To complete the picture of the internal habits and ways of this house, it is necessary to group around Mademoiselle Cormon and the Abbe de Sponde Jacquelin, Josette, and Mariette, the cook, who employed themselves in providing for the comfort of uncle and niece.  
Jacquelin, a man of forty, short, fat, ruddy, and brown, with a face like a Breton sailor, had been in the service of the house for twenty-two years. He waited at table, groomed² the mare³, gardened, blacked the abbe’s boots, went on errands, chopped the wood, drove the carriole, and fetched the oats, straw, and hay from Prebaudet. He sat in the antechamber during the evening, where he slept like a dormouse. He was in love with Josette, a girl of thirty, whom Mademoiselle would have dismissed had she married him. So the poor fond pair laid by their wages, and loved each other silently, waiting, hoping for mademoiselle’s own marriage, as the Jews are waiting for the Messiah. Josette, born between Alencon and Mortagne, was short and plump; her face, which looked like a dirty apricot, was not wanting in sense and character; it was said that she ruled her mistress. Josette and Jacquelin, sure of results, endeavored to hide an inward satisfaction which allows it to be supposed that, as lovers, they had discounted the future. Mariette, the cook, who had been fifteen years in the household, knew how to make all the dishes held in most honor in Alencon.
 
Perhaps we ought to count for much the fat old Norman brown-bay mare, which drew Mademoiselle Cormon to her country-seat at Prebaudet; for the five inhabitants of the house bore to this animal a maniacal⁵ affection. She was called Penelope, and had served the family for eighteen years; but she was kept so carefully and fed with such regularity⁷ that mademoiselle and Jacquelin both hoped to use her for ten years longer. This beast was the subject of perpetual talk and occupation; it seemed as if poor Mademoiselle Cormon, having no children on whom her repressed motherly feelings could expend⁸ themselves, had turned those sentiments wholly on this most fortunate animal.
 
The four faithful servants—for Penelope’s intelligence raised her to the level of the other good servants; while they, on the other hand, had lowered themselves to the mute, submissive regularity of the beast—went and came daily in the same occupations with the infallible accuracy of mechanism⁹. But, as they said in their idiom, they had eaten their white bread first. Mademoiselle Cormon, like all persons nervously¹⁰ agitated¹¹ by a fixed¹² idea, became hard to please, and nagging¹³, less by nature than from the need of employing her activity. Having no husband or children to occupy her, she fell back on petty details. She talked for hours about mere¹⁴ nothings, on a dozen napkins marked “Z,” placed in the closet before the “O’s.”
 
“What can Josette be thinking of?” she exclaimed. “Josette is beginning to neglect things.”
 
Mademoiselle inquired for eight days running whether Penelope had had her oats at two o’clock, because on one occasion Jacquelin was a trifle late. Her narrow imagination spent itself on trifles. A layer of dust forgotten by the feather-duster, a slice of toast ill-made by Mariette, Josette’s delay in closing the blinds when the sun came round to fade the colors of the furniture,—all these great little things gave rise to serious quarrels in which mademoiselle grew angry. “Everything was changing,” she would cry; “she did not know her own servants; the fact was she spoiled them!” On one occasion Josette gave her the “Journee du Chretien” instead of the “Quinzaine de Paques.” The whole town heard of this disaster the same evening. Mademoiselle had been forced to leave the church and return home; and her sudden departure, upsetting the chairs, made people suppose a catastrophe¹⁵ had happened. She was therefore obliged to explain the facts to her friends.
 
“Josette,” she said gently, “such a thing must never happen again.”
 
Mademoiselle Cormon was, without being aware of it, made happier by such little quarrels, which served as cathartics to relieve her bitterness. The soul has its needs, and, like the body, its gymnastics. These uncertainties¹⁶ of temper were accepted by Josette and Jacquelin as changes in the weather are accepted by husbandmen. Those worthy¹⁷ souls remark, “It is fine to-day,” or “It rains,” without arraigning¹⁸ the heavens. And so when they met in the morning the servants would wonder in what humor mademoiselle would get up, just as a farmer wonders about the mists at dawn.
 
