Lady B.—“How delightful it is to hear you talk like that; it does one good (looking at her embroidery). This cap is horrible ... just do look at that blue and green: ... do they not clash?”

La Comtesse.—“Take my advice, and put it aside. Embroider a cigar-case for Lord B. I did a beauty for the Count: his initials and coronet in dark blue on a pearl grey ground....”

Lady B.—“That is a good idea.—(Drawing nearer the Countess.)—Has the Count ever taken you to a cabinet particulier?”

La Comtesse.—“Many times.”

Lady B.—“Lord B. says a man cannot take his wife to a cabinet particulier.”

La Comtesse.—“My dear, you are not forced to exhibit your marriage certificate to the waiter. The Count considers that a lady can go anywhere with her husband, and, for my part, I don’t see why all the nice places should be reserved for certain characters, and the honest women have to content themselves with the Bouillons-Duval. Those are my ideas, you know.”

Lady B.—“They are mine, too, to a certain extent, but I fear that....”

La Comtesse.—“I fear, ma belle, that your husband respects you a little too much. I don’t dislike the Count’s making me ... blush ... sometimes.” Lady B.—“Oh! Lord B. would never do that.... It is I that have made him blush several times.”

La Comtesse.—“Yes? You are charming. Tell me all about it!”

Lady B.—“That would be very hard.”

La Comtesse.—“Do send me your husband’s photograph. I should so like to have in my album the portrait of an English lord who blushes when his wife shocks him.”

Lady B.—“By the bye, you have not told me what a cabinet particulier is like.”

La Comtesse.—“Oh! they are nothing very wonderful: little rooms coquettishly furnished ... all the pleasure is in the novelty, the strangeness of the thing; ... it is droll to disguise oneself as ... the mistress of one’s own husband.”

Lady B.—“Oh! do tell me more about it.”

La Comtesse.—“You want me to shock you, then?”

Lady B.—“All women enjoy being shocked ... a little, you know ... not too much.”

La Comtesse.—“Well, then, dear—it was nearly ten years ago—I was at a ball with my husband. About one o’clock in the morning, I had just been waltzing with him, we saw there was going to be no supper ... and we were getting as hungry as wolves. “‘I say, darling,’ said the Count to me, ‘I am terribly hungry; don’t you think it is time to go home?’

“‘But, my dear, we shall find nothing to eat at home.’

“‘No?—never mind, we will find a way out of that difficulty pretty soon; we are en carnaval; we will go and sup at the Maison DorÉe.’

“No sooner said than done; we left the ball-room, jumped into the brougham, and in a few minutes we were ... in a cabinet particulier. The Count had a little sardonic, triumphant expression, that made me feel a little uneasy, but what was to be done? I tried to look as dignified as possible, when the waiter came in to receive his orders. With his wife, a man does not commit great extravagances: the Count ordered oysters, a lobster salad, some cold chicken, ices, and a bottle of iced champagne. I had never seen my husband so gay, so bright, so witty.... Oh! how lovely it is to be adored by one’s husband!... At dessert the Count became somewhat enterprising ... I mean very enterprising! Fortunately the waiter came in....”

Lady B.—“Without knocking?”

La Comtesse.—“Without knocking; they are accustomed to it.... They see such things, you know.” Lady B.—“It must be high fun for them.”

La Comtesse.—“Not at all ... habit, you see ... they would much rather be in bed, I can assure you. Well, as I was telling you, the waiter came in for my husband’s orders. ‘Waiter,’ said he, ‘you can go now. Bring some coffee ... when I ring.’ The waiter bowed and retired. You should have seen with what ease the Count gave him this order.... Oh! you know, it was easy to see he had had ... a little experience ... it was not the first time he had supped in a cabinet particulier.”

Lady B. (seriously).—“How can you suppose such things?”

La Comtesse.—“How can I? (kissing her.) Dear child, how refreshing you are! However, what is perfectly certain is that, although rather light-headed with the two glasses of champagne that the Count had poured out for me, I saw quite clearly that he was locking the door.”

Lady B.—“Oh! I should have screamed.”

La Comtesse.—“I had a great mind to; but what was the good? No law protects a woman from her husband; you know that. We have no Woman’s Protection Society in France yet; you have, you see.... I had risen indeed, but the Count had seized me in his arms.... By the way, don’t you think there is something curiously fascinating in the idea of a woman in the strong arms of the man she loves and who adores her ... as they stand, she helpless, almost perdue ... perdue in the arms of your husband, it is not dangerous ... on se retrouve, you know ... he, holding her up, and gazing into her face with eyes that seem to devour her....”

Lady B.—“Don’t talk about it.”

La Comtesse.—“Then....”

Lady B.—“Call the waiter, and let us have the coffee, my dear Comtesse: it is high time.”

La Comtesse.—“I will do something better than that: I will give you a cup of tea ... À l’anglaise.” (She rings.)