Odette's Marriage;

A Novel,

FROM THE FRENCH OF ALBERT DELPIT.

TRANSLATED FROM THE "RÉVUE DES DEUX MONDES," BY EMILY PRESCOTT.

FIFTH EDITION.

CHICAGO: HENRY A. SUMNER AND COMPANY. 1882

COPYRIGHT, HENRY A. SUMNER AND COMPANY, 1880. DONNELLEY, GASSETTE & LOYD, PRINTERS.

CONTENTS.

Odette's Marriage.

Odette's Marriage.

CHAPTER I.

She rode slowly up the sandy avenue of the country house, and drew rein before the broad steps.

"Good morning, Odette!" Mme. Descoutures called to her, leaning over the balustrade. "Come up here before you go into the house. I wish to have a little talk with you."

"Is my father at home?"

"No; he has gone out for a walk, with my husband."

Odette called her groom and dismounted. Gathering the long black train of her riding habit in her hand, she quietly ascended the steps leading to the terrace facing the sea. Mme. Descoutures met her with an embrace and the exclamation:

[10]

"Heavens! how lovely you are!"

Odette was wonderfully beautiful this morning. Her habit showed her exquisite form to the best advantage, graceful and flexible as a young willow tree. The transparent complexion was slightly flushed from her ride; the forehead, crossed by a delicate line between the eye-brows, was gilded by the warm reflection from her glorious golden hair.

A strange contrast—her eyes were dark. Large, black eyes, beaming with intelligence and cultivation, but shadowed by an expression of pride and sadness. She stood before her friend, straight and slender; her lips parted in a slight smile, and the rich splendor of her hair shining in the sunbeams. Mme. Descoutures continued:

"You are simply magnificent! But I called you to give you a scolding, and here I am paying you compliments!"

Odette sank carelessly into one of the arm-chairs on the terrace.

[11]

"My dear child, I am worried about you. Your whole character seems to be changing. Every one is speaking about it. You were always gay and happy until this Winter, while now!—I know you must find it very dull here, of course, but it was your own choice to come. You could have stayed in Paris if you had wished to. Are you listening to me?"

"Certainly."

"Since you are here, can you not try to be a little more agreeable? You have seemed tired and languid ever since you came home from Pornic, and, what is worse, this ennui seems to be increasing every day. You have not looked in a book for a whole month. In spite of your passion for music, you have not once opened the piano this Winter. It is the same way with your painting. Your only pleasure seems to be to sit by the sea, and stare at it. Of course, it is very fashionable to admire the sea; but I really think you might exert[12] yourself to be a little more entertaining—not with me, of course. Friends of ten years' standing never try to entertain each other—but to your father's friends and mine. Are you listening?"

"Certainly."

"Forgive me for scolding you. I am giving you not only my own opinion, but that of others as well; Mme. Bricourt, for example. You know that Mme. Bricourt is an authority. She came to call on me yesterday while you were out driving with Paul Frager. She is very fond of you. You need not deny it. She thinks a great deal of you. According to her ideas, the education you have received is a disgrace, and there is no need to add to it by your conduct. You have never been baptized, never been to the communion, and, to tell the truth, you are a regular heathen. You do not even try to conceal it. It is your father's fault, I know. He is an atheist. So much the worse for him and for you.[13] I am not shocked, of course, as I am somewhat advanced in my ideas, you know; but every one is not up to my standard, and many people are horrified."

This time Odette did not even reply "Certainly." Leaning back in her chair, she was gazing straight ahead. Far away the Mediterranean was lost to sight in a bank of crimson clouds. To the left lay Carqueirannes; its little houses, clinging to the hill, looked like a flock of black and white sheep. Now and then a group of fishermen could be seen dragging a long wet net across the beach. To the right stretched an immense pine forest, with here and there an oak tree, shining in the warm October sunbeams. Down to the right, between two small pine woods, lay the road leading from Carqueirannes to Canet, crossing the Toulon main highway farther on.

