The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol

“Monsieur,” she said, “I have been married to my husband for four years, and have always been faithful to him.”

“That’s praiseworthy,” said Aristide.

“And I love him very much.”

“That’s unfortunate!” said Aristide.

“Unfortunate?”

“Evidently!” said Aristide.

Their eyes met. They burst out laughing. The lady quickly recovered and the tears sprang again.

“One can’t jest with a heavy heart; and mine is very heavy.” She broke down through self-pity. “Oh, I am ashamed!” she cried.

She turned away from him, burying her face in her hands. Her dress, cut low, showed the nape of her neck as it rose gracefully from her shoulders. Two little curls had rebelled against being drawn up with the rest of her hair. The back of a dainty ear, set close to the head, was provoking in its pink loveliness. Her attitude, that of a youthful Niobe, all tears, but at the same time all curves and delicious contours, would have played the deuce with an anchorite.

Aristide, I would have you remember, was a child of the South. A child of the North, regarding a bewitching woman, thinks how nice it would be to make love to her, and wastes his time in wondering how he can do it. A child of the South neither thinks nor wonders; he makes love straight away.

“Madame,” said Aristide, “you are adorable, and I love you to distraction.”

She started up. “Monsieur, you forget yourself!”

“If I remember anything else in the wide world but you, it would be a poor compliment. I forget everything. You turn my head, you ravish my heart, and you put joy into my soul.”

He meant it – intensely – for the moment.

“I ought not to listen to you,” said the lady, “especially when I am so unhappy.”

“All the more reason to seek consolation,” replied Aristide.

“Monsieur,” she said, after a short pause, “you look good and loyal. I will tell you what is the matter. My husband accuses me wrongfully, although I know that appearances are against me. He only allows me in the house on sufferance, and is taking measures to procure a divorce.”

“A la bonne heure!” cried Aristide, excitedly casting away his straw hat, which an unintentional twist of the wrist caused to skim horizontally and nearly decapitate a small and perspiring soldier who happened to pass by. “A la bonne heure! Let him divorce you. You are then free. You can be mine without any further question.”

“But I love my husband,” she smiled, sadly.

“Bah!” said he, with the scepticism of the lover and the Provençal. “And, by the way, who is your husband?”

“He is M. Émile Bocardon, proprietor of the Hôtel de la Curatterie.”

“And you?”

“I am Mme. Bocardon,” she replied, with the faintest touch of roguery.

“But your Christian name? How is it possible for me to think of you as Mme. Bocardon?”

They argued the question. Eventually she confessed to the name of Zette.

Her confidence not stopping there, she told him how she came by the name; how she was brought up by her Aunt Léonie at Raphèle, some five miles from Arles, and many other unexciting particulars of her early years. Her baptismal name was Louise. Her mother, who died when she was young, called her Louisette. Aunt Léonie, a very busy woman, with no time for superfluous syllables, called her Zette.

“Zette!” He cast up his eyes as if she had been canonized and he was invoking her in rapt worship. “Zette, I adore you!”

Zette was extremely sorry. She, on her side, adored the cruel M. Bocardon. Incidentally she learned Aristide’s name and quality. He was an agent d’affaires, extremely rich – had he not two thousand francs and an American millionaire in his pocket?

“M. Pujol,” she said, “the earth holds but one thing that I desire, the love and trust of my husband.”

“The good Bocardon is becoming tiresome,” said Aristide.

Zette’s lips parted, as she pointed to a black speck at the iron entrance gates.

“Mon Dieu! there he is!”

“He has become tiresome,” said Aristide.

She rose, displaying to its full advantage her supple and stately figure. She had a queenly poise of the head. Aristide contemplated her with the frankest admiration.

“One would say Juno was walking the earth again.”

Although Zette had never heard of Juno, and was as miserable and heavy hearted a woman as dwelt in Nîmes, a flush of pleasure rose to her cheeks. She too was a child of the South, and female children of the South love to be admired, no matter how frankly. I have heard of Daughters of the Snows not quite averse to it. She sighed.

“I must go now, monsieur. He must not find me here with you. I am suffering enough already from his reproaches. Ah! it is unjust – unjust!” she cried, clenching her hands, while the tears again started into her eyes, and the corners of her pretty lips twitched with pain. “Indeed,” she added, “I know it has been wrong of me to talk to you like this. But que voulez-vous? It was not my fault. Adieu, monsieur.”

At the sight of her standing before him in her woeful beauty, Aristide’s pulses throbbed.

“It is not adieu – it is au revoir, Mme. Zette,” he cried.

She protested tearfully. It was farewell. Aristide darted to his rejected hat and clapped it on the back of his head. He joined her and swore that he would see her again. It was not Aristide Pujol who would allow her to be rent in pieces by the jaws of that crocodile, M. Bocardon. Faith, he would defend her to the last drop of his blood. He would do all manner of gasconading things.

“But what can you do, my poor M. Pujol?” she asked.

“You will see,” he replied.

They parted. He watched her until she became a speck and, having joined the other speck, her husband, passed out of sight. Then he set out through the burning gardens towards the Hôtel du Luxembourg, at the other end of the town.

Aristide had fallen in love. He had fallen in love with Provençal fury. He had done the same thing a hundred times before; but this, he told himself, was the coup de foudre– the thunderbolt. The beautiful Arlésienne filled his brain and his senses. Nothing else in the wide world mattered. Nothing else in the wide world occupied his mind. He sped through the hot streets like a meteor in human form. A stout man, sipping syrup and water in the cool beneath the awning of the Café de la Bourse, rose, looked wonderingly after him, and resumed his seat, wiping a perspiring brow.

A short while afterwards Aristide, valise in hand, presented himself at the bureau of the Hôtel de la Curatterie. It was a shabby little hotel, with a shabby little oval sign outside, and was situated in the narrow street of the same name. Within, it was clean and well kept. On the right of the little dark entrance-hall was the salle à manger, on the left the bureau and an unenticing hole labelled salon de correspondance. A very narrow passage led to the kitchen, and the rest of the hall was blocked by the staircase. An enormous man with a simple, woe-begone fat face and a head of hair like a circular machine-brush was sitting by the bureau window in his shirt-sleeves. Aristide addressed him.

“M. Bocardon?”

“At your service, monsieur.”

“Can I have a bedroom?”

“Certainly.” He waved a hand towards a set of black sample boxes studded with brass nails and bound with straps that lay in the hall. “The omnibus has brought your boxes. You are M. Lambert?”

“M. Bocardon,” said Aristide, in a lordly way, “I am M. Aristide Pujol, and not a commercial traveller. I have come to see the beauties of Nîmes, and have chosen this hotel because I have the honour to be a distant relation of your wife, Mme. Zette Bocardon, whom I have not seen for many years. How is she?”