Melmoth Reconciled | Page 7

idea, to be looked upon as respectable middle-class women, who lead
humdrum lives of faithfulness to their husbands; women who would make excellent
mothers, keepers of household accounts, and menders of household linen. This longing

springs from a sentiment so laudable, that society should take it into consideration. But
society, incorrigible as ever, will assuredly persist in regarding the married woman as a
corvette duly authorized by her flag and papers to go on her own course, while the
woman who is a wife in all but name is a pirate and an outlaw for lack of a document. A
day came when Mme. de la Garde would fain have signed herself "Mme. Castanier." The
cashier was put out by this.
"So you do not love me well enough to marry me?" she said.
Castanier did not answer; he was absorbed by his thoughts. The poor girl resigned herself
to her fate. The ex-dragoon was in despair. Naqui's heart softened towards him at the
sight of his trouble; she tried to soothe him, but what could she do when she did not know
what ailed him? When Naqui made up her mind to know the secret, although she never
asked him a question, the cashier dolefully confessed to the existence of a Mme.
Castanier. This lawful wife, a thousand times accursed, was living in a humble way in
Strasbourg on a small property there; he wrote to her twice a year, and kept the secret of
her existence so well, that no one suspected that he was married. The reason of this
reticence? If it is familiar to many military men who may chance to be in a like
predicament, it is perhaps worth while to give the story.
Your genuine trooper (if it is allowable here to employ the word which in the army
signifies a man who is destined to die as a captain) is a sort of serf, a part and parcel of
his regiment, an essentially simple creature, and Castanier was marked out by nature as a
victim to the wiles of mothers with grown-up daughters left too long on their hands. It
was at Nancy, during one of those brief intervals of repose when the Imperial armies
were not on active service abroad, that Castanier was so unlucky as to pay some attention
to a young lady with whom he danced at a ridotto, the provincial name for the
entertainments often given by the military to the townsfolk, or vice versa, in garrison
towns. A scheme for inveigling the gallant captain into matrimony was immediately set
on foot, one of those schemes by which mothers secure accomplices in a human heart by
touching all its motive springs, while they convert all their friends into
fellow-conspirators. Like all people possessed by one idea, these ladies press everything
into the service of their great project, slowly elaborating their toils, much as the ant-lion
excavates its funnel in the sand and lies in wait at the bottom for its victim. Suppose that
no one strays, after all, into that carefully constructed labyrinth? Suppose that the ant-lion
dies of hunger and thirst in her pit? Such things may be, but if any heedless creature once
enters in, it never comes out. All the wires which could be pulled to induce action on the
captain's part were tried; appeals were made to the secret interested motives that always
come into play in such cases; they worked on Castanier's hopes and on the weaknesses
and vanity of human nature. Unluckily, he had praised the daughter to her mother when
he brought her back after a waltz, a little chat followed, and then an invitation in the most
natural way in the world. Once introduced into the house, the dragoon was dazzled by the
hospitality of a family who appeared to conceal their real wealth beneath a show of
careful economy. He was skilfully flattered on all sides, and every one extolled for his
benefit the various treasures there displayed. A neatly timed dinner, served on plate lent
by an uncle, the attention shown to him by the only daughter of the house, the gossip of
the town, a well-to-do sub-lieutenant who seemed likely to cut the ground from under his
feet--all the innumerable snares, in short, of the provincial ant-lion were set for him, and
to such good purpose, that Castanier said five years later, "To this day I do not know how

it came about!"
The dragoon received fifteen thousand francs with the lady, who after two years of
marriage, became the ugliest and consequently the most peevish woman on earth. Luckily
they had no children. The fair complexion (maintained by a Spartan regimen), the fresh,
bright color in her face, which spoke of an engaging modesty, became overspread with
blotches and