IV A NORMAL EVENING

/Mouche/ is a game played with five cards dealt to each player, and

one turned over. The turned-over card is trumps. At each round the

player is at liberty to run his chances or to abstain from playing his

card. If he abstains he loses nothing but his own stake, for as long

as there are no forfeits in the basket each player puts in a trifling

sum. If he plays and wins a trick he is paid /pro rata/ to the stake;

that is, if there are five sous in the basket, he wins one sou. The

player who fails to win a trick is made /mouche/; he has to pay the

whole stake, which swells the basket for the next game. Those who

decline to play throw down their cards during the game; but their play

is held to be null. The players can exchange their cards with the

remainder of the pack, as in ecarte, but only by order of sequence, so

that the first and second players may, and sometimes do, absorb the

remainder of the pack between them. The turned-over trump card belongs

to the dealer, who is always the last; he has the right to exchange it

for any card in his own hand. One powerful card is of more importance

than all the rest; it is called Mistigris. Mistigris is the knave of

clubs.

This game, simple as it is, is not lacking in interest. The cupidity

natural to mankind develops in it; so does diplomatic wiliness; also

play of countenance. At the hotel du Guenic, each of the players took

twenty counters, representing five sous; which made the sum total of

the stake for each game five farthings, a large amount in the eyes of

this company. Supposing some extraordinary luck, fifty sous might be

won,more capital than any person in Guerande spent in the course of

any one day. Consequently Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel put into this game

(the innocence of which is only surpassed in the nomenclature of the

Academy by that of La Bataille) a passion corresponding to that of the

hunters after big game. Mademoiselle Zephirine, who went shares in the

game with the baroness, attached no less importance to it. To put up

one farthing for the chance of winning five, game after game, was to

this confirmed hoarder a mighty financial operation, into which she

put as much mental action as the most eager speculator at the Bourse

expends during the rise and fall of consols.

By a certain diplomatic convention, dating from September, 1825, when

Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel lost thirty-five sous, the game was to cease

as soon as a person losing ten sous should express the wish to retire.

Politeness did not allow the rest to give the retiring player the pain

of seeing the game go on without him. But, as all passions have their

Jesuitism, the chevalier and the baron, those wily politicians, had

found a means of eluding this charter. When all the players but one

were anxious to continue an exciting game, the daring sailor, du

Halga, one of those rich fellows prodigal of costs they do not pay,

would offer ten counters to Mademoiselle Zephirine or Mademoiselle

Jacqueline, when either of them, or both of them, had lost their five

sous, on condition of reimbursement in case they won. An old bachelor

could allow himself such gallantries to the sex. The baron also

offered ten counters to the old maids, but under the honest pretext of

continuing the game. The miserly maidens accepted, not, however,

without some pressing, as is the use and wont of maidens. But, before

giving way to this vast prodigality the baron and the chevalier were

required to have won; otherwise the offer would have been taken as an

insult.

/Mouche/ became a brilliant affair when a Demoiselle de Kergarouet was

in transit with her aunt. We use the single name, for the Kergarouets

had never been able to induce any one to call them Kergarouet-Pen-

Hoel,not even their servants, although the latter had strict orders

so to do. At these times the aunt held out to the niece as a signal

treat the /mouche/ at the du Guenics. The girl was ordered to look

amiable, an easy thing to do in the presence of the beautiful Calyste,

whom the four Kergarouet young ladies all adored. Brought up in the

midst of modern civilization, these young persons cared little for

five sous a game, and on such occasions the stakes went higher. Those

were evenings of great emotion to the old blind sister. The baroness

would give her sundry hints by pressing her foot a certain number of

times, according to the size of the stake it was safe to play. To play

or not to play, if the basket were full, involved an inward struggle,

where cupidity fought with fear. If Charlotte de Kergarouet, who was

usually called giddy, was lucky in her bold throws, her aunt on their

return home (if she had not won herself), would be cold and

disapproving, and lecture the girl: she had too much decision in her

character; a young person should never assert herself in presence of

her betters; her manner of taking the basket and beginning to play was

really insolent; the proper behavior of a young girl demanded much

more reserve and greater modesty; etc.

