Those By Whom We Are Judged

A Story that Shows the Arrant Cowardice that Silent Disapproval May Induce

COLETTE

NO sooner had Madame de la Hourncrie returned at the end of a day devoted entirely to the hairdresser and milliner, than she threw off her new hat in order to gaze at her new coiffure. Cleverly persuaded by the hairdresser Anthelmc, who prided himself on keeping in the forefront of the mode, she had abandoned her switch of the vintage of 1910, and all the other accessories of her beautiful chestnut hair, including the waves and tiny curls which were wont to cover her forehead and her ears. She came back with her hair still chestnut, to be sure, but drawn back smoothly in Chinese fashion, touched up with brilliantine and gathered in a hard shiny knot in the nape of her neck, which knot was transfixed like a heart with an arrow of rhinestones.

MADAME DE LA HOURNERIE SURVEYS THE RESULT

In front of the mirror, flanked by harsh lights, she gave a little start when she caught sight of that brazen forehead, which she usually concealed more carefully than her breast, and of the hard light in her eyes, which she always cleverly made up, but which the light now struck into and robbed of their depth and mystery, just as the sun searches out a little woodland spring after the wood-cutter has passed on his devastating way. Then she took up her handglass and surveyed the sleek mass of hair in her neck and the arrow of brilliants with which it was pierced.

Yes, there was no gainsaying the fact, the new coiffure had chic. She said it aloud in order to reassure herself. Besides, Emily de Sery had told her just a few moments ago that she looked perfectly stunning—

Still, face to face with this woman in the mirror, this woman with the sleek, lacquered head, the full checks, now beginning to sag, the soft, flabby mouth, the big nose, she did not recognize herself and felt ill at case. Copying the art of the painter who heightens the colour of a landscape that is suddenly flooded with sunlight on a misty day, she put rouge on her exposed cars, on her temples, and under the arch of her eyebrows, and dabbed her face with a rose-coloured powder which she seldom cared to use.

That's better, she thought. Yes, it's certainly a very daring coiffure. But after all, why shouldn't I be daring if I choose?

She rang, and received the somewhat dubious compliment of her maid: "Yes, every change that madame makes is always a great improvement."

Then she changed her dress and went down to dine alone. Her elegant widowhood, which was of five years' standing, no longer dreaded solitude, and Madame de la Hournerie often dined or lunched alone by preference, as a sort of self-denial both hygienic and agreeable, just as she had taken up some of the practises of Yogi and often went to bed as early as five o'clock.

Marien, in his butler's livery, usually served her, standing stiffly and with arms rigid at his side in front of the sideboard. He was the pride of the house of La Hournerie, with his six feet or more in height and his handsome head, blond of hair and fair of skin, but with the dark fanatical eyes of a Breton. When he was only thirteen years old, Madame de la Hournerie and her husband had taken him away from the fifty cows over which he ruled supreme and made him an under-servant. Dressed up in a braided waistcoat and white apron, he quickly won his spurs. He overcame his terror of the telephone, subdued the harshness of his peasant's voice, showed some taste in arranging flowers for the table, and learned to walk with a catlike tread. When he exchanged the stripes of a footman for the black coat of a butler, a kind of instinct for the appropriate thing taught him discretion in ordering fruit and flowers and silver polish. So it came about that Madame de la Hourncrie had bestowed upon him the supreme designation of a "jewel", a title which she had usually reserved for servants who had grown grey and feeble at their posts.

THE FLAW IN THE OTHERWISE "PERFECT JEWEL"

HOWEYER, Marien, an athletic monument of silence, did not always know how to control the expressive fires of his dark eyes, those eyes which had served as mirrors for so many charming little minxes, or as the stars glowing in the firmament of many a shopgirl or housemaid.

Madame de la Hourncrie entered the dining room briskly, sat down, and shivered.

"Serve me quickly, Marien. It's not very warm here, do you think?"

Marien, planted firmly in front of his buffet, did not budge.

"Well, young man, I was talking to you," said Madame de la Hournerie, with the kindly informality which she sometimes still employed towards him.

"But the thermometer says eighty," he managed to say at last, in a -very uncertain voice. Madame de la Hournerie, whom the cold struck in two places recently bared Jo the world and correspondingly sensitive—namely, her forehead and her ears—looked up at Marien, who immediately lost countenance, plunged the ladle in the soup tureen, served Madame de la Hournerie, and resumed his accustomed place facing -his mistress. His smouldering eyes stretched to their widest capacity gazed with an inexpressible look of horror and disgust at the wide naked forehead, white as marble, at the skull cap of sleekly-oiled hair, matching the mahogany furniture of the Empire period. Mortified, Madame de la Hournerie pushed her soup away.

"Give me the next course, Marien. I'm not very hungry. I shouldn't be surprised if I had a touch of grippe."

THE PAIN OF DISILLUSIONMENT WITH ONE'S BETTERS

MARIEN took the soup, ran toward the kitchen as if he were fleeing from the enemy, and reappeared with a shrimpsouffle. In serving it, he nicked the edge of a fine old plate, spilled several drops of red wine on the table-cloth, and then, regaining his post by the sideboard, resumed his intense and horrified stare.

"There's a lot of grippe about," said Madame de la Hourncrie. "You people in the kitchen must look out. Henriette complained only this morning of pains in her back. And take away the souffle. The shrimps are dried up. And you don't seem to be particularly well, yourself, this evening."

"It's the season for grippe," said the same uncertain voice.

But the black eyes of Marien, pitiless in their candour, cried out between each mouthful. "No, it's not grippe, it's that shameless forehead, that blasted desert, that tiny head like a hard fruit, the head of an old woman despoiled of the foliage softened by which I was accustomed to see it mellow into age. It is my indignation, the indignation of a good servant, something of a pilferer, to be sure, but attached to the house which he serves and exploits—it is the stupefaction of one who was formerly a menial here, serving a beautiful mistress, of that little cowherd, devoted to a ravishing memory—I can't stand it! My God, I can't stand it!"

The floating island had no more success than the shoulder of lamb with hearts of artichokes. Finally, at the end of her patience, Madame de la Hournerie tried to get back at this silent, importunate disapproval. A particle of red polish in the chasing of a fork and the charred edge of one of the candle-shades gave her an opportunity.

But paralyzed with cowardice, she left the table without uttering a word of her reprimand; and merely ordering drily, "Send Henriette right up to me," ran to her boudoir and sat down before the triple mirror.

"Is that you, Henriette? Telephone early tomorrow morning—at the first possible moment—to Anthelmc. Yes, the hairdresser. I want an appointment with him, before lunch —you understand, I must have it before lunch."