a small, firm, prominent calf like a sailor's. She had a
figure for a wet nurse. Her thick, honest waist, her
strong, plump arms, her red hands ; everything about her,
in short, was in keeping with the round, expansive con-
tours and portly fairness of the Norman style of beauty.
6o The Jealousies of a Country Town
Wide open, prominent eyes of no particular colour
gave to a face, by no means distinguished in its round
outlines, a sheepish, astonished expression not altogether
inappropriate, however, in an old maid : even if Rose
had not been innocent, she must still have seemed so.
An aquiline nose was oddly assorted with a low forehead,
for a feature of that type is almost invariably found in
company with a lofty brow. In spite of thick, red
lips, the sign of great kindliness of nature, there were
evidently so few ideas behind that forehead, that Rose's
heart could scarcely have been directed by her brain.
Kind she must certainly be, but not gracious. And we
are apt to judge the defects of goodness very harshly,
while we make the most of the redeeming qualities of
vice.
An extraordinary length of chestnut hair lent Rose
Cormon such beauty as belongs to vigour and luxuriance,
her chief personal characteristics. In the time of her
pretensions she had a trick of turning her face in three-
quarters profile to display a very pretty ear, gracefully
set between the azure-streaked white throat and the
temple, and thrown into relief by thick masses of her
hair. Dressed in a ball gown, with her head poised at
this angle, Rose might almost seem beautiful. With
her protuberant bust, her waist, her high health, she
used to draw exclamations of admiration from Imperial
officers. ' What a fine girl ! ' they used to say.
But, as years went on, the stoutness induced by a
quiet, regular life distributed itself so unfortunately over
her person, that its original proportions were destroyed.
No known variety of corset could have discovered the
poor spinster's hips at this period of her existence ; she
might have been cast in one uniform piece. The
youthful proportions of her figure were completely lost ;
her dimensions had grown so excessive, that no one
could see her stoop without fearing that, being so top-
heavy, she would certainly overbalance herself; but
The Jealousies of a Country Town 61
nature had provided a sufficient natural counterpoise,
which enabled her to dispense with all adventitious aid
from ' dress improvers.' Everything about Rose was
very genuine.
Her chin developed a triple fold, which reduced the
apparent length of her throat, and made it no easy
matter to turn her head. She had no wrinkles, she had
creases. Wags used to assert that she powdered herself,
as nurses powder babies, to prevent chafing of the skin.
To a young man, consumed, like Athanase, with sup-
pressed desires, this excessive corpulence offered just the
kind of physical charm which could not fail to attract
youth. Youthful imaginations, essentially intrepid,
stimulated by appetite, are prone to dilate upon the
beauties of that living expanse. So does the plump
partridge allure the epicure's knife. And, indeed, any
debt-burdened young man of fashion in Paris would have
resigned himself readily enough to fulfilling his part of
the contract and making Mile. Cormon happy. Still the
unfortunate spinster had already passed her fortieth
year !
At this period of enforced loneliness, after the long,
vain struggle to fill her life with those interests that are
all in all to woman, she was fortifying herself in virtue
by the most strict observance of religious duties ; she
had turned to the great consolation of well-preserved
virginity. A confessor, endowed with no great wisdom,
had directed Mile. Cormon in the paths of asceticism for
some three years past, recommending a system of self-
scourging calculated, according to modern doctors, to
produce an effect the exact opposite of that expected by
the poor priest, whose knowledge of hygiene was but
limited. These absurd practices were beginning to
bring a certain monastic tinge to Rose Cormon's face ;
with frequent pangs of despair, she watched the sallow
hues of middle age creeping across its natural white and
red ; while the trace of down about the corners of her
62 The Jealousies of a Country Town
upper lip showed a distinct tendency to darken and
increase like smoke. Her temples grew shiny. She
had passed the turning-point, in fact. It was known
for certain in Alencon that Mile. Cormon suffered from
heated blood. She inflicted her confidence upon the
Chevalier de Valois, reckoning up the number of foot-
baths that she took, and devising cooling treatment with
him. And that shrewd observer would end by taking
out his snuft-box, and gazing at the portrait of the
Princess Goritza as he remarked, ' But the real sedative,
my dear young lady, would be a good and handsome
husband.'