Mademoiselle Cormon had ended, as it was natural she should end, in contemplating¹⁹ herself only in the infinite pettinesses of her life. Herself and God, her confessor and the weekly wash, her preserves and the church services, and her uncle to care for, absorbed her feeble intellect. To her the atoms of life were magnified by an optic peculiar²⁰ to persons who are selfish by nature or self-absorbed by some accident. Her perfect health gave alarming meaning to the least little derangement²¹ of her digestive organs. She lived under the iron rod of the medical science of our forefathers²², and took yearly four precautionary doses, strong enough to have killed Penelope, though they seemed to rejuvenate²³ her mistress. If Josette, when dressing²⁴ her, chanced to discover a little pimple²⁵ on the still satiny shoulders of mademoiselle, it became the subject of endless inquiries²⁶ as to the various alimentary²⁷ articles of the preceding week. And what a triumph when Josette reminded her mistress of a certain hare that was rather “high,” and had doubtless raised that accursed pimple! With what joy they said to each other: “No doubt, no doubt, it was the hare!”
 
“Mariette over-seasoned it,” said mademoiselle. “I am always telling her to do so lightly for my uncle and for me; but Mariette has no more memory than—”
 
“The hare,” said Josette.
 
“Just so,” replied Mademoiselle; “she has no more memory than a hare,—a very just remark.”
 
Four times a year, at the beginning of each season, Mademoiselle Cormon went to pass a certain number of days on her estate of Prebaudet. It was now the middle of May, the period at which she wished to see how her apple-trees had “snowed,” a saying of that region which expressed the effect produced beneath the trees by the falling of their blossoms. When the circular deposit of these fallen petals²⁸ resembled a layer of snow the owner of the trees might hope for an abundant supply of cider. While she thus gauged²⁹ her vats³⁰, Mademoiselle Cormon also attended to the repairs which the winter necessitated³¹; she ordered the digging of her flower-beds and her vegetable garden, from which she supplied her table. Every season had its own business. Mademoiselle always gave a dinner of farewell to her intimate friends the day before her departure, although she was certain to see them again within three weeks. It was always a piece of news which echoed through Alencon when Mademoiselle Cormon departed. All her visitors, especially those who had missed a visit, came to bid her good-bye; the salon³² was thronged³³, and every one said farewell as though she were starting for Calcutta. The next day the shopkeepers would stand at their doors to see the old carriole pass, and they seemed to be telling one another some news by repeating from shop to shop:—
 
“So Mademoiselle Cormon is going to Prebaudet!”
 
Some said: “Her bread is baked.”
 
“Hey! my lad,” replied the next man. “She’s a worthy woman; if money always came into such hands we shouldn’t see a beggar in the country.”
 
Another said: “Dear me, I shouldn’t be surprised if the vineyards were in bloom; here’s Mademoiselle Cormon going to Prebaudet. How happens it she doesn’t marry?”
 
“I’d marry her myself,” said a wag; “in fact, the marriage is half-made, for here’s one consenting party; but the other side won’t. Pooh! the oven is heating for Monsieur du Bousquier.”
 
“Monsieur du Bousquier! Why, she has refused him.”
 
That evening at all the gatherings³⁴ it was told gravely:—
 
“Mademoiselle Cormon has gone.”
 
Or:—
 
“So you have really let Mademoiselle Cormon go.”
 
