Melmoth Reconciled | Page 8

pimples; her figure, which had seemed so straight, grew crooked, the angel
became a suspicious and shrewish creature who drove Castanier frantic. Then the fortune
took to itself wings. At length the dragoon, no longer recognizing the woman whom he
had wedded, left her to live on a little property at Strasbourg, until the time when it
should please God to remove her to adorn Paradise. She was one of those virtuous
women who, for want of other occupation, would weary the life out of an angel with
complainings, who pray till (if their prayers are heard in heaven) they must exhaust the
patience of the Almighty, and say everything that is bad of their husbands in dovelike
murmurs over a game of boston with their neighbors. When Aquilina learned all these
troubles she clung still more affectionately to Castanier, and made him so happy, varying
with woman's ingenuity the pleasures with which she filled his life, that all unwittingly
she was the cause of the cashier's downfall.
Like many women who seem by nature destined to sound all the depths of love, Mme. de
la Garde was disinterested. She asked neither for gold nor for jewelry, gave no thought to
the future, lived entirely for the present and for the pleasures of the present. She accepted
expensive ornaments and dresses, the carriage so eagerly coveted by women of her class,
as one harmony the more in the picture of life. There was absolutely no vanity in her
desire not to appear at a better advantage but to look the fairer, and moreover, no woman
could live without luxuries more cheerfully. When a man of generous nature (and
military men are mostly of this stamp) meets with such a woman, he feels a sort of
exasperation at finding himself her debtor in generosity. He feels that he could stop a
mail coach to obtain money for her if he has not sufficient for her whims. He will commit
a crime if so he may be great and noble in the eyes of some woman or of his special
public; such is the nature of the man. Such a lover is like a gambler who would be
dishonored in his own eyes if he did not repay the sum he borrowed from a waiter in a
gaming-house; but will shrink from no crime, will leave his wife and children without a
penny, and rob and murder, if so he may come to the gaming-table with a full purse, and
his honor remain untarnished among the frequenters of that fatal abode. So it was with
Castanier.
He had begun by installing Aquiline is a modest fourth-floor dwelling, the furniture being
of the simplest kind. But when he saw the girl's beauty and great qualities, when he had
known inexpressible and unlooked-for happiness with her, he began to dote upon her; and
longed to adorn his idol. Then Aquilina's toilette was so comically out of keeping with
her poor abode, that for both their sakes it was clearly incumbent on him to move. The
change swallowed up almost all Castanier's savings, for he furnished his domestic
paradise with all the prodigality that is lavished on a kept mistress. A pretty woman must
have everything pretty about her; the unity of charm in the woman and her surroundings
singles her out from among her sex. This sentiment of homogeneity indeed, though it has
frequently escaped the attention of observers, is instinctive in human nature; and the same
prompting leads elderly spinsters to surround themselves with dreary relics of the past.
But the lovely Piedmontese must have the newest and latest fashions, and all that was

daintiest and prettiest in stuffs for hangings, in silks or jewelry, in fine china and other
brittle and fragile wares. She asked for nothing; but when she was called upon to make a
choice, when Castanier asked her, "Which do you like?" she would answer, "Why, this is
the nicest!" Love never counts the cost, and Castanier therefore always took the "nicest."
When once the standard had been set up, there was nothing for it but everything in the
household must be in conformity, from the linen, plate, and crystal through a thousand
and one items of expenditure down to the pots and pans in the kitchen. Castanier had
meant to "do things simply," as the saying goes, but he gradually found himself more and
more in debt. One expense entailed another. The clock called for candle sconces. Fires
must be lighted in the ornamental grates, but the curtains and hangings were too fresh and
delicate to be soiled by smuts, so they must be replaced by patent and elaborate fireplaces,
warranted to give out no smoke, recent inventions of the people who are so clever at
drawing up a