* But whom could one trust ? ' returned she.
But the Chevalier only flicked away the powdered
snuff* from the creases of his paduasoy waistcoat. To
anybody else the proceeding would have seemed per-
fectly natural, but it always made the poor old maid feel
uncomfortable.
The violence of her objectless longings grew to such
a height that she shrank from looking a man in the face,
so afraid was she that the thoughts which pierced her
heart might be read in her eyes. It was one of her
whims, possibly a later development of her former
tactics, to behave almost ungraciously to the possible
suitors towards whom she still felt herself attracted, so
afraid was she of being accused of folly. Most people
in her circle were utterly incapable of appreciating her
motives, so noble throughout; they explained her
manner to her coevals in single blessedness by a
theory of revenge for some past slight.
With the beginning of the year 1815 Rose Cormon
had reached the fatal age, to which she did not confess.
She was forty-two. By this time her desire to be
married had reached a degree of intensity bordering on
monomania. She saw her chances of motherhood fast
slipping away for ever ; and, in her divine ignorance, she
longed above all things for children of her own. There
The Jealousies of a Country Town 63
was not a soul found in Alencon to impute a single
unchaste desire to the virtuous girl. She loved love, taking
all for granted, without realising for herself what love
would be — a devout Agnes, incapable of inventing one
of the little shifts of Moliere's heroine.
She had been counting upon chance of late. The
disbanding of the Imperial troops and the reconstruction
of the King's army was sending a tide of military men
back to their native places, some of them on half-pay,
some with pensions, some without, and all of them
anxious to find some way of amending their bad fortune,
and of finishing their days in a fashion which would
mean the beginning of happiness for Mile. Cormon. It
would be hard indeed if she could not find a single
brave and honourable man among all those who were
coming back to the neighbourhood. He must have a
sound constitution in the first place, he must be of suit-
able age, and a man whose personal character would
serve as a passport to his Buonapartist opinions ; perhaps
he might even be willing to turn Royalist for the sake
of gaining a lost social position.
Supported by these mental calculations, Mile. Cormon
maintained the severity of her attitude for the first few
months of the year ; but the men that came back to the
town were all either too old or too young, or their
characters were too bad, or their opinions too Buona-
partist, or their station in life was incompatible with her
position, fortune, and habits. The case grew more and
more desperate every day. Officers high in the service
had used their advantages under Napoleon to marry, and
these gentlemen now became Royalists for the sake of
their families. In vain had she put up prayers to heaven
to send her a husband that she might be happy in
Christian fashion ; it was written, no doubt, that she
should die virgin and martyr, for not a single likely-
looking man presented himself.
In the course of conversation in her drawing-room of
64 The Jealousies of a Country Town
an evening, the frequenters of the house kept the police
register under tolerably strict supervision ; no one could
arrive in Alen^on but they informed themselves at once
as to the new-comer's mode of life, quality, and fortune.
But, at the same time, Alencon is not a town to attract
many strangers ; it is not on the high road to any large
city ; there are no chance arrivals ; naval officers on
their way to Brest do not so much as stop in the place.
Poor Mile. Cormon at last comprehended that her
choice was reduced to the natives. At times her eyes
took an almost fierce expression, to which the Chevalier
would respond with a keen glance at her as he drew out
his snuff-box to gaze at the Princess Goritza. M. de
Valois knew that in feminine jurisprudence, fidelity to an
old love is a guarantee for the new. But Mile. Cormon,
it cannot be denied, was not very intelligent. His
snuff-box strategy was wasted upon her.
She redoubled her watchfulness, the better to combat
the c evil one,' and with devout rigidness and the sternest
principles she consigned her cruel sufferings to the secret
places of her life.
At night, when she was alone, she thought of her lost
youth, of her faded bloom, of the thwarted instincts of her
nature ; and while she laid her passionate longings at the
foot of the Cross, together with all the poetry doomed to
remain pent within her, she vowed inwardly to take the
first man that was willing to marry her, just as he was,
without putting him to any proof whatsoever. Sounding
her own dispositions, after a series of vigils, each more
trying than the last, in her own mind she went so far as to
espouse a sub-lieutenant, a tobacco-smoker to boot ; nay,
he was even head over ears in debt. Him she proposed
to transform with care, submission, and gentleness into
a pattern for mankind. But only in the silence of night
could she plan these imaginary marriages, in which she
amused herself with playing the sublime part of guardian
angel ; with morning, if Josette found her mistress's bed-
The Jealousies of a Country Town 65
clothes turned topsy-turvy, mademoiselle had recovered
her dignity ; with morning, after breakfast, she would
have nothing less than a solid landowner, a well-preserved
man of forty — a young man, as you may say.
