II
Well, this year, as in every other year, I had gone to dine at the Chantals’ to celebrate Epiphany.
I embraced Monsieur Chantal, as I always did, Madame Chantal, and Mademoiselle Pearl, and I bowed deeply to Mesdemoiselles Louise and Pauline. They questioned me about a thousand things, boulevard happenings, politics, our representatives, and what the public thought of affairs in Tonkin. Madame Chantal, a stout lady whose thoughts always impressed me as being square like blocks of stone, was wont to enunciate the following phrase at the end of every political discussion: “All this will produce a crop of misfortunes in the future.” Why do I always think that Madame Chantal’s thoughts are square? I don’t really know why; but my mind sees everything she says in this fashion: a square, a solid square with four symmetrical angles. There are other people whose thoughts always seems to me round and rolling like circles. As soon as they begin a phrase about something, out it rolls, running along, issuing in the shape of ten, twenty, fifty round thoughts, big ones and little ones, and I see them running behind each other out of sight over the edge of the sky. Other persons have pointed thoughts. … But this is somewhat irrelevant.
We sat down to table in the usual order, and dinner passed without anyone uttering a single memorable word. With the sweets, they brought in the Twelfth Night cake. Now, each year, Monsieur Chantal was king. Whether this was a series of chances or a domestic convention I don’t know, but invariably he found the lucky bean in his piece of cake, and he proclaimed Madame Chantal queen. So I was amazed to find in a mouthful of pastry something very hard that almost broke one of my teeth. I removed the object carefully from my mouth and I saw a tiny china doll no larger than a bean. Surprise made me exclaim: “Oh!” They all looked at me and Chantal clapped his hands and shouted: “Gaston’s got it. Gaston’s got it. Long live the king! Long live the king!”
The others caught up the chorus: “Long live the king!” And I blushed to my ears, as one often does for no reason whatever, in slightly ridiculous situations. I sat looking at my boots, holding the fragment of china between two fingers, forcing myself to laugh, and not knowing what to do or what to say, when Chantal went on: “Now he must choose a queen.”
I was overwhelmed. A thousand thoughts and speculations rushed across my mind in a second of time. Did they want me to choose out one of the Chantal girls? Was this a way of making me say which one I liked the better? Was it a gentle, delicate, almost unconscious feeler that the parents were putting out towards a possible marriage? The thought of marriage stalks all day and every day in families that possess marriageable daughters; it takes innumerable shapes and guises and adopts every possible means. I was suddenly dreadfully afraid of compromising myself, and extremely timid too, before the obstinately correct and rigid bearing of Mesdemoiselles Louise and Pauline. To select one of them over the head of the other seemed to me as difficult as to choose between two drops of water; and I was horribly disturbed at the thought of committing myself to a path which would lead me to the altar willy-nilly, by gentle stages, and incidents as discreet, as insignificant, and as easy as this meaningless kingship.
But all at once I had an inspiration, and I proffered the symbolic little doll to Mademoiselle Pearl. At first everyone was surprised, then they must have appreciated my delicacy and discretion, for they applauded furiously, shouting: “Long live the queen! Long live the queen!”
As for the poor old maid, she was covered with confusion; she trembled and lifted a terrified face. “No … no … no …” she stammered; “not me … I implore you … not me … I implore you.”
At that, I looked at Mademoiselle Pearl for the first time in my life, and wondered what sort of a woman she was.
I was used to seeing her about this house, but only as you see old tapestried chairs in which you have been sitting since you were a child, without ever really noticing them. One day, you couldn’t say just why, because a ray of sunlight falls across the seat, you exclaim: “Why, this is a remarkable piece of furniture!” and you discover that the wood has been carved by an artist and that the tapestry is very uncommon. I had never noticed Mademoiselle Pearl.
She was part of the Chantal family, that was all; but what? What was her standing? She was a tall thin woman who kept herself very much in the background, but she wasn’t insignificant. They treated her in a friendly fashion, more intimately than a housekeeper, less so than a relation. I suddenly became aware now of various subtle shades of manner that I had never troubled about until this moment. Madame Chantal said: “Pearl.” The young girls: “Mademoiselle Pearl,” and Chantal never called her anything but “Mademoiselle,” with a slightly more respectful air perhaps.
I set myself to consider her. How old was she? Forty? Yes, forty. She was not old, this maiden lady, she made herself look old. I was suddenly struck by this obvious fact. She did her hair, dressed herself, and got herself up to look absurd, and in spite of it all she was not at all absurd. So innately graceful she was, simply and naturally graceful, though she did her best to obscure it and conceal it. What an odd creature she was, after all! Why hadn’t I paid more attention to her? She did her hair in the most grotesque way in ridiculous little grey curls; under this crowning glory of a middle-aged Madonna, she had a broad placid forehead, graven with two deep wrinkles, the wrinkles of some enduring sorrow, then two blue eyes, wide and gentle, so timid, so fearful, so humble, two blue eyes that were still simple, filled with girlish wonder and youthful emotions, and griefs endured in secret, softening her eyes and leaving then untroubled.
Her whole face was clear-cut and reserved, one of those faces grown worn without being ravaged or faded by the weariness and the fevered emotions of life.
What a pretty mouth, and what pretty teeth! But she seemed as if she dared not smile.
Abruptly, I began to compare her with Madame Chantal. Mademoiselle Pearl was undoubtedly the better of the two, a hundred times better, nobler, more dignified.
I was astounded by my discoveries. Champagne was poured out. I lifted my glass to the queen and drank her health with a pretty compliment. I could see that she wanted to hide her face in her napkin; then, when she dipped her lips in the translucent wine, everyone cried: “The queen’s drinking, the queen’s drinking!” At that she turned crimson and choked. They laughed; but I saw clearly that she was well liked in the house.