Artists Wives | Page 4

uproarious and exuberant,
who, with his nose in the air and bristling moustaches, rushed through
life defiantly flaunting the eccentric and whirlwind-like name of
Heurtebise,* like a challenge thrown down to all the absurd
conventionalities and prejudices of the bourgeois class. How, and by
what strange charm had the little woman, brought up in a jeweller's
shop, behind rows of watch chains and strings of rings, found the
means of captivating this poet?
* Hit the blast (literally).
Picture to yourself the affected graces of a shopwoman with
insignificant features, cold and ever-smiling eyes, complacent and
placid physiognomy, devoid of real elegance, but having a certain love
for glitter and tinsel, no doubt caught at her father's shopwindow,
making her take pleasure in many-coloured satin bows, sashes and
buckles; and her hair glossy with cosmetic, stiffly arranged by the
hairdresser over a small, obstinate, narrow forehead, where the total
absence of wrinkles told less of youth than of complete lack of thought.
Such as she was, however, Heurtebise loved and wooed her, and as he
happened to possess a small income, found no difficulty in winning
her.
What pleased her in this marriage was the idea of wedding an author, a
well-known man, who would take her to the theatre as often as she
wished. As for him, I verily believe that her sham elegance born of the
shop, her pretentious manners, pursed up mouth, and affectedly uplifted

little finger, fascinated him and appeared to him the height, of Parisian
refinement; for he was born a peasant and in spite of his intelligence
remained one to the end of his days.
[Illustration: p025-036]
Tempted by a quiet happiness and the family life of which he had been
so long deprived, Heurtebise spent two years far from his friends,
buried in the country, or in out-of-way suburban nooks, within easy
distance of that great city Paris, which overexcited him even while he
yet sought its attenuated atmosphere, just like those invalids who are
recommended sea air, but who, too delicate to bear it in all its strength,
are compelled to inhale it from a distance of some miles. From time to
time, his name appeared in a newspaper or magazine at the end of an
article; but already the freshness of style, the bursts of eloquence, were
lacking by which he had been formerly known. We thought: "He is too
happy! his happiness has spoilt him."
However, one day he returned amongst us, and we immediately saw
that he was not happy. His pallid countenance, drawn features
contracted by a perpetual irritability, the violent manners degenerated
into a nervous rage, the hollow sound of his once fine ringing laugh, all
showed that he was an altered man. Too proud to admit that he had
made a mistake, he would, not complain, but the old friends who
gathered round him were soon convinced that he had made a most
foolish marriage, and that henceforth his life must prove a failure. On
the other hand, Madame Heurtebise appeared to us, after two years of
married life, exactly the same as we had beheld her in the vestry on her
wedding day. She wore the same calm and simpering smile, she had as
much as ever the air of a shopwoman in her Sunday clothes, only she
had gained self-possession. She talked now. In the midst of artistic
discussions into which Heurtebise passionately threw himself, with
arbitrary assertions, brutal contempt, or blind enthusiasm, the false and
honeyed voice of his wife would suddenly make irruption, forcing him
to listen to some idle reasoning or foolish observation invariably
outside of the subject of discussion. Embarrassed and worried, he
would cast us an imploring glance, and strive to resume the interrupted

conversation. Then at last, wearied out by her familiar and constant
contradiction, by the silliness of her birdlike brain, inflated and empty
as any cracknel, he held his tongue, and silently resigned himself to let
her go on to the bitter end. But this determined silence exasperated
Madame, seemed to her more insulting, more disdainful than anything.
Her sharp voice became discordant, and growing higher and shriller,
stung and buzzed, like the ceaseless teasing of a fly, till at last her
enraged husband in his turn, burst out brutal and terrific.
She emerged from these incessant quarrels, which always ended in
tears, rested and refreshed, as a lawn after a watering, but he remained
broken, fevered, incapable of work, Little by little his very violence
was worn out One evening when I was present at one of these odious
scenes, as Madame Heurtebise triumphantly left the table, I saw on her
husband's face bent downwards during the quarrel and now upraised,
an expression of scorn and anger that no words could any longer
express. The little woman