John Barry - Mademoiselle Blanche

When they had left the café , and Jules had taken his friends home and dismissed the cab, he fell again into the depression of the week before. As he walked to the rue de Lisbonne in the damp night, he blamed Durand for having introduced him to the Perraults. If he hadn't met Mademoiselle Blanche he might have gone on living comfortably, enjoyed his daily work, his little dinners, his visits to the theatre, his comfortable apartment, with Madeleine to look after his wants. Now he was upset, at sea. He hated the routine of the office; the vulgar stories of Dufresne and Leroux disgusted him; the apartment was cold and lonely; Madeleine was always interfering with him. He resolved not to go to the Cirque again; he would try to forget Mademoiselle Blanche and her mother's chatter. But when he went to bed it was of her that he thought, and he dreamed that he saw her again, in her white silk tights, climbing hand over hand to the top of the Circus, tumbling through the air, and bouncing with a thud to her feet on the padded net.

The next morning he felt better, and he called himself a fool for his misery of the night before. As he looked back on the evening, he decided that, of course, if they hadn't liked him, they would not have allowed him to take them to the theatre and back, and to a café for supper. He wondered what they would think if he called for them again that night. Perhaps it would be better to wait for two or three days. But at the end of the afternoon he felt so impatient to see Mademoiselle Blanche that he determined to risk seeming intrusive. So he bought another bunch of white roses, and at eight o'clock he reappeared in the apartment. Madame Perrault greeted him just as she had done the night before, without a suggestion of surprise in her manner. This made him feel so bold that he did not apologize, as he had intended to do, but took his place by the fire as if he had a right to be there.

In this way, Jules Le Baron's courtship began. It seemed to him a strange courtship. It taught him a great many things, – among others, how little he knew about women. As he had lived in Paris all of his thirty years, with the exception of his three memorable months in America, he thought he understood women; now he saw his mistake. He had not led a particularly good life, though it was so much better than the lives of most of his acquaintances that he considered himself a man of rather superior character. If he had studied his character more carefully, he would have discovered that his superiority was not a matter of morals, but of taste and temperament. Vice seemed to him vulgar, and it made him uncomfortable; so in its grosser forms he had always avoided it. He had, however, the Parisian's frank, ingenuous, almost innocent fondness for the humorously indecent, and his attitude toward life was wholly French. The mention of virtue made him laugh and shrug his shoulders. Most women, he thought, were naturally the inferiors of men; so the better he understood the character of Mademoiselle Blanche, the more surprised he grew. Indeed, there were times when he felt awed in her presence and ashamed of himself. She seemed to know the world and yet to be untainted by it, to turn away instinctively from its evil phases. If her innocence had been ignorant, he could not have respected it; the knowledge that she had lived in the midst of temptation made her goodness seem almost sublime.

Jules fell into the habit of calling for the Perraults in the evening, and he soon became recognized at the Cirque as their escort. Réju, who still showed respect for him as a journalist, admitted him to the theatre every night without charge, and he was also permitted to enter the sacred precincts beyond the stage-door, where, instead of waiting on the sidewalk, he stood in a cold corridor, dimly lighted by sputtering lamps. After the performance, he sometimes took his friends into the little café for beer and sandwiches, and occasionally Madame Perrault would prepare a supper at home.

Jules' equilibrium became restored again; he made fewer mistakes at the office and he even deceived the twins, who had come to the conclusion that he must be in love. With Madeleine, in spite of his first confidences, he had little to say about Mademoiselle Blanche, and she did not dare ask him questions. His silence and his improved appetite, together with his renewed amiability, made her hope that he had recovered from his infatuation, and she felt easier in mind.

On the Saturday evening following his first call on Mademoiselle Blanche, while Jules was sitting in the little apartment, he asked the girl if they might not pass Sunday together. "We might drive through the Bois into the country," he suggested.

She had been looking into the fire, and she glanced at him hesitatingly. "We always go to mass on Sunday morning," she said.

For a moment Jules appeared confused. "But can't you go to early mass?"

Madame Perrault, who was in the next room, called out: "It's no use trying to persuade her not to go to high mass, monsieur. She'd think something terrible was going to happen to her if she didn't go. Now, I go at eight o'clock; so I have the rest of the day free."

Jules looked at Mademoiselle Blanche and smiled, and she smiled back.

"I like to hear the music," she explained apologetically.

"Oh, she's too religious for this world," Madame Perrault laughed. "I believe she'd go to mass every morning of her life if she didn't have to stay up so late at night. She ought to be in a convent instead of a circus."

"In a convent!" Jules exclaimed, in mock alarm.

"Don't you ever go to church?" the girl asked, turning to Jules.

He looked confused again. "I? Well, no. To tell the truth, I haven't been in a church for nearly ten years. Oh, yes I have. I went to a funeral two years ago at the Trinity."

"But weren't you – weren't you brought up to go to church?"

"Brought up to go to church? Oh, yes; my mother went to church every Sunday of her life. I used to go with her after my father died."

A long silence followed. Mademoiselle Blanche turned again to the fire, and Jules had a sensation of extreme unpleasantness. Like many Parisians, he never thought about religion. He had been so affected by the skepticism of his associates that he had no real belief in any doctrine. He saw now for the first time that serious complications might arise from his religious indifference. It was very disagreeable, he thought, to be confronted with it in this way. Indeed, the more he thought about it, the more annoyed he became. He felt that he must justify himself in some way. So at last he spoke up: "I suppose you're shocked because I don't go to church, aren't you, mademoiselle?"

Mademoiselle Blanche looked down at her hands lying folded in her lap.

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry?" he repeated, trying to laugh. "Why are you sorry? I rather like it. I never did enjoy going to church."

"We don't go to church to enjoy it, do we?" she asked gently.

He sank back in his seat, and looked at her. "No, I suppose not." Then, after a moment, he suddenly leaned forward. "We can't all be good like you, mademoiselle. Perhaps if I had known you always, I should go to church. I'd do anything to please you."

"But you ought not to go to please me. You ought to go for your own good."

"So you think it does good, then – going to church?"

"I'm sure of it," she replied, gazing into the fire. "Sometimes, – when I feel unhappy because I haven't seen the girls for so long, and because I must be separated from them so much, or when Aunt Sophie complains about Jeanne, or Jeanne has been unkind to Louise, or disobedient, then, after I've been to church, I feel better."

"Why do you feel better?" he asked, more to keep her talking than because he cared for her answer.