An Old Maid | Page 6

complained; he
praised his adversaries when they lost; he did not rebuke or teach his
partners by showing them how they ought to have played. When, in the
course of a deal, those sickening dissertations on the game would take
place, the chevalier invariably drew out his snuff-box with a gesture
that was worthy of Mole, looked at the Princess Goritza, raised the
cover with dignity, shook, sifted, massed the snuff, and gathered his
pinch, so that by the time the cards were dealt he had decorated both
nostrils and replaced the princess in his waistcoat pocket,--always on

his left side. A gentleman of the "good" century (in distinction from the
"grand" century) could alone have invented that compromise between
contemptuous silence and a sarcasm which might not have been
understood. He accepted poor players and knew how to make the best
of them. His delightful equability of temper made many persons say,--
"I do admire the Chevalier de Valois!"
His conversation, his manners, seemed bland, like his person. He
endeavored to shock neither man nor woman. Indulgent to defects both
physical and mental, he listened patiently (by the help of the Princess
Goritza) to the many dull people who related to him the petty miseries
of provincial life,--an egg ill-boiled for breakfast, coffee with feathered
cream, burlesque details about health, disturbed sleep, dreams, visits.
The chevalier could call up a languishing look, he could take on a
classic attitude to feign compassion, which made him a most valuable
listener; he could put in an "Ah!" and a "Bah!" and a "What DID you
do?" with charming appropriateness. He died without any one
suspecting him of even an allusion to the tender passages of his
romance with the Princess Goritza. Has any one ever reflected on the
service a dead sentiment can do to society; how love may become both
social and useful? This will serve to explain why, in spite of his
constant winning at play (he never left a salon without carrying off with
him about six francs), the old chevalier remained the spoilt darling of
the town. His losses--which, by the bye, he always proclaimed, were
very rare.
All who know him declare that they have never met, not even in the
Egyptian museum at Turin, so agreeable a mummy. In no country in
the world did parasitism ever take on so pleasant a form. Never did
selfishness of a most concentrated kind appear less forth-putting, less
offensive, than in this old gentleman; it stood him in place of devoted
friendship. If some one asked Monsieur de Valois to do him a little
service which might have discommoded him, that some one did not
part from the worthy chevalier without being truly enchanted with him,
and quite convinced that he either could not do the service demanded,
or that he should injure the affair if he meddled in it.

To explain the problematic existence of the chevalier, the historian,
whom Truth, that cruel wanton, grasps by the throat, is compelled to
say that after the "glorious" sad days of July, Alencon discovered that
the chevalier's nightly winnings amounted to about one hundred and
fifty francs every three months; and that the clever old nobleman had
had the pluck to send to himself his annuity in order not to appear in
the eyes of a community, which loves the main chance, to be entirely
without resources. Many of his friends (he was by that time dead, you
will please remark) have contested mordicus this curious fact, declaring
it to be a fable, and upholding the Chevalier de Valois as a respectable
and worthy gentleman whom the liberals calumniated. Luckily for
shrewd players, there are people to be found among the spectators who
will always sustain them. Ashamed of having to defend a piece of
wrong-doing, they stoutly deny it. Do not accuse them of wilful
infatuation; such men have a sense of their dignity; governments set
them the example of a virtue which consists in burying their dead
without chanting the Misere of their defeats. If the chevalier did allow
himself this bit of shrewd practice,--which, by the bye, would have won
him the regard of the Chevalier de Gramont, a smile from the Baron de
Foeneste, a shake of the hand from the Marquis de Moncade,--was he
any the less that amiable guest, that witty talker, that imperturbable
card-player, that famous teller of anecdotes, in whom all Alencon took
delight? Besides, in what way was this action, which is certainly within
the rights of a man's own will, --in what way was it contrary to the
ethics of a gentleman? When so many persons are forced to pay
annuities to others, what more natural than to pay one to his own best
friend? But Laius is dead--
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