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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.
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