While Odette continued lost in her revery, her friend rambled on at ease. Corinne Descoutures was a happy woman.[14] Most incomplete natures feel at least something of their incompleteness, but Corinne firmly believes herself the most beautiful and intellectual woman in the world. Her forty years do not trouble her in the least. She makes up by art all that she has lost by nature. She paints, of course, and very ridiculously—that is, when she has too much white on one side, there will be far too much red on the other. Her eye-brows would be very fine, only they are never twice in the same place. She thinks her tall form is queenly; her aquiline nose, an imperial profile; her extraordinary leanness, an exquisite fragility. As to her dresses, they are the delight of those who meet her, and the perpetual mortification of her friends. Her friendship with Odette came about by mere chance. M. Descoutures is one of those amateur scientists, gentle, modest and inoffensive, who revolve around some celebrated man, in humble adoration.

He had happened to become attached to[15] Odette's father, and his wife had approved of this friendship (about the only point of agreement in their lives). The poor little man was extinguished by his wife—several inches taller than he. At first he struggled against his fate, but he soon saw that there is no use opposing a Mme. Descoutures! And, finally, just from living with her so long, he had arrived at a state of profound admiration for her.

Their friends spoke of him as "Corinne's husband," and "Corinne's husband" never complained; always approved of everything, and clung closer and closer to the great Laviguerie, who appreciated him in return. He left his dignified wife alone as much as possible, and she never complained. Knowing that Laviguerie wished to retire to the quiet of the country to write a scientific book, she had offered him her villa near Carqueirannes, which explains how they all four happened to be assembled there at present.

[16]

In spite of her sublime self-conceit, Corinne had to confess, at last, to herself that Odette was not paying her the least attention, and, tapping her gently on the shoulder, said:

"Odette! stop dreaming, and attend to me. I see you do not agree with me, and you are wrong."

"If it was your own opinion, my dear friend, I would accept it with pleasure; but why should I care for what Mme. Bricourt says? I know I am an atheist, a materialist, and spoiled by reading too much. People tell all sorts of stories about me. My father brought me up according to his ideas, and I thank him for it. You must take me as I am. Does my education disgrace me? I have learned by it the most thorough contempt for what is called religion. My ideas are shocking, I suppose, because I always tell the truth. I have read books that a young girl ought not to read, they say. They have educated me, so[17] I am not a doll, like most young ladies. But I have disdainfully refused the hand of Amable Bricourt—that is my crime. His venerable mother (as he calls her) will never forgive me for having disappointed her admirable son (as she calls him)."

Corinne replied roguishly: "Ah! you prefer Paul Frager's company."

Odette shrugged her shoulders. "M. Frager is as little to me as the admirable son himself, or any of those who have proposed to me. I shall never marry, as I have already told you a hundred times. Only I believe he is unhappy; for some reason he does not live with his mother, and I know he grieves over it. Besides that, he talks well, is very intelligent and cultivated, and has one great advantage over everybody else—he never has made love to me."

"What! he never has made love to you?"

"Never, in any way."

"He has been completely devoted to you[18] for the past year. Why, knowing you to be here, he has come to pass the Winter at Canet, not a mile away!"

Odette burst into a silvery laugh.

"Who knows? he may have come solely on your account, dear Corinne." But before her friend could reply, she continued: "To tell the truth, I am bored to death."

"Since your trip to Pornic!"

Mme. Descoutures said these words with some emphasis, which Odette seemed to understand, as she grew pale. A yellow lightning shot across the depths of her dark eyes. Her lips moved as if she were about to speak, but, evidently changing her mind, she sank again into her revery, her eyes fixed on the sea.

"Have I annoyed you?" Corinne asked gently; "then let us leave this subject. Have you heard from Germaine to-day?"

The name of Germaine roused Odette again. "No," she replied. "No letter from her for three days. If I do not hear before[19] to-night, I shall telegraph to Naples. I am afraid she is sick."

She rose and paced up and down the terrace in great agitation. Her face expressed the deepest anxiety.

"Come, come, do not be so distressed! Germaine, perhaps, has been kept busy by her aunt; you know Mme. Rozan's health is very delicate. But see, while we have been chatting, the gentlemen have finished their stroll, and are returning by the beach."

The young girl smoothed her forehead with her hand as if to drive away the shadow lurking there, and, leaning over the balustrade, threw a kiss to the gentlemen below. Then, turning to Mme. Descoutures, with a gesture of supreme contempt, she added: "As to the venerable Mme. Bricourt, I do not care a straw for her opinion. As to Paul Frager, he is not at all in love with me. He lives solitary, away from his family, and I intend to keep him for a friend. I must go and take off my habit now. I will be back soon."