The Wednesday chosen by Suzanne to make known her scandal happened to be this farewell Wednesday,—a day on which Mademoiselle Cormon drove Josette distracted on the subject of packing. During the morning, therefore, things had been said and done in the town which lent the utmost interest to this farewell meeting. Madame Granson had gone the round of a dozen houses while the old maid was deliberating on the things she needed for the journey; and the malicious³⁶ Chevalier de Valois was playing piquet with Mademoiselle Armande, sister of a distinguished³⁷ old marquis, and the queen of the salon of the aristocrats³⁸. If it was not uninteresting to any one to see what figure the seducer³⁹ would cut that evening, it was all important for the chevalier and Madame Granson to know how Mademoiselle Cormon would take the news in her double capacity of marriageable woman and president of the Maternity⁴⁰ Society. As for the innocent du Bousquier, he was taking a walk on the promenade⁴¹, and beginning to suspect that Suzanne had tricked him; this suspicion confirmed him in his principles as to women.
 
On gala days the table was laid at Mademoiselle Cormon’s about half-past three o’clock. At that period the fashionable people of Alencon dined at four. Under the Empire they still dined as in former times at half-past two; but then they supped! One of the pleasures which Mademoiselle Cormon valued most was (without meaning any malice⁴², although the fact certainly rests on egotism) the unspeakable satisfaction she derived⁴³ from seeing herself dressed as mistress of the house to receive her guests. When she was thus under arms a ray of hope would glide⁴⁴ into the darkness of her heart; a voice told her that nature had not so abundantly provided for her in vain, and that some man, brave and enterprising, would surely present himself. Her desire was refreshed like her person; she contemplated⁴⁵ herself in her heavy stuffs with a sort of intoxication⁴⁶, and this satisfaction continued when she descended⁴⁷ the stairs to cast her redoubtable⁴⁸ eye on the salon, the dinner-table, and the boudoir. She would then walk about with the naive⁴⁹ contentment of the rich,—who remember at all moments that they are rich and will never want for anything. She looked at her eternal furniture, her curiosities, her lacquers, and said to herself that all these fine things wanted was a master. After admiring the dining-room, and the oblong dinner-table, on which was spread a snow-white cloth adorned⁵⁰ with twenty covers placed at equal distances; after verifying the squadron of bottles she had ordered to be brought up, and which all bore honorable labels; after carefully verifying the names written on little bits of paper in the trembling handwriting of the abbe (the only duty he assumed in the household, and one which gave rise to grave discussions on the place of each guest),—after going through all these preliminary acts mademoiselle went, in her fine clothes, to her uncle, who was accustomed at this, the best hour in the day, to take his walk on the terrace which overlooked the Brillante, where he could listen to the warble of birds which were resting in the coppice, unafraid of either sportsmen or children. At such times of waiting she never joined the Abbe de Sponde without asking him some ridiculous question, in order to draw the old man into a discussion which might serve to amuse him. And her reason was this,—which will serve to complete our picture of this excellent woman’s nature:—
 
Mademoiselle Cormon regarded it as one of her duties to talk; not that she was talkative, for she had unfortunately too few ideas, and did not know enough phrases to converse⁵¹ readily. But she believed she was accomplishing one of the social duties enjoined⁵² by religion, which orders us to make ourselves agreeable to our neighbor. This obligation cost her so much that she consulted her director, the Abbe Couturier, upon the subject of this honest but puerile⁵³ civility. In spite of the humble⁵⁴ remark of his penitent⁵⁵, confessing the inward labor⁵⁶ of her mind in finding anything to say, the old priest, rigid⁵⁷ on the point of discipline, read her a passage from Saint-Francois de Sales on the duties of women in society, which dwelt on the decent gayety of pious⁵⁸ Christian⁵⁹ women, who were bound to reserve their sternness for themselves, and to be amiable⁶⁰ and pleasing in their homes, and see that their neighbors enjoyed themselves. Thus, filled with a sense of duty, and wishing, at all costs, to obey her director, who bade her converse with amenity⁶¹, the poor soul perspired⁶² in her corset when the talk around her languished⁶³, so much did she suffer from the effort of emitting ideas in order to revive it. Under such circumstances she would put forth⁶⁴ the silliest statements, such as: “No one can be in two places at once—unless it is a little bird,” by which she one day roused, and not without success, a discussion on the ubiquity of the apostles, which she was unable to comprehend. Such efforts at conversation won her the appellation⁶⁵ of “that good Mademoiselle Cormon,” which, from the lips of the beaux esprits of society, means that she was as ignorant as a carp, and rather a poor fool; but many persons of her own calibre took the remark in its literal sense, and answered:—
 
“Yes; oh yes! Mademoiselle Cormon is an excellent woman.”
 
