by Benet Saucy
INTENDED TO SHOW THAT LANGUAGE IS A MERE CONVENIENCE.
[From the French of Benet Saucy.]
Otherwise one might imagine that I intend to write about two men. One will say there may be unsocial silence between a man and a woman, but social silence—never. Yet it has happened, or will have happened when I have told my story.
It was a man who said, "Silence is golden, speech is silver-plated." It was a woman who said, "Let me do the talking, and I don't care what woman in front of me gets her back up." (Fait le gros dos)
Social silence between men—one knows what that is. They smoke; they sip their wine. When they hare something to say, they empty the glass; the cigar goes out. They resume silence—if silence can be resumed; the glasses are refilled; they strike a match.
What is it, then, between a man and a woman? Two pairs of eyes, a fan, a round waist, a strong arm—a kiss. Perhaps they also strike a match. This is the story I have to tell.
Eugene De Merveille had known Rosalie Lebrun for a long time, as time goes in this fast world, and yet the two had exchanged hardly a dozen words. A hasty thinker might imagine this latter circumstance was due to the fact that Rosalie's papa and mamma were always present at the meeting of the young people. One of the ideas which they had appreciated from the first was that they loved each other. Monsieur and Madame Lebrun abhorred De Merville. He never flattered madame; he never asked advice of monsieur. For the rest he was well enough, but he was no match for their Rosalie. He never talked, and Rosalie needed a husband who would draw her out, because she never talked.
Monsieur and madame did not know the difference between talking and conversation.
One day at dinner Monsieur Lebrun happened to remark that De Merveille was a blockhead. If he were not, why did he not talk? But no, he only sat and stared at the wall or floor. Rosalie smiled aloud, and said to herself, "Then I am a blockhead, for I do not talk." Two blockheads may produce a series of blockheads. Then no harm is done. But a blockhead who says nothing and a wise person who says too much, their union would result in monsters. Vice Eugene.
Subtle logic of the feminine mind of Rosalie does not jump at a conclusion. She reached out and snatched it bald-headed. (Le saisant a tete chance.)
On the same day Eugene was casting up accounts—he was an accountant, but that is no matter—and in footing up a column he came to "naught and naught are naught." Eugene paused in his occupation. "It never occurred to me before," he thought, "that one can add two figures together without getting any result. One adds two naughts together, and one gets a third naught. I must think about this."
As Eugene stood vacantly meditating and rubbing the feather of his quill pen against his cheek, his thoughts instinctively turned upon Rosalie herself. The ciphers were forgotten.
That evening Eugene called upon Rosalie, although it was an off night (une nuit estea). Rosalie was sitting alone in the salon. Of course Monsieur and Madame had not expected him, for they were not present. It cannot be said whether Rosalie expected him or not, for she never said anything. As Eugene entered the saloon, Rosalie simply smiled and drew the skirts of her robe closer to her. Eugene accepted the invitation, and, placing a chair near Rosalie, seated himself.
One should by no means accept the theory of many philosophers that an idea cannot be comprehended without the use or knowledge of language. Some hold that when one thinks one is sensible of speech, which is silent yet audible to one's self. Nothing can be more untrue. The faculty of speech resides in the brain, not in the throat. If it were otherwise, how could deaf mutes think before acquiring the deaf language? One can appreciate impressions and ideas without mentally converting them into language. That is an afterthought.
Thus it was with Rosalie and Eugene, as they sat side by side, speechless yet eloquent. The scene was almost like that described by Mr. Coventry Patmuch, the English poet, in "The Angel in the House":—
"For hours the clock upon the shelfAs Eugene gazed at the clock in the salon, and watched the minute hand slowly moving past the figures on the dial, he thought or his pen moving along the column of figures and stopping at the ciphers. Then the train of thoughts carried him to the feather of his pen, its soft touch upon his cheek, the softness of Rosalie's cheek, Rosalie herself sitting by his side, and then, by a jump backward, to his first meeting with the young girl.
Had all talking to itself."
Rosalie also stared at the clock. She saw the ornament on its upper part—a female figure reclining against a marble block, on which was sculptured a head. Then the thought of her father's remark, that Eugene was a blockhead, of her own inward defence of him, and then by a leap backward, she recalled her first meeting with Eugene.
The lovers had arrived at the same point, at the same moment, by different routes. Eugene smiled, Rosalie blushed.
A panorama unfolded itself before their minds' eye.
There is a stretch of sea-beach with the surf rolling in. Many people and a young girl are bathing. Suddenly something happens. The young girl throws up her hands and shrieks. The bathers pay no attention to her. They think her back hair has come down, and that raising her hands to put it up she has discovered that it has floated away. Such things are common in the surf.
A young man is strolling along the beach in a linen duster and a crush hat. He hears the cry. He puts his hat in the pocket of his duster, throws that garment onto the ground. Then he plunges boldly into the surf and brings the young lady to the shore. She is insensible. He turns her on her face pinches her nose with his fingers, opens her mouth, and the water that has entered her lungs runs out. She recovers as her friends arrive, and they carry her away. The young man resumes his duster, his hat, his stroll.
In the evening the young man is sitting on the hotel verandah. A middle-aged gentleman approaches him. "I believe you saved my daughter's life," he says to the young man, who answers that he did. "My name is Lebrun," continues the middle-aged gentleman. "And mine De Merveille," answers the young man.
"Let's go and take a drink," suggests Monsieur Lebrun, "and then I will introduce you." Rosalie, who is sitting with her mother on the piazza, sees them depart with a feeling of pain. In a moment, however, they return, chewing a clove and twisting their moustaches. "Madame Lebrun, Monsieur de Merveille," says Monsieur Lebrun; "daughter Rosalie." Eugene bows to the mother and says, awkwardly, to Rosalie "I think we have met before." "Why, didn't you know me with all my clothes on?" asks Miss Innocence.
The clock on the mantel strikes the hour. Rosalie and Eugene start and look at each other. Rosalie pulls at the feathers of her fan, and Eugene places his arm on the back of her chair.
The panorama moved on more rapidly in the hurry of events. There was an afternoon walk, when Rosalie stumbled over a stone, and Eugene instinctively caught her. There was a morning in the hotel when Rosalie dropped her crocheting cotton, and her head and Eugene's came together as they stooped to pick it up. There was an evening when he turned the music for Rosalie, and a crimson ribbon in Rosalie's hair blew against his face. He caught it and kissed it, wishing it had been Rosalie's crimson lips.
The clock on the mantel strikes the half-hour. The lovers start. Rosalie is lying on Eugene's breast, his arm is around her waist, their lips have just parted.
Eugene announces to Monsieur Lebrun the next morning, in half a dozen words, his engagement to Rosalie. Monsieur Lebrun is angry. "But, then, what is the use of talking to a blockhead? says he.
It is too early yet to determine if Eugene and Rosalie's boy will be a blockhead. He is of an affectionate disposition, and is a deaf-mute.
Warragul Guardian and Buln Buln and Narracan Shire Advocate, Thursday 9 December 1880, supplement page 1
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