Paz (La Fausse Maitresse). Honore de Balzac

a cloud, April was nearly over. They had been married two years, and Clementine had just discovered for the first time that there was something resembling a secret or a mystery in her household. The Pole, let us say it to his honor, is usually helpless before a woman; he is so full of tenderness for her that in Poland he becomes her inferior, though Polish women make admirable wives. Now a Pole is still more easily vanquished by a Parisian woman. Consequently Comte Adam, pressed by questions, did not even attempt the innocent roguery of selling the suspected secret. It is always wise with a woman to get some good out of a mystery; she will like you the better for it, as a swindler respects an honest man the more when he finds he cannot swindle him. Brave in heart but not in speech, Comte Adam merely stipulated that he should not be compelled to answer until he had finished his narghile.

      “If any difficulty occurred when we were travelling,” said Clementine, “you always dismissed it by saying, ‘Paz will settle that.’ You never wrote to any one but Paz. When we returned here everybody kept saying, ‘the captain, the captain.’ If I want the carriage – ‘the captain.’ Is there a bill to pay – ‘the captain.’ If my horse is not properly bitted, they must speak to Captain Paz. In short, it is like a game of dominoes – Paz is everywhere. I hear of nothing but Paz, but I never see Paz. Who and what is Paz? Why don’t you bring forth your Paz?”

      “Isn’t everything going on right?” asked the count, taking the “bocchettino” of his narghile from his lips.

      “Everything is going on so right that other people with an income of two hundred thousand francs would ruin themselves by going at our pace, and we have only one hundred and ten thousand.”

      So saying she pulled the bell-cord (an exquisite bit of needlework). A footman entered, dressed like a minister.

      “Tell Captain Paz that I wish to see him.”

      “If you think you are going to find out anything that way – ” said Comte Adam, laughing.

      It is well to mention that Adam and Clementine, married in December, 1835, had gone soon after the wedding to Italy, Switzerland, and Germany, where they spent the greater part of two years. Returning to Paris in November, 1837, the countess entered society for the first time as a married woman during the winter which had just ended, and she then became aware of the existence, half-suppressed and wholly dumb but very useful, of a species of factotum who was personally invisible, named Paz, – spelt thus, but pronounced “Patz.”

      “Monsieur le capitaine Paz begs Madame la comtesse to excuse him,” said the footman, returning. “He is at the stables; as soon as he has changed his dress Comte Paz will present himself to Madame.”

      “What was he doing at the stables?”

      “He was showing them how to groom Madame’s horse,” said the man. “He was not pleased with the way Constantin did it.”

      The countess looked at the footman. He was perfectly serious and did not add to his words the sort of smile by which servants usually comment on the actions of a superior who seems to them to derogate from his position.

      “Ah! he was grooming Cora.”

      “Madame la comtesse intends to ride out this morning?” said the footman, leaving the room without further answer.

      “Is Paz a Pole?” asked Clementine, turning to her husband, who nodded by way of affirmation.

      Madame Laginska was silent, examining Adam. With her feet extended upon a cushion and her head poised like that of a bird on the edge of its nest listening to the noises in a grove, she would have seemed enchanting even to a blase man. Fair and slender, and wearing her hair in curls, she was not unlike those semi-romantic pictures in the Keepsakes, especially when dressed, as she was this morning, in a breakfast gown of Persian silk, the folds of which could not disguise the beauty of her figure or the slimness of her waist. The silk with its brilliant colors being crossed upon the bosom showed the spring of the neck, – its whiteness contrasting delightfully against the tones of a guipure lace which lay upon her shoulders. Her eyes and their long black lashes added at this moment to the expression of curiosity which puckered her pretty mouth. On the forehead, which was well modelled, an observer would have noticed a roundness characteristic of the true Parisian woman, – self-willed, merry, well-informed, but inaccessible to vulgar seductions. Her hands, which were almost transparent, were hanging down at the end of each arm of her chair; the tapering fingers, slightly turned up at their points, showed nails like almonds, which caught the light. Adam smiled at his wife’s impatience, and looked at her with a glance which two years of married life had not yet chilled. Already the little countess had made herself mistress of the situation, for she scarcely paid attention to her husband’s admiration. In fact, in the look which she occasionally cast at him, there seemed to be the consciousness of a Frenchwoman’s ascendancy over the puny, volatile, and red-haired Pole.

      “Here comes Paz,” said the count, hearing a step which echoed through the gallery.

      The countess beheld a tall and handsome man, well-made, and bearing on his face the signs of pain which come of inward strength and secret endurance of sorrow. He wore one of those tight, frogged overcoats which were then called “polonaise.” Thick, black hair, rather unkempt, covered his square head, and Clementine noticed his broad forehead shining like a block of white marble, for Paz held his visored cap in his hand. The hand itself was like that of the Infant Hercules. Robust health flourished on his face, which was divided by a large Roman nose and reminded Clementine of some handsome Transteverino. A black silk cravat added to the martial appearance of this six-foot mystery, with eyes of jet and Italian fervor. The amplitude of his pleated trousers, which allowed only the tips of his boots to be seen, revealed his faithfulness to the fashions of his own land. There was something really burlesque to a romantic woman in the striking contrast no one could fail to remark between the captain and the count, the little Pole with his pinched face and the stalwart soldier.

      “Good morning, Adam,” he said familiarly. Then he bowed courteously as he asked Clementine what he could do for her.