Sometimes she would put such absurd questions (always for the purpose of fulfilling her duties to society, and making herself agreeable to her guests) that everybody burst out laughing. She asked, for instance, what the government did with the taxes they were always receiving; and why the Bible had not been printed in the days of Jesus Christ, inasmuch as it was written by Moses. Her mental powers were those of the English “country gentleman” who, hearing constant mention of “posterity⁶⁶” in the House of Commons, rose to make the speech that has since become celebrated⁶⁷: “Gentlemen,” he said, “I hear much talk in this place about Posterity. I should be glad to know what that power has ever done for England.”
 
Under these circumstances the heroic Chevalier de Valois would bring to the succor⁶⁸ of the old maid all the powers of his clever diplomacy⁶⁹, whenever he saw the pitiless smile of wiser heads. The old gentleman, who loved to assist women, turned Mademoiselle Cormon’s sayings into wit by sustaining them paradoxically, and he often covered the retreat so well that it seemed as if the good woman had said nothing silly. She asserted very seriously one evening that she did not see any difference between an ox and a bull. The dear chevalier instantly arrested the peals⁷⁰ of laughter by asserting that there was only the difference between a sheep and a lamb.
 
But the Chevalier de Valois served an ungrateful dame³⁵, for never did Mademoiselle Cormon comprehend his chivalrous⁷¹ services. Observing that the conversation grew lively, she simply thought that she was not so stupid as she was,—the result being that she settled down into her ignorance with some complacency; she lost her timidity, and acquired a self-possession which gave to her “speeches” something of the solemnity with which the British enunciate⁷² their patriotic⁷³ absurdities,—the self-conceit of stupidity, as it may be called.
 
As she approached her uncle, on this occasion, with a majestic⁷⁴ step, she was ruminating⁷⁵ over a question that might draw him from a silence, which always troubled her, for she feared he was dull.
 
“Uncle,” she said, leaning on his arm and clinging to his side (this was one of her fictions; for she said to herself “If I had a husband I should do just so”),—“uncle, if everything here below happens according to the will of God, there must be a reason for everything.”
 
“Certainly,” replied the abbe, gravely. The worthy man, who cherished his niece, always allowed her to tear him from his meditations⁷⁷ with angelic patience.
 
“Then if I remain unmarried,—supposing that I do,—God wills it?”
 
“Yes, my child,” replied the abbe.
 
“And yet, as nothing prevents me from marrying to-morrow if I choose, His will can be destroyed by mine?”
 
“That would be true if we knew what was really the will of God,” replied the former prior of the Sorbonne. “Observe, my daughter, that you put in an if.”
 
The poor woman, who expected to draw her uncle into a matrimonial discussion by an argument ad omnipotentem, was stupefied; but persons of obtuse⁷⁸ mind have the terrible logic⁷⁹ of children, which consists in turning from answer to question,—a logic that is frequently embarrassing.
 
“But, uncle, God did not make women intending them not to marry; otherwise they ought all to stay unmarried; if not, they ought all to marry. There’s great injustice⁸⁰ in the distribution of parts.”
 
“Daughter,” said the worthy abbe, “you are blaming the Church, which declares celibacy⁸¹ to be the better way to God.”
 
“But if the Church is right, and all the world were good Catholics, wouldn’t the human race come to an end, uncle?”
 
“You have too much mind, Rose; you don’t need so much to be happy.”
 
That remark brought a smile of satisfaction to the lips of the poor woman, and confirmed her in the good opinion she was beginning to acquire about herself. That is how the world, our friends, and our enemies are the accomplices⁸² of our defects!
 