[20]

CHAPTER II.

Francis Laviguerie is sixty years old. He is tall and manly looking. He stoops a little when he walks, as if the mighty intellect in his large head were too heavy a burden. His gray hair, with his keen black eyes, give him a soldierly appearance. In fact, he is a soldier. He has fought all his life for what he considers the truth. His early life was one of poverty and privation, but his abilities were soon recognized, and his thirtieth year found him professor in the College of France, proclaiming himself the disciple of Herbert Spencer, whose doctrines he strictly followed. He has long been a member of the Academy of Sciences, and, since 1867, of the French Academy also.

In private life he is firm, gentle, simple and unostentatious. His whole life has[21] been one long devotion to science and labor. He has known sorrow of all kinds. Twice married, both wives are dead—one after three years of married life; the other, ten months, each having presented him with a daughter.

Germaine and Odette at first were brought up together; but the friends of the philosopher noticed that he showed a great preference for Odette, the youngest, and seemed to ignore Germaine completely. In 1865 Mme. Rozan, a sister of his first wife, happening to come to Paris, begged him to give her the little Germaine—a sickly, nervous child—and he consented gladly in spite of Odette's tears and despair.

The little sisters simply worshiped each other, and during the eleven long years that they had been separated, their devoted love had suffered nothing from absence, that great enemy of human affections. They wrote to each other every day, relating every incident of their lives. They knew[22] each other as intimately as if they had never been separated. One wrote about Vesuvius and the beautiful Adriatic; the other, about the fogs and mud of Paris. They sent volumes to each other, and each could have given the most minute descriptions of the other and her surroundings. However, an abyss separated the two sisters. Mme. Rozan, religious without being bigoted, had educated her niece in her own ideas, and it was the greatest grief of Germaine's life that Odette thought differently. By common consent they avoided the dangerous subject of religion; but Germaine never forgot to pray for her misguided sister.

"Good morning, Corinne," said M. Laviguerie, sitting down in the chair his daughter had vacated. "Odette was with you. She did not run away from me, I hope."

"Oh, no; she simply went to her room to take off her riding-habit."

[23]

"Will you excuse me if I read this letter? It was just handed to me."

"Certainly, sir," replied Corinne; "besides, I must retire, myself, as lunch will soon be ready, and I am not dressed for the day." Then, turning to her husband with the air of an empress addressing the meanest of her subjects: "It seems to me, sir, you delay to offer me your arm."

M. Descoutures, always very short, seemed to shrink two or three inches more, and, knocking over a camp-stool in his haste, murmured, "Pardon me, Madame, I thought—"

They always addressed each other in this formal style. The humble M. Descoutures did not remain long absent; merely the five minutes necessary to escort his wife to the door of her rooms and return. When he reappeared upon the terrace, M. Laviguerie had just finished reading his letter. He looked harassed and worried.

[24]

"Have you received any bad news, dear friend, in your letter?"

"No bad news; still it is very annoying."

"Corinne's husband" did not seem the same man when alone with his friend. His shyness almost entirely disappeared, and he ventured to talk, taking care to disguise his ideas somewhat in apologetic phrases, wrapping them in cotton, as it were.

"I need some advice," continued Laviguerie, "and I can not do better than to turn to you. During our long friendship, I have often admired the correctness of your judgment, and your common sense, which is never at fault. Doubtless, you have sometimes wondered that I kept my eldest daughter so far away from me. It is strange, I confess, and many have been astonished at it, I suppose. I am obliged now to change this state of affairs. Mme. Rozan is dead, and Germaine writes that she is leaving Naples to come back to her father and sister."

[25]

"But I am sure, my dear Laviguerie, that this reunion will give Odette the greatest happiness, and I do not see—"

"Why I called it annoying? I will tell you. You never met my first wife. When I married her, she was a lovely young girl, cultivated and charming. Perhaps I ought to have inquired into the antecedents of the family; but I was in love. I did nothing of the kind, and I was wrong. I soon discovered that my wife was one of those women whose nervous system rules the whole body. At first, I hoped I was mistaken; but a physiologist can never deceive himself long. She would be seized with fits of the deepest depression, morbid despair, followed by floods of tears, or else immoderate laughter. Her character changed little by little, until I no longer dared to take her out with me. When Germaine was born, she seemed to rally for a time, but soon became again a prey to the most violent nervous affection, and, in one[26] of her spasms, died, leaving me a widower, with a little girl who, of course, had inherited the mother's disease. I had a daughter a prey to hysteria, as others have a deformed or a blind child. I married again, as you know; I wanted a home. I will say

nothing of my second wife. You know how I loved her—so sweet, so calm, so gentle. She died when Odette was born. Ah! my friend, I should have died of grief, if it had not been for my work."

