athénaïse was not one to accept the inevitable with patient resignation, a talent born in the souls of many women; neither was she the one to accept it with philosophical resignation, like her husband. her sensibilities were alive and keen and responsive. she met the pleasurable things of life with frank, open appreciation, and against distasteful conditions she rebelled. 56dissimulation was as foreign to her nature as guile to the breast of a babe, and her rebellious outbreaks, by no means rare, had hitherto been quite open and aboveboard. people often said that athénaïse would know her own mind some day, which was equivalent to saying that she was at present unacquainted with it. if she ever came to such knowledge, it would be by no intellectual research, by no subtle analyses or tracing the motives of actions to their source. it would come to her as the song to the bird, the perfume and color to the flower.
her parents had hoped—not without reason and justice—that marriage would bring the poise, the desirable pose, so glaringly lacking in athénaïse’s character. marriage they knew to be a wonderful and powerful agent in the development and formation of a woman’s character; they had seen its effect too often to doubt it.
“and if this marriage does nothing else,” exclaimed miché in an outburst of sudden exasperation, “it will rid us of athénaïse; for i am at the end of my patience with her! you have never had the firmness to manage her,”—he was speaking to his wife,—“i have not had 57the time, the leisure, to devote to her training; and what good we might have accomplished, that maudit montéclin—well, cazeau is the one! it takes just such a steady hand to guide a disposition like athénaïse’s, a master hand, a strong will that compels obedience.”
and now, when they had hoped for so much, here was athénaïse, with gathered and fierce vehemence, beside which her former outbursts appeared mild, declaring that she would not, and she would not, and she would not continue to enact the rôle of wife to cazeau. if she had had a reason! as madame miché lamented; but it could not be discovered that she had any sane one. he had never scolded, or called names, or deprived her of comforts, or been guilty of any of the many reprehensible acts commonly attributed to objectionable husbands. he did not slight nor neglect her. indeed, cazeau’s chief offense seemed to be that he loved her, and athénaïse was not the woman to be loved against her will. she called marriage a trap set for the feet of unwary and unsuspecting girls, and in round, unmeasured terms reproached her mother with treachery and deceit.
58“i told you cazeau was the man,” chuckled miché, when his wife had related the scene that had accompanied and influenced athénaïse’s departure.
athénaïse again hoped, in the morning, that cazeau would scold or make some sort of a scene, but he apparently did not dream of it. it was exasperating that he should take her acquiescence so for granted. it is true he had been up and over the fields and across the river and back long before she was out of bed, and he may have been thinking of something else, which was no excuse, which was even in some sense an aggravation. but he did say to her at breakfast, “that brother of yo’s, that montéclin, is unbearable.”
“montéclin? par exemple!”
athénaïse, seated opposite to her husband, was attired in a white morning wrapper. she wore a somewhat abused, long face, it is true,—an expression of countenance familiar to some husbands,—but the expression was not sufficiently pronounced to mar the charm of her youthful freshness. she had little heart to eat, only playing with the food before her, and she 59felt a pang of resentment at her husband’s healthy appetite.
“yes, montéclin,” he reasserted. “he’s developed into a firs’-class nuisance; an’ you better tell him, athénaïse,—unless you want me to tell him,—to confine his energies after this to matters that concern him. i have no use fo’ him or fo’ his interference in w’at regards you an’ me alone.”
this was said with unusual asperity. it was the little breach that athénaïse had been watching for, and she charged rapidly: “it’s strange, if you detes’ montéclin so heartily, that you would desire to marry his sister.” she knew it was a silly thing to say, and was not surprised when he told her so. it gave her a little foothold for further attack, however. “i don’t see, anyhow, w’at reason you had to marry me, w’en there were so many others,” she complained, as if accusing him of persecution and injury. “there was marianne running after you fo’ the las’ five years till it was disgraceful; an’ any one of the dortrand girls would have been glad to marry you. but no, nothing would do; you mus’ come out on the rigolet fo’ me.” her complaint was pathetic, 60and at the same time so amusing that cazeau was forced to smile.
“i can’t see w’at the dortrand girls or marianne have to do with it,” he rejoined; adding, with no trace of amusement, “i married you because i loved you; because you were the woman i wanted to marry, an’ the only one. i reckon i tole you that befo’. i thought—of co’se i was a fool fo’ taking things fo’ granted—but i did think that i might make you happy in making things easier an’ mo’ comfortable fo’ you. i expected—i was even that big a fool—i believed that yo’ coming yere to me would be like the sun shining out of the clouds, an’ that our days would be like w’at the story-books promise after the wedding. i was mistaken. but i can’t imagine w’at induced you to marry me. w’atever it was, i reckon you foun’ out you made a mistake, too. i don’ see anything to do but make the best of a bad bargain, an’ shake han’s over it.” he had arisen from the table, and, approaching, held out his hand to her. what he had said was commonplace enough, but it was significant, coming from cazeau, who was not often so unreserved in expressing himself.
61athénaïse ignored the hand held out to her. she was resting her chin in her palm, and kept her eyes fixed moodily upon the table. he rested his hand, that she would not touch, upon her head for an instant, and walked away out of the room.
she heard him giving orders to workmen who had been waiting for him out on the gallery, and she heard him mount his horse and ride away. a hundred things would distract him and engage his attention during the day. she felt that he had perhaps put her and her grievance from his thoughts when he crossed the threshold; whilst she—
old félicité was standing there holding a shining tin pail, asking for flour and lard and eggs from the storeroom, and meal for the chicks.
athénaïse seized the bunch of keys which hung from her belt and flung them at félicité’s feet.
“tiens! tu vas les garder comme tu as jadis fait. je ne veux plus de ce train là, moi!”
the old woman stooped and picked up the keys from the floor. it was really all one to 62her that her mistress returned them to her keeping, and refused to take further account of the ménage.