At this moment the conversation was interrupted by the successive arrival of the guests. On these ceremonial days, friendly familiarities were exchanged between the servants of the house and the company. Mariette remarked to the chief-justice as he passed the kitchen:—
 
“Ah, Monsieur du Ronceret, I’ve cooked the cauliflowers au gratin expressly for you, for mademoiselle knows how you like them; and she said to me: ‘Now don’t forget, Mariette, for Monsieur du Ronceret is coming.’”
 
“That good Mademoiselle Cormon!” ejaculated the chief legal authority of the town. “Mariette, did you steep them in gravy⁸³ instead of soup-stock? it is much richer.”
 
The chief-justice was not above entering the chamber⁴ of council where Mariette held court; he cast the eye of a gastronome around it, and offered the advice of a past master in cookery.
 
“Good-day, madame,” said Josette to Madame Granson, who courted the maid. “Mademoiselle has thought of you, and there’s fish for dinner.”
 
As for the Chevalier de Valois, he remarked to Mariette, in the easy tone of a great seigneur who condescends⁸⁴ to be familiar:—
 
“Well, my dear cordon-bleu, to whom I should give the cross of the Legion of honor, is there some little dainty for which I had better reserve myself?”
 
“Yes, yes, Monsieur de Valois,—a hare sent from Prebaudet; weighs fourteen pounds.”
 
Du Bousquier was not invited. Mademoiselle Cormon, faithful to the system which we know of, treated that fifty-year-old suitor extremely ill, although she felt inexplicable⁸⁵ sentiments towards him in the depths of her heart. She had refused him; yet at times she repented⁸⁶; and a presentiment⁸⁷ that she should yet marry him, together with a terror at the idea which prevented her from wishing for the marriage, assailed⁸⁸ her. Her mind, stimulated⁸⁹ by these feelings, was much occupied by du Bousquier. Without being aware of it, she was influenced by the herculean form of the republican. Madame Granson and the Chevalier de Valois, although they could not explain to themselves Mademoiselle Cormon’s inconsistencies, had detected her naive glances in that direction, the meaning of which seemed clear enough to make them both resolve to ruin the hopes of the already rejected purveyor⁹⁰,—hopes which it was evident he still indulged.
 
Two guests, whose functions excused them, kept the dinner waiting. One was Monsieur du Coudrai, the recorder of mortgages; the other Monsieur Choisnel, former bailiff to the house of Esgrignon, and now the notary⁹¹ of the upper aristocracy, by whom he was received with a distinction due to his virtues⁹²; he was also a man of considerable wealth. When the two belated guests arrived, Jacquelin said to them as he saw them about to enter the salon:—
 
“They are all in the garden.”
 
No doubt the assembled stomachs were impatient; for on the appearance of the register of mortgages—who had no defect except that of having married for her money an intolerable old woman, and of perpetrating endless puns, at which he was the first to laugh—the gentle murmur⁹⁴ by which such late-comers are welcomed arose. While awaiting the official announcement of dinner, the company were sauntering on the terrace above the river, and gazing at the water-plants, the mosaic⁹⁵ of the currents, and the various pretty details of the houses clustering across the river, their old wooden galleries, their mouldering⁹⁶ window-frames, their little gardens where clothes were drying, the cabinet-maker⁹⁷’s shop,—in short, the many details of a small community to which the vicinity of a river, a weeping willow⁹⁸, flowers, rose-bushes, added a certain grace, making the scene quite worthy of a landscape painter.
 
The chevalier studied all faces, for he knew that his firebrand had been very successfully introduced into the chief houses of the place. But no one as yet referred openly to the great news of Suzanne and du Bousquier. Provincials⁹⁹ possess in the highest degree the art of distilling¹⁰¹ gossip; the right moment for openly discussing this strange affair had not arrived; it was first necessary that all present should put themselves on record. So the whispers went round from ear to ear:—
 
“You have heard?”
 
“Yes.”
 
