The Refuge

A Story of Conjugal Love in Which a Wife Enacts a New Version of Biblical Ruth's Fidelity

HENRI DUVERNOIS

MRS. Sourcier made her husband's life a burden.

"Benjamin," she used to say, even (and preferably) before a gathering of friends, "Benjamin has no more sense than a new-born babe, and is much more trouble. If I were not there, I believe, God forgive me for saying it, that lie would never change his shirt, and would wash his face about twice a year. Isn't it true, Benjamin?"

And Benjamin would reply humbly:

"Yes, Clara."

He was a little man, whose disproportionately large head was covered by a river of heard and a cataract of hair.

At the time of his engagement to Clara, he was making a bare livelihood by copying pictures at the Louvre, and the lady, rich and almost offensively plain, had been captivated by this artist—owner of a prophet's head. He soon regretted his bargain. The most heroic caresses failed to soften his scarecrow bride, who would interrupt the tenderest love effusions with some such remark as:

"Did you brush your coat when you came in? No? Well, go and brush it now—perhaps another time you'll remember."

She allowed him half a franc a day as pocket-money, treated him as an idiot when she was in a bad temper, and to indicate her contempt, called him Bibi. And Sourcier had a terrible time. There was no place to go. At six in the morning, his wife, fully dressed and furiously busy, began to awaken the echoes with her clamour. With her three or four hairs drawn up and bunched over her head into a sort of Polynesian knot, her straight teeth projecting from her mouth, as if driven out by the violence of her shrill tongue, lank and skinny, dry and yellow—washing, drying, vociferating without pause, Mrs. Sourcier, in a tremble of insatiable wrath, drove her husband from room to room; and after twenty years of married life, she still accused him, with the same viciousness, of the same little delinquencies.

EVENTUALLY lie developed an ambition. At the age of fifty-seven one's ambitions are apt to be modest. That of Benjamin was summed up in one desire: to possess in some peaceful spot a sunny room where he might be allowed to live by himself, and to complete at leisure a series of water-colours in which he strove to find in the extravagance of his scenes some compensation for the monotony of his existence. They were indeed extraordinary pictures, ingenuous in their minute details; women in grotesque postures inhaled the perfume of fantastic flowers; the dogs suggested crocodiles; the roses looked like cauliflowers, the women always nude, had disconcerting smiles, velvet eyes, an alluring curve of hip and leg.

"The paintings of a madman," was Mrs. Sourcier's verdict.

Day by day she lessened the allowance that went to the purchase of pencils, paper and colour-tubes. At last, considering herself outraged by these buxom, voluptuous, smiling goddesses, she threw them, at regular intervals, into the fire in winter, into the wastebasket in summer.

Then, Sourcier began to hate her. Not daring to rebel openly, he had to content himself with casting venomous glances and trying to get away from the hearth as much as possible. He went to a little cafe in the neighbourhood, but the seats were too high for him, and his feet dangled over the floor; he felt ashamed, and never went again. Besides, the money allotted him for coffee cut him off his tobacco. He visited the picture-galleries; but he had copied so many masterpieces that he had come to look on them as task-masters. He was reduced to staying at home again, where his wife scolded him more than ever. The cup of his tribulation ran over on the morning when Frederic Lacloque-Genivret, an Academician and an old fellow-student, came to lunch with them. At dessert, Clara went out and returned with her husband's latest productions.

"As an artist," she asked, "what do you think of these?"

Lacloque-Genivret adjusted his eyeglass.

"They are," he said, "speaking impartially, the work of a lunatic. To judge by the salacious and exaggerated curves by which he has emphasized certain parts of his impossible figures, I should say that the artist ought to be classed as a degenerate. The disproportion, a matter of detail—just look at this blade of grass, as big as a tree-trunk—inclines me rather to set him down as a megalomaniac."

WHEN the painter had gone, Mrs. Sourcier exulted loudly.,She seized an armful of the water-colours and flung them away, executing, at the same time, a sort of wardance.

"And do you think I'm going to continue ruining myself buying paper and colours for these monstrosities? Not me, my friend! This time you can't say that I am unjust: your own friend, an Academician, pronounces them to be the work of a madman—you understand, a madman!"

The repetition of this word inspired Benjamin with an idea. Why had he never thought of it before? Why, it would be his salvation.. .