It can easily be imagined that these games, carried on nightly for

twenty years, were interrupted now and then by narratives of events in

the town, or by discussions on public events. Sometimes the players

would sit for half an hour, their cards held fan-shape on their

stomachs, engaged in talking. If, as a result of these inattentions, a

counter was missing from the basket, every one eagerly declared that

he or she had put in their proper number. Usually the chevalier made

up the deficiency, being accused by the rest of thinking so much of

his buzzing ears, his chilly chest, and other symptoms of invalidism

that he must have forgotten his stake. But no sooner did he supply the

missing counter than Zephirine and Jacqueline were seized with

remorse; they imagined that, possibly, they themselves had forgotten

their stake; they believedthey doubtedbut, after all, the

chevalier was rich enough to bear such a trifling misfortune. These

dignified and noble personages had the delightful pettiness of

suspecting each other. Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel would almost

invariably accuse the rector of cheating when he won the basket.

"It is singular," he would reply, "that I never cheat except when I

win the trick."

Often the baron would forget where he was when the talk fell on the

misfortunes of the royal house. Sometimes the evening ended in a

manner that was quite unexpected to the players, who all counted on a

certain gain. After a certain number of games and when the hour grew

late, these excellent people would be forced to separate without

either loss or gain, but not without emotion. On these sad evenings

complaints were made of /mouche/ itself; it was dull, it was long; the

players accused their /mouche/ as Negroes stone the moon in the water

when the weather is bad. On one occasion, after an arrival of the

Vicomte and Vicomtesse de Kergarouet, there was talk of whist and

boston being games of more interest than /mouche/. The baroness, who

was bored by /mouche/, encouraged the innovation, and all the company

but not without reluctanceadopted it. But it proved impossible to

make them really understand the new games, which, on the departure of

the Kergarouets, were voted head-splitters, algebraic problems, and

intolerably difficult to play. All preferred their /mouche/, their

dear, agreeable /mouche/. /Mouche/ accordingly triumphed over modern

games, as all ancient things have ever triumphed in Brittany over

novelties.

While the rector was dealing the cards the baroness was asking the

Chevalier du Halga the same questions which she had asked him the

evening before about his health. The chevalier made it a point of

honor to have new ailments. Inquiries might be alike, but the nautical

hero had singular advantages in the way of replies. To-day it chanced

that his ribs troubled him. But here's a remarkable thing! never did

the worthy chevalier complain of his wounds. The ills that were really

the matter with him he expected, he knew them and he bore them; but

his fancied ailments, his headaches, the gnawings in his stomach, the

buzzing in his ears, and a thousand other fads and symptoms made him

horribly uneasy; he posed as incurable,and not without reason, for

doctors up to the present time have found no remedy for diseases that

don't exist.

"Yesterday the trouble was, I believe, in your legs," said the rector.

"It moves about," replied the chevalier.

"Legs to ribs?" asked Mademoiselle Zephirine.

"Without stopping on the way?" said Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, smiling.

The chevalier bowed gravely, making a negative gesture which was not a

little droll, and proved to an observer that in his youth the sailor

had been witty and loving and beloved. Perhaps his fossil life at

Guerande hid many memories. When he stood, solemnly planted on his two

heron-legs in the sunshine on the mall, gazing at the sea or watching

the gambols of his little dog, perhaps he was living again in some

terrestrial paradise of a past that was rich in recollections.

"So the old Duc de Lenoncourt is dead," said the baron, remembering

the paragraph of the "Quotidienne," where his wife had stopped

reading. "Well, the first gentleman of the Bedchamber followed his

master soon. I shall go next."

"My dear, my dear!" said his wife, gently tapping the bony calloused

hand of her husband.

"Let him say what he likes, sister," said Zephirine; "as long as I am

above ground he can't be under it; I am the elder."

A gay smile played on the old woman's lips. Whenever the baron made

reflections of that kind, the players and the visitors present looked

at each other with emotion, distressed by the sadness of the king of

Guerande; and after they had left the house they would say, as they

walked home: "Monsieur du Guenic was sad to-night. Did you notice how

he slept?" And the next day the whole town would talk of the matter.

"The Baron du Guenic fails," was a phrase that opened the conversation

in many houses.

"How is Thisbe?" asked Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel of the chevalier, as

soon as the cards were dealt.

"The poor little thing is like her master," replied the chevalier;

"she has some nervous trouble, she goes on three legs constantly. See,

like this."

In raising and crooking his arm to imitate the dog, the chevalier

exposed his hand to his cunning neighbor, who wanted to see if he had

Mistigris or the trump,a first wile to which he succumbed.

"Oh!" said the baroness, "the end of Monsieur le cure's nose is

turning white; he has Mistigris."

The pleasure of having Mistigris was so great to the rectoras it was

to the other playersthat the poor priest could not conceal it. In

all human faces there is a spot where the secret emotions of the heart

betray themselves; and these companions, accustomed for years to

observe each other, had ended by finding out that spot on the rector's

face: when he had Mistigris the tip of his nose grew pale.