The Abbe de Sponde was incapable of giving his
niece assistance of any sort in schemes for marriage.
The good man, aged seventy or thereabouts, referred all
the calamities of the Revolution to the design of a
Providence prompt to punish a dissolute Church. For
which reasons M. de Sponde had long since entered
upon a deserted path to heaven, the way trodden by the
hermits of old. He led an ascetic life, simply, unob-
trusively ; hiding his deeds of charity, his constant
prayer and fasting from all other eyes. Necessity was
laid upon all priests, he thought, to do as he did ; he
preached by example, turning a serene and smiling
face upon the world, while he completely cut himself
off from worldly interests. All his thoughts were given
to the afflicted, to the needs of the Church, and the
saving of his own soul. He left the management of his
property to his niece. She paid over his yearly income
to him, and, after a slight deduction for his maintenance,
the whole of it went in private almsgiving or in dona-
tions to the Church.
All the Abbe's affections were centred upon his
niece, and she looked upon him as a father. He was a
somewhat absent-minded father, however, without the
remotest conception of the rebellion of the flesh ; a
father who gave thanks to God for maintaining his
beloved daughter in a state of virginity ; for from his
youth up he had held, with St. John Chrysostom, c that
virginity is as much above the estate of marriage as the
angels are above man.'
Mile. Cormon was accustomed to look up to her
uncle ; she did not venture to confide her wishes for a
change of condition to him ; and he, good man, on his
side was accustomed to the ways of the house, and
E
66 The Jealousies of a Country Town
perhaps might not have relished the introduction of a
master into it. Absorbed in thoughts of the distress
which he relieved, or lost in fathomless inner depths of
prayer, he was often unconscious of what was going on
about him ; frequenters of the house set this down to
absent-mindedness ; but while he said little, his silence
was neither unsociable nor ungenial. A tall, spare,
grave, and solemn man, his face told of kindly feeling
and a great inward peace. His presence in the house
seemed as it were to consecrate it. The Abbe entertained
a strong liking for that elderly sceptic the Chevalier de
Valois. Far apart as their lives were, the two grand
wrecks of the eighteenth century clergy and noblesse
recognised each other by generic signs and tokens ; and
the Chevalier, for that matter, could converse with
unction with the Abbe, just as he talked like a father
with his grisettes.
Some may think that Mile. Cormon would leave no
means untried to gain her end ; that among other per-
missible feminine artifices, for instance, she would turn
to her toilettes, wear low-cut bodices, use the passive
coquetry of a display of the splendid equipment with
which she might take the field. On the contrary, she
was as heroic and steadfast in her high-necked gown as
a sentry in his sentry-box. All her dresses, bonnets, and
finery were made in Alencon by two hunchbacked sisters,
not wanting in taste. But in spite of the entreaties
of the two artists, Mile. Cormon utterly declined the
adventitious aid of elegance ; she must be substantial
throughout, body and plumage, and possibly her heavy-
looking dresses became her not amiss. Laugh who will
at her, poor thing. Generous natures, those who never
trouble themselves about the form in which good feeling
shows itself, but admire it wherever they find it, will
see something sublime in this trait. Perhaps some
slight-natured feminine critic may begin to carp, and
say that there is no woman in France so simple but that
The Jealousies of a Country Town 67
she can angle for a husband ; that Mile. Cormon is one
of those abnormal creatures which common sense forbids
us to take for a type ; that the best or the most babyish
unmarried woman that has a mind to hook a gudgeon
can put forward some physical charm wherewith to
bait her line. But when you begin to think that the
sublime Apostolic Roman Catholic is still a power in
Brittany and the ancient duchy of Alencon, these
criticisms fall to the ground. Faith and piety admit no
such subtleties. Mile. Cormon kept to the straight
path, preferring the misfortune of a maidenhood infinitely
prolonged to the misery of untruthfulness, to the sin of
small deceit. Armed with self-discipline, such a girl
cannot make a sacrifice of a principle; and therefore
love (or self-interest) must make a very determined
effort to find her out and win her.