“Du Bousquier?”
 
“And that handsome Suzanne.”
 
“Does Mademoiselle Cormon know of it?”
 
“No.”
 
“Ha!”
 
This was the piano of the scandal; the rinforzando would break forth as soon as the first course had been removed. Suddenly Monsieur de Valois’s eyes lighted on Madame Granson, arrayed in her green hat with bunches of auriculas, and beaming with evident joy. Was it merely the joy of opening the concert? Though such a piece of news was like a gold mine to work in the monotonous¹⁰² lives of these personages, the observant and distrustful chevalier thought he recognized in the worthy woman a far more extended sentiment; namely, the joy caused by the triumph of self-interest. Instantly he turned to examine Athanase, and detected him in the significant silence of deep meditation⁷⁶. Presently, a look cast by the young man on Mademoiselle Cormon carried to the soul of the chevalier a sudden gleam. That momentary¹⁰³ flash of lightning enabled him to read the past.
 
“Ha! the devil!” he said to himself; “what a checkmate I’m exposed to!”
 
Monsieur de Valois now approached Mademoiselle Cormon, and offered his arm. The old maid’s feeling to the chevalier was that of respectful consideration; and certainly his name, together with the position he occupied among the aristocratic constellations¹⁰⁴ of the department made him the most brilliant ornament¹⁰⁵ of her salon. In her inmost mind Mademoiselle Cormon had wished for the last dozen years to become Madame de Valois. That name was like the branch of a tree, to which the ideas which swarmed¹⁰⁶ in her mind about rank, nobility, and the external qualities of a husband had fastened. But, though the Chevalier de Valois was the man chosen by her heart, and mind, and ambition, that elderly ruin, combed and curled like a little Saint-John in a procession, alarmed Mademoiselle Cormon. She saw the gentleman in him, but she could not see a husband. The indifference¹⁰⁷ which the chevalier affected¹⁰⁸ as to marriage, above all, the apparent purity of his morals in a house which abounded¹⁰⁹ in grisettes, did singular harm in her mind to Monsieur de Valois against his expectations. The worthy man, who showed such judgment¹¹⁰ in the matter of his annuity¹¹¹, was at fault here. Without being herself aware of it, the thoughts of Mademoiselle Cormon on the too virtuous¹¹² chevalier might be translated thus:—
 
“What a pity that he isn’t a trifle dissipated!”
 
Observers of the human heart have remarked the leaning of pious women toward scamps; some have expressed surprise at this taste, considering it opposed to Christian virtue⁹³. But, in the first place, what nobler destiny can you offer to a virtuous woman than to purify, like charcoal¹¹³, the muddy waters of vice¹? How is it some observers fail to see that these noble creatures, obliged by the sternness of their own principles never to infringe¹¹⁴ on conjugal¹¹⁵ fidelity¹¹⁶, must naturally desire a husband of wider practical experience than their own? The scamps of social life are great men in love. Thus the poor woman groaned¹¹⁷ in spirit at finding her chosen vessel¹¹⁸ parted into two pieces. God alone could solder¹¹⁹ together a Chevalier de Valois and a du Bousquier.
 
In order to explain the importance of the few words which the chevalier and Mademoiselle Cormon are about to say to each other, it is necessary to reveal two serious matters which agitated the town, and about which opinions were divided; besides, du Bousquier was mysteriously connected with them.
 
One concerns the rector of Alencon, who had formerly¹²⁰ taken the constitutional oath, and who was now conquering the repugnance¹²¹ of the Catholics by a display of the highest virtues. He was Cheverus on a small scale, and became in time so fully⁶ appreciated that when he died the whole town mourned him. Mademoiselle Cormon and the Abbe de Sponde belonged to that “little Church,” sublime¹²² in its orthodoxy, which was to the court of Rome what the Ultras were to be to Louis XVIII. The abbe, more especially, refused to recognize a Church which had compromised with the constitutionals. The rector was therefore not received in the Cormon household, who............