"Clara," he began, quietly, "there's something I want to say to you."

"Well, go on. What are you waiting for?"

"I'm not mad. I am the soul of Beethoven."

"What!"

"I am the soul of Beethoven. I weave my pictures out of fiddle-strings, and the sounds that fall from my lips are spun from the music of angels. Ho, Ho, Ho . . . Gaze earnestly at my breast; you will discern there the Star of the Legion of Honour inlaid with serpent-fangs upon a field of peonies; I have star-tears at the ends of my fingers, and my feet move among the clouds. Hop, Hop! Bow down all to the wise man of the Revolution:

he cures colds with cigarette-papers . . ."

Without waiting to hear the end of this incoherent harangue, Clara rushed out, terrified. When she returned, she found the cook and the housemaid on the porch. "Madame," they explained, excitedly, "we're afraid to go in . . . he is in the dining-room . . ."

He was indeed there, small but statuesque, clothed only in his beard, and waving a Malay dagger, which he had snatched from among the trophies on the wall.

"Down on your knees, shameless woman! he commanded. "Your last hour has come; I am going to yank out all your teeth, and then behead you! "

"Put on your clothes, at once," rejoined the shameless woman, trying to frighten him. "or I swear, Benjamin, you'll be sorry for it!"

But Benjamin refused to be intimidated and persisted in his crazy demonstrations. Would they not lead to his imprisonment: that is to say, to his freedom? Far away, separated forever from his wife, he would have a little room all to himself in one of those homes untroubled by the rest of mankind, and surrounded by a park. There he would pass delightful hours, painting and smoking, undisturbed by conjugal naggings. The society of the insane does not daunt a philosopher, who sees men as they really are.

He acted so outrageously and so cleverly that after a brief medical examination, he was removed to the sanatorium superintended by Doctor Blique, where he found, as lie had hoped, a pleasant garden, a cheerful, bright room of his own, a work-table, and a chair admirably adapted for lounging. Refreshed by a shower bath, he thought it unnecessary to continue to act in this tiring way, and he simply declared to the doctor that he was the greatest artistic genius of the age, which he profoundly believed himself to be. From this, the specialist saw at once that his case was hopeless.

BENJAMIN soon made friends among the U patients. One of them believed himself to be water on certain days, and crystal on others. Always in fear either of being broken or of drowning his neighbours, the poor fellow proved to be quiet and companionable. Sourcier was on terms of intimacy with a Messiah, and was taken into the confidence of Urgele, who was then seventy-seven years of age. W hat blessed peace! As he bent over his canvases, he congratulated himself on his ingenious scheme. Not only could he work in peace, he enjoyed the retirement so dear to artists desirous of giving to the world before their death the full measure of their genius. When he felt in low spirits, he had only to read the newspaper, or to recall Mrs. Sourcier. and all his cheerfulness immediately returned.

Eleven months had slipped away in the bosom of this blessed sanctuary, where by their very illusions the prisoners are free, when one morning the doctor came into his room.

"I am not disturbing you?" he asked, politely. "One finds you always at work —that's fine!"

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(Continued from page 61)

"Doctor," interrupted Sourcier, a little alarmed at this visit, and wishing to confirm him in his diagnosis, "Doctor, I am the greatest genius upon earth. . . "

"That's well known, but I have come to bring you a wonderful piece of news. . . Prepare yourself for a great happiness. . . Your wife is about to be admitted to the asylum; she will be close to you, in the next room; she is coming as a patient, and will never leave you again. Her nerves are badly shaken, and she is in great need of a rest."

And while the astounded Sourcier was asking himself whether he really

had gone mad, the doctor opened the door and Mrs. Sourcier entered—an entirely new Mrs. Sourcier, priestesslike, with raised eyebrows and puckered lips, and holding in her hand, as if it were a lily, an unlit candle.

"I will leave you," said Dr. Blique.

When he had gone, Mrs. Sourcier put down the taper and resumed her natural expression.

"Is it a lucid moment with you?" she asked her husband. "Can you understand what I say?"

"Yes, yes, what does it all mean?" gasped the wretched man.

"Don't be alarmed. I am not mad at all. I only wanted to get shut up here. I found I could not do without you, my Bibi!"