"You had company to-day," said the chevalier to Mademoiselle de Pen-

Hoel.

"Yes, a cousin of my brother-in-law. He surprised me by announcing the

marriage of the Comtesse de Kergarouet, a Demoiselle de Fontaine."

"The daughter of 'Grand-Jacques,'" cried the chevalier, who had lived

with the admiral during his stay in Paris.

"The countess is his heir; she has married an old ambassador. My

visitor told me the strangest things about our neighbor, Mademoiselle

des Touches,so strange that I can't believe them. If they were true,

Calyste would never be so constantly with her; he has too much good

sense not to perceive such monstrosities"

"Monstrosities?" said the baron, waked up by the word.

The baroness and the rector exchanged looks. The cards were dealt;

Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel had Mistigris! Impossible to continue the

conversation! But she was glad to hide her joy under the excitement

caused by her last word.

"Your play, monsieur le baron," she said, with an air of importance.

"My nephew is not one of those youths who like monstrosities,"

remarked Zephirine, taking out her knitting-needle and scratching her

head.

"Mistigris!" cried Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, making no reply to her

friend.

The rector, who appeared to be well-informed in the matter of Calyste

and Mademoiselle des Touches, did not enter the lists.

"What does she do that is so extraordinary, Mademoiselle des Touches?"

asked the baron.

"She smokes," replied Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel.

"That's very wholesome," said the chevalier.

"About her property?" asked the baron.

"Her property?" continued the old maid. "Oh, she is running through

it."

"The game is mine!" said the baroness. "See, I have king, queen, knave

of trumps, Mistigris, and a king. We win the basket, sister."

This victory, gained at one stroke, without playing a card, horrified

Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, who ceased to concern herself about Calyste

and Mademoiselle des Touches. By nine o'clock no one remained in the

salon but the baroness and the rector. The four old people had gone to

their beds. The chevalier, according to his usual custom, accompanied

Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel to her house in the Place de Guerande, making

remarks as they went along on the cleverness of the last play, on the

joy with which Mademoiselle Zephirine engulfed her gains in those

capacious pockets of hers,for the old blind woman no longer

repressed upon her face the visible signs of her feelings. Madame du

Guenic's evident preoccupation was the chief topic of conversation,

however. The chevalier had remarked the abstraction of the beautiful

Irish woman. When they reached Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel's door-step,

and her page had gone in, the old lady answered, confidentially, the

remarks of the chevalier on the strangely abstracted air of the

baroness:

"I know the cause. Calyste is lost unless we marry him promptly. He

loves Mademoiselle des Touches, an actress!"

"In that case, send for Charlotte."

"I have sent; my sister will receive my letter to-morrow," replied

Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, bowing to the chevalier.

Imagine from this sketch of a normal evening the hubbub excited in

Guerande homes by the arrival, the stay, the departure, or even the

mere passage through the town, of a stranger.

When no sounds echoed from the baron's chamber nor from that of his

sister, the baroness looked at the rector, who was playing pensively

with the counters.

"I see that you begin to share my anxiety about Calyste," she said to

him.

"Did you notice Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel's displeased looks to-night?"

asked the rector.

"Yes," replied the baroness.

"She has, as I know, the best intentions about our dear Calyste; she

loves him as though he were her son, his conduct in Vendee beside his

father, the praises that MADAME bestowed upon his devotion, have only

increased her affection for him. She intends to execute a deed of gift

by which she gives her whole property at her death to whichever of her

nieces Calyste marries. I know that you have another and much richer

marriage in Ireland for your dear Calyste, but it is well to have two

strings to your bow. In case your family will not take charge of

Calyste's establishment, Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel's fortune is not to

be despised. You can always find a match of seven thousand francs a

year for the dear boy, but it is not often that you could come across

the savings of forty years and landed property as well managed, built

up, and kept in repair as that of Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel. That

ungodly woman, Mademoiselle des Touches, has come here to ruin many

excellent things. Her life is now known."

"And what is it?" asked the mother.