He stopped a few minutes. The strong man was shaken by these sad memories, as the tempest tosses the oak tree. He continued more slowly:

"For eight years Germaine and Odette grew up side by side, and I watched them with the most searching eyes. I soon found in Germaine the frightful symptoms of her mother's disease. She was excessively nervous and sensitive, so that when her aunt asked for her, it was with great satisfaction I consented. I had ceased to[27] love her. It was cruel and selfish of me, I know; but I am only a man, and subject to the same faults and failings as the meanest of them!"

"And now Germaine is coming home," replied M. Descoutures, "permit me to say, with the greatest respect, that I think you did wrong. But what is past is past. To-day, your duty—if I may venture to say that word to a man like you—is to receive your daughter as if everything were all right. You need not fear that Odette could possibly become nervous by living with her. Odette is too full of vitality, and—" M. Descoutures stopped short. Corinne had appeared, and he never spoke more than was absolutely necessary, when she was near.

Corinne had painted her cheeks as red as those dolls that speak when they are pressed in the stomach. Her hair fell over her shoulders like the blonde locks of some little twelve-year-old, or[28] the drooping branches of a weeping willow.

She was beaming with happiness. Her heart was beating fast for that Paul Frager of whom she had been speaking to Odette. She had always supposed his frequent visits to the villa had been on Odette's account. But, as she learned this to have been a mistake, there was no longer any room for doubt—she, Corinne, was the beloved object of his affections.

Almost at the same time Odette returned, simply dressed as usual, looking like a beautiful Amazon with her helmet of sparkling gold.

She kissed her father, shook hands with M. Descoutures, and cried cheerfully, "Are we never to have any lunch? I am famishing."

Laviguerie was still harassed by Germaine's near arrival. However, nothing could be done to prevent it. As they were passing into the lunch room, he detained[29] Odette a few minutes. "My dear child," he said, "you have not heard from your sister for several days, I believe. Has it not seemed strange to you?" Odette grew pale, and said anxiously:

"Is she sick?"

"No! but a great sorrow has befallen her. Mme. Rozan is dead."

"Her aunt is dead? But then she will come to us?"

"Yes; this evening."

Odette threw her arms around her father's neck. "She is coming back! Oh! how happy I am! I wanted her every minute and every hour. Let me kiss you again for the glorious news!" And she embraced him a third time with all the grace and roguishness of a spoiled child. Then, running into the dining-room, she danced up to her friends, saying: "Germaine is coming! She is coming this evening! We will all go to the depot to meet her!"

[30]

M. Laviguerie came in behind his daughter, silent and sad. "You know, father, there is a room next to mine that she can have. We have been separated so long that now we must be together all the time." Laviguerie looked on, sadly smiling at his daughter's happiness. Putting her arms around his neck, she continued: "Do you not like to see me so happy? Are you afraid that I shall love Germaine more than I do you? You need not fear. I have always loved Germaine the most, and yet had plenty of love for my dear father."

Laviguerie took his daughter in his arms and, kissing her brow, simply said: "You have a loving heart, dear child."

Lunch passed off gayly. Nothing is more contagious than joy or sadness. Which of us has not experienced the effect of a hearty laugh? Odette chatted merrily on about her plans for the future. She would make Germaine so happy; they would have so much to see together, and[31] then they must make plans to marry off our "dear little Germaine"—not to any of the old Academy professors, but to some nice, interesting young gentleman.

No one interrupted Odette. Her father was recalling the misery of his first marriage. M. Descoutures was enjoying her charming and gay vivacity; while Corinne was dreaming of her conquest. Happy Corinne! As usual, she was imagining a love scene. This time, it was Paul Frager at her feet, his eyes cast down, confessing his passion. She would reply: "Poor, dear boy," and imprint a chaste kiss on his brow.