Penguin Island by Anatole France (best romantic novels to read txt) 📕

and breathless, drinking in the hero’s applause with her head thrown backwards. It seemed as if she were on the point of fainting. Eveline immediately smiled tenderly on M. Cérès.

The Alcan deputy’s speech had a great vogue. In political “spheres” it was regarded as extremely able. “We have at last heard an honest pronouncement,” said the chief Moderate journal. “It is a regular programme!” they said in the House. It was agreed that he was a man of immense talent.

Hippolyte Cérès had now established himself as leader of the radicals, socialists, and anticlericals, and they appointed him President of their group, which was then the most considerable in the House. He thus found himself marked out for office in the next ministerial combination.

After a long hesitation Eveline Clarence accepted the idea of marrying M. Hippolyte Cérès. The great man was a little common for her taste. Nothing had yet proved that he would one day reach the point where politics bring in large sums of money. But she was entering her twenty-seventh year and knew enough of life to see that she must not be too fastidious or show herself too difficult to please.

Hippolyte Cérès was celebrated; Hippolyte Cérès was happy. He was no longer recognisable; the elegance of his clothes and deportment had increased tremendously. He wore an undue number of white gloves. Now that he was too much of a society man, Eveline began to doubt if it was not worse than being too little of one. Madame Clarence regarded the engagement with favour. She was reassured concerning her daughter’s future and pleased to have flowers given her every Thursday for her drawing room.

The celebration of the marriage raised some difficulties. Eveline was pious and wished to receive the benediction of the Church. Hippolyte Cérès, tolerant but a freethinker, wanted only a civil marriage. There were many discussions and even some violent scenes upon the subject. The last took place in the young girl’s room at the moment when the invitations were being written. Eveline declared that if she did not go to church she would not believe herself married. She spoke of breaking off the engagement, and of going abroad with her mother, or of retiring into a convent. Then she became tender, weak, suppliant. She sighed, and everything in her virginal chamber sighed in chorus, the holy water font, the palm branch above her white bed, the books of devotion on their little shelves, and the blue and white statuette of St. Orberosia chaining the dragon of Cappadocia, that stood upon the marble mantelpiece. Hippolyte Cérès was moved, softened, melted.

Beautiful in her grief, her eyes shining with tears, her wrists girt by a rosary of lapis lazuli and, so to speak, chained by her faith, she suddenly flung herself at Hippolyte’s feet, and dishevelled, almost dying, she embraced his knees.

He nearly yielded.

“A religious marriage,” he muttered, “a marriage in church, I could make my constituents stand that, but my committee would not swallow the matter so easily.⁠ ⁠… Still I’ll explain it to them⁠ ⁠… toleration, social necessities.⁠ ⁠… They all send their daughters to Sunday school.⁠ ⁠… But as for office, my dear I am afraid we are going to drown all hope of that in your holy water.”

At these words she stood up grave, generous, resigned, conquered also in her turn.

“My dear, I insist no longer.”

“Then we won’t have a religious marriage. It will be better, much better not.”

“Very well, but be guided by me. I am going to try and arrange everything both to your satisfaction and mine.”

She sought the Reverend Father Douillard and explained the situation. He showed himself even more accommodating and yielding than she had hoped.

“Your husband is an intelligent man, a man of order and reason; he will come over to us. You will sanctify him. It is not in vain that God has granted him the blessing of a Christian wife. The Church needs no pomp and ceremonial display for her benedictions. Now that she is persecuted, the shadow of the crypts and the recesses of the catacombs are in better accord with her festivals. Mademoiselle, when you have performed the civil formalities come here to my private chapel in costume with M. Cérès. I will marry you, a observe the most absolute discretion. I will obtain the necessary dispensations from the Archbishop as well as all facilities regarding the banns, confession-tickets, etc.”

Hippolyte, although he thought the combination a little dangerous, agreed to it, a good deal flattered, at bottom.

“I will go in a short coat,” he said.

He went in a frock coat with white gloves and varnished shoes, and he genuflected.

“Politeness demands.⁠ ⁠…”

V The Visire Cabinet

The Cérès household was established with modest decency in a pretty flat situated in a new building. Cérès loved his wife in a calm and tranquil fashion. He was often kept late from home by the Commission on the Budget and he worked more than three nights a week at a report on the postal finances of which he hoped to make a masterpiece. Eveline thought she could twist him round her finger, and this did not displease him. The bad side of their situation was that they had not much money; in truth they had very little. The servants of the Republic do not grow rich in her service as easily as people think. Since the sovereign is no longer there to distribute favours, each of them takes what he can, and his depredations, limited by the depredations of all the others, are reduced to modest proportions. Hence that austerity of morals that is noticed in democratic leaders. They can only grow rich during periods of great business activity and then they find themselves exposed to the envy of their less favoured colleagues. Hippolyte Cérès had for a long time foreseen such a period. He was one of those who had made preparations for its arrival. Whilst waiting for it he endured his poverty with dignity, and Eveline shared that poverty without suffering as much