2.M.6.8. THE VETERANS THEMSELVES CAN BE HAPPY
SINCE we have pronounced the word modesty, and since we
conceal nothing, we ought to say that once, nevertheless, in
spite of his ecstasies, "his Ursule" caused him very serious
grief. It was on one of the days when she persuaded M.
Leblanc to leave the bench and stroll along the walk. A brisk
May breeze was blowing, which swayed the crests of the
plaintain-trees. The father and daughter, arm in arm, had
just passed Marius' bench. Marius had risen to his feet
behind them, and was following them with his eyes, as was
fitting in the desperate situation of his soul.
All at once, a gust of wind, more merry than the rest, and
probably charged with performing the affairs of Springtime,
swept down from the nursery, flung itself on the alley, enveloped
the young girl in a delicious shiver, worthy of Virgil's
nymphs, and the fawns of Theocritus, and lifted her dress,
the robe more sacred than that of Isis, almost to the height of
her garter. A leg of exquisite shape appeared. Marius saw it.
He was exasperated and furious.
The young girl had hastily thrust down her dress, with a
divinely troubled motion, but he was none the less angry for
all that. He was alone in the alley, it is true. But there
might have been some one there. And what if there had been
some one there! Can any one comprehend such a thing?
What she had just done is horrible! — Alas, the poor child had
done nothing; there had been but one culprit, the wind; but
Marius, in whom quivered the Bartholo who exists in Cherubin,
was determined to be vexed, and was jealous of his own
shadow. It is thus, in fact, that the harsh and capricious
jealousy of the flesh awakens in the human heart, and takes
possession of it, even without any right. Moreover, setting
aside even that jealousy, the sight of that charming leg had
contained nothing agreeable for him; the white stocking of
the first woman he chanced to meet would have afforded him
more pleasure.
When "his Ursule," after having reached the end of the
walk, retraced her steps with M. Leblanc, and passed in front
of the bench on which Marius had seated himself once more,
Marius darted a sullen and ferocious glance at her. The
young girl gave way to that slight straightening up with a
backward movement, accompanied by a raising of the eyelids,
which signifies: "Well, what is the matter?"
This was "their first quarrel."
Marius had hardly made this scene at her with his eyes,
when some one crossed the walk. It was a veteran, very much
bent, extremely wrinkled, and pale, in a uniform of the Louis
XV. pattern, bearing on his breast the little oval plaque of
red cloth, with the crossed swords, the soldier's cross of Saint-Louis,
and adorned, in addition, with a coat-sleeve, which had
no arm within it, with a silver chin and a wooden leg. Marius
thought he perceived that this man had an extremely well
satisfied air. It even struck him that the aged cynic, as he
hobbled along past him, addressed to him a very fraternal and
very merry wink, as though some chance had created an
understanding between them, and as though they had shared
some piece of good luck together. What did that relic of
Mars mean by being so contented? What had passed between
that wooden leg and the other? Marius reached a paroxysm
of jealousy. — "Perhaps he was there!" he said to himself;
"perhaps he saw!" — And he felt a desire to exterminate the
veteran.
With the aid of time, all points grow dull. Marius' wrath
against "Ursule," just and legitimate as it was, passed off.
He finally pardoned her; but this cost him a great effort; he
sulked for three days.
Nevertheless, in spite of all this, and because of all
this, his
passion augmented and grew to madness.