"Oh! that of a trollop," replied the rector,"a woman of questionable

morals, a writer for the stage; frequenting theatres and actors;

squandering her fortune among pamphleteers, painters, musicians, a

devilish society, in short. She writes books herself, and has taken a

false name by which she is better known, they tell me, than by her

own. She seems to be a sort of circus woman who never enters a church

except to look at the pictures. She has spent quite a fortune in

decorating Les Touches in a most improper fashion, making it a

Mohammedan paradise where the houris are not women. There is more wine

drunk there, they say, during the few weeks of her stay than the whole

year round in Guerande. The Demoiselles Bougniol let their lodgings

last year to men with beards, who were suspected of being Blues; they

sang wicked songs which made those virtuous women blush and weep, and

spent their time mostly at Les Touches. And this is the woman our dear

Calyste adores! If that creature wanted to-night one of the infamous

books in which the atheists of the present day scoff at holy things,

Calyste would saddle his horse himself and gallop to Nantes for it. I

am not sure that he would do as much for the Church. Moreover, this

Breton woman is not a royalist! If Calyste were again called upon to

strike a blow for the cause, and Mademoiselle des Touchesthe Sieur

Camille Maupin, that is her other name, as I have just rememberedif

she wanted to keep him with her the chevalier would let his old father

go to the field without him."

"Oh, no!" said the baroness.

"I should not like to put him to the proof; you would suffer too

much," replied the rector. "All Guerande is turned upside down about

Calyste's passion for this amphibious creature, who is neither man nor

woman, who smokes like an hussar, writes like a journalist, and has at

this very moment in her house the most venomous of all writers,so

the postmaster says, and he's a /juste-milieu/ man who reads the

papers. They are even talking about her at Nantes. This morning the

Kergarouet cousin who wants to marry Charlotte to a man with sixty

thousand francs a year, went to see Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel, and

filled her mind with tales about Mademoiselle des Touches which lasted

seven hours. It is now striking a quarter to ten, and Calyste is not

home; he is at Les Touches,perhaps he won't come in all night."

The baroness listened to the rector, who was substituting monologue

for dialogue unconsciously as he looked at this lamb of his fold, on

whose face could be read her anxiety. She colored and trembled. When

the worthy man saw the tears in the beautiful eyes of the mother, he

was moved to compassion.

"I will see Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoel to-morrow," he said. "Don't be

too uneasy. The harm may not be as great as they say it is. I will

find out the truth. Mademoiselle Jacqueline has confidence in me.

Besides, Calyste is our child, our pupil,he will never let the devil

inveigle him; neither will he trouble the peace of his family or

destroy the plans we have made for his future. Therefore, don't weep;

all is not lost, madame; one fault is not vice."

"You are only informing me of details," said the baroness. "Was not I

the first to notice the change in my Calyste? A mother keenly feels

the shock of finding herself second in the heart of her son. She

cannot be deceived. This crisis in a man's life is one of the trials

of motherhood. I have prepared myself for it, but I did not think it

would come so soon. I hoped, at least, that Calyste would take into

his heart some noble and beautiful being,not a stage-player, a

masquerader, a theatre woman, an author whose business it is to feign

sentiments, a creature who will deceive him and make him unhappy! She

has had adventures"

"With several men," said the rector. "And yet this impious creature

was born in Brittany! She dishonors her land. I shall preach a sermon

upon her next Sunday."

"Don't do that!" cried the baroness. "The peasants and the /paludiers/

would be capable of rushing to Les Touches. Calyste is worthy of his

name; he is Breton; some dreadful thing might happen to him, for he

would surely defend her as he would the Blessed Virgin."

"It is now ten o'clock; I must bid you good-night," said the abbe,

lighting the wick of his lantern, the glass of which was clear and the

metal shining, which testified to the care his housekeeper bestowed on

the household property. "Who could ever have told me, madame," he

added, "that a young man brought up by you, trained by me to Christian

ideas, a fervent Catholic, a child who has lived as a lamb without

spot, would plunge into such mire?"

"But is it certain?" said the mother. "How could any woman help loving

Calyste?"

"What other proof is needed than her staying on at Les Touches. In all

the twenty-four years since she came of age she has never stayed there

so long as now; her visits to these parts, happily for us, were few

and short."

"A woman over forty years old!" exclaimed the baroness. "I have heard

say in Ireland that a woman of this description is the most dangerous

mistress a young man can have."

"As to that, I have no knowledge," replied the rector, "and I shall

die in my ignorance."

"And I, too, alas!" said the baroness, naively. "I wish now that I had

loved with love, so as to understand and counsel and comfort Calyste."

The rector did not cross the clean little court-yard alone; the

baroness accompanied him to the gate, hoping to hear Calyste's step

coming through the town. But she heard nothing except the heavy tread

of the rector's cautious feet, which grew fainter in the distance, and

finally ceased when the closing of the door of the parsonage echoed

behind him.