Let us have the courage to make a confession, painful
in these days when religion is nothing but a means of
advancement for some, a dream for others : the devout
are subject to a kind of moral ophthalmia, which, by
the especial grace of Providence, removes a host of small
earthly concerns out of the sight of the pilgrim of
Eternity. In a word, the devout are apt to be dense in
a good many ways. Their stupidity, at the same time, is
a measure of the force with which their spirits turn
heavenwards ; albeit the sceptical M. de Valois main-
tained that it is a moot point whether stupid women
take naturally to piety, or whether piety, on the other
hand, has a stupefying effect upon an intelligent girl.
It must be borne in mind that it is the purest orthodox
goodness, ready to drink rapturously of every cup set
before It, to submit devoutly to the will of God, to see
the print of the divine finger everywhere in the clay of
life, — that it is catholic virtue stealing like hidden light
into the innermost recesses of this History that alone
can bring everything into right relief, and widen its
significance for those who yet have faith. And, again,
68 The Jealousies of a Country Town
if the stupidity is admitted, why should the misfortunes
of stupidity be less interesting than the woes of genius
in a world where fools so overwhelmingly preponderate ?
To resume. Mile. Cormon's divine girlish ignorance
of life was an offence in the eyes of the world. She was
anything but observant, as her treatment of her suitors
sufficiently showed. At this very moment, a girl of
sixteen who had never opened a novel in her life might
have read a hundred chapters of romance in Athanase's
eyes. But Mile. Cormon saw nothing all the while ;
she never knew that the young man's voice was unsteady
with emotion which he dared not express, and the woman
who could invent refinements of high sentiment to her
own undoing could not discern the same feelings in
Athanase.
Those who know that qualities of heart and brain are
as independent of each other as genius and greatness of
soul, will see nothing extraordinary in this psychological
phenomenon. A complete human being is so rare a
prodigy, that Socrates, that pearl among mankind, agreed
with a contemporary phrenologist that he himself was
born to be a very scurvy knave. A great general may
save his country at Zurich, and yet take a commission
from contractors ; a banker's doubtful honesty does not
prevent him from being a statesman ; a great composer
may give the world divine music, and yet forge another
man's signature ; and a woman of refined feeling may be
excessively weakminded. In short, a devout woman
may have a very lofty soul, and yet have no ears to
hear the voice of another noble soul at her side.
The unaccountable freaks of physical infirmity find a
parallel in the moral world. Here was a good creature
making her preserves and breaking her heart till she
grew almost ridiculous, because, forsooth, there was no
one to eat them but her uncle and herself. Those who
sympathised with her for the sake of her good qualities,
or, in some cases, on account of her defects, used to
The Jealousies of a Country Town 69
laugh over her disappointments. People began to
wonder what would become of so fine a property with
all Mile. Cormon's savings, and her uncle's to boot.
It was long since they began to suspect that at
bottom, and in spite of appearances, Mile. Cormon was
'an original.' Originality is not allowed in the pro-
vinces ; originality means that you have ideas which
nobody else can understand, and in a country town
people's intellects, like their manner of life, must all be
on a level. Even in 1804 Rose's matrimonial prospects
were considered so problematical, that l to marry like
Mile. Cormon ' was a current saying in Alencon, and
the most ironical way of suggesting Such-an-one would
never marry at all.
The necessity to laugh at some one must indeed be
imperious in France, if any one could be found to raise a
smile at the expense of that excellent creature. Not
merely did she entertain the whole town, she was charit-
able, she was good ; she was incapable of saying a
spiteful word ; and more than that, she was so much in
unison with the whole spirit of the place, its manners
and its customs, that she was generally beloved as the
very incarnation of the life of the province ; she had
imbibed all its prejudices and made its interests hers ;
she had never gone beyond its limits, she adored it ; she
was embedded in provincial tradition. In spite of her
eighteen thousand livres per annum, a tolerably large
income for the neighbourhood, she accommodated herself
to the ways of her less wealthy neighbours. When she
went to her country house, the Prebaudet, for instance,
she drove over in an old-fashioned wicker cariole hung
with white leather straps, and fitted with a couple of rusty
weather-beaten leather curtains, which scarcely closed
it in. The equipage, drawn by a fat broken-winded
mare, was known all over the town. Jacquelin, the
man-servant, cleaned it as carefully as if it had been the
finest brougham from Paris. Mademoiselle was fond
70 The Jealousies of a Country Town
of it ; it had lasted her a dozen years, a fact which she
was wont to point out with the triumphant joy of con-
tented parsimony. Most people were grateful to her for
forbearing to humiliate them by splendour which she
might have flaunted before their eyes ; it is even credible
that if she had sent for a caleche from Paris, it would
have caused more talk than any of her c disappointments.'
After all, the finest carriage in the world, like the old-
fashioned cariole, could only have taken her to the
Prebaudet ; and in the provinces they always keep the
end in view, and trouble themselves very little about
the elegance of the means, provided that they are
sufficient.
To complete the picture of Mile. Cormon's house-
hold and domestic life, several figures must be grouped
round Mile. Cormon and the Abbe de Sponde. Jac-
quelin, and Josette, and Mariette, the cook, ministered
to the comfort of uncle and niece.
Jacquelin, a man of forty, short and stout, dark-haired
and ruddy, with a countenance of the Breton sailor type,
had been in service in the house for twenty-two years.
He waited at table, groomed the mare, worked in the
garden, cleaned the Abbe's shoes, ran errands, chopped
firewood, drove the cariole, went to the Prebaudet for
corn, hay, and straw, and slept like a dormouse in the
antechamber of an evening. He was supposed to be
fond of Josette, and Josette was six-and-thirty. But if
she had married him, Mile. Cormon would have dis-
missed her, and so the poor lovers were fain to save up
their wages in silence, and to wait and hope for made-
moiselle's marriage, much as the Jews look for the advent
of the Messiah.
Josette came from the district between Alencon and
Mortagne ; she was a fat little woman. Her face, which
reminded you of a mud-bespattered apricot, was not
wanting either in character or intelligence. She was
supposed to rule her mistress. Josette and Jacquelin,
The Jealousies of a Country Town 71
feeling sure of the event, found consolation, presum-
ably by discounting the future. Mariette, the cook,
had likewise been in the family for fifteen years ; she was
skilled in the cookery of the country and the preparation
of the most esteemed provincial dishes.
Perhaps the fat old bay mare, of the Normandy breed,
which Mile. Cormon used to drive to the Prebaudet,
ought to count for a good deal, for the affection which
the five inmates of the house bore the animal amounted
to mania. Penelope, for that was her name, had been
with them for eighteen years ; and so well was she cared
for, so regularly tended, that Jacquelin and mademoiselle
hoped to get quite another ten years of work out of her.
Penelope was a stock subject and source of interest in
their lives. It seemed as if poor Mile. Cormon, with no
child of her own, lavished all her maternal affection
upon the lucky beast. Almost every human being lead-
ing a solitary life in a crowded world will surround
himself with a make-believe family of some sort, and
Penelope took the place of dogs, cats, or canaries.
These four faithful servants — for Penelope's intelli-
gence had been trained till it was very nearly on a par
with the wits of the other three, while they had sunk
pretty much into the dumb, submissive jog-trot life of the
animal — these four retainers came and went and did the
same things day after day, with the unfailing regularity
of clockwork. But, to use their own expression, ' they
had eaten their white bread first.' Mile. Cormon
suffered from a fixed idea upon the nerves ; and, after the
wont of such sufferers, she grew fidgety and hard to
please, not by force of nature, but because she had no
outlet for her energies. She had neither husband nor
children to fill her thoughts, so they fastened upon
trifles. She would talk for hours at a stretch of some
inconceivably small matter, of a dozen serviettes, for
instance, lettered Z, which somehow or other had been
put before O.
72 The Jealousies of a Country Town
' Why, what can Josette be thinking about ? ' she
cried. c Has she no notion what she is doing ?'
Jacquelin chanced to be late in feeding Penelope one
afternoon, so every day for a whole week afterwards
mademoiselle inquired whether the horse had been fed
at two o'clock. Her narrow imagination spent itself on