The Specimen Case/The Delicate Case of Mlle. Célestine Bon
ii
The Delicate Case of Mlle. Celestine Bon
Among the really great problems that Armageddon called into being, the affair of Mlle. Bon can hold no place. Its interest is circumscribed, affecting as it merely does one woman and two men, or even, as you may judge when you have heard, one woman and about seven-eighths of two men. Yet I feel that it is not without a certain dramatic poignancy of its own. It might not have appealed to the Greek tragedians, because, for that matter, they would have experienced some difficulty in understanding its details; but the late W. S. Gilbert could have turned it to good account, and I can conceive that Mr. Bernard Shaw would have revelled in its possibilities as a problem play—had he not given up writing plays. For myself, I can only tell the plain unvarnished tale as—or as nearly as is feasible—it was told to me.
Célestine Bon was, as you will have guessed, French, but in order to understand her difficulty and the entirely proper vivacious fluency with which she handled its recital you had better appreciate how exquisitely French she was. She lived with her parents in a small town at no great distance from Paris, but on the safe side of the war map, and she had two suitors, Raoul, whom she adored, and Jean, whom she loathed. As Raoul was rich and virtuous, while Jean was certainly poor and of doubtful repute, this disposal of her affection would seem to be quite satisfactory. A complicating element, however, was the fact that Raoul and Jean were foster-brothers and quite sincerely attached to one another. The favoured one, while rejoicing in his own good fortune, would have had Célestine extend towards Jean at least some degree of tolerance. He was utterly unable to comprehend so unbending a dislike on the lady's part, especially as she would suggest no reason for it; nor, as a matter of fact, do I.
The war took Célestine, Raoul and Jean unaware, but it took them all, just the same. Raoul and Jean were immediately swept out of sight and lost to all knowledge of their friends and apparently of everyone else. Célestine, not a whit less patriotic, at once flung herself into the crisis, and after duly qualifying emerged in the not unbecoming uniform of a nurse probationer and was allotted to a recuperation camp.
Here one day, in the usual course of things, she encountered a pale and interesting young officer of chasseurs who had just been sent down from a base hospital to complete the cure that was already assured.
"Raoul!" she cried, and but for her thorough training would have fainted into his arms.
"My Célestine!" responded the officer, embracing her regardless of all regulations. "But this is wonderful! How do you come here and in this fascinating garb?"
In a few words, interrupted by mutual caresses of endearment, she told him what had taken place since his departure.
"And you, my poor Raoul," she concluded; "what has happened to you? You have been wounded? How pale you are, even to your lips!"
"Célestine," replied Raoul gravely, "it is of this that I would speak. No longer shalt thou misjudge that brave fellow Jean Villjean"
"Ah," exclaimed Célestine, pouting; "it is of him then, even at this moment, that you speak?"
"Truly," replied Raoul. "For were it not for Jean I should not at this moment be able to speak at all."
"He saved your life?" faltered Célestine.
"I would not go so far as to say that," admitted Raoul. "But he certainly enabled me to preserve that appearance which you have more than once been flattering enough to express approval of. Listen, Célestine. At the great defence of the village of Vergt, of which you have doubtless read, my squadron was in the foremost trenches, acting, of course, as infantry. The hostile bombardment was at its height when, just in front of us, an enormous shell burst with terrific force. Although it was fully fifty metres away, fragments whistled among us as thick as hail. Men fell to right and left of me. Something whizzed past my head, so near that it seemed as though it could not fail to inflict a deadly wound. Instinctively, although I had felt no pain, I clapped by hand to my face. It came away covered with blood. Then I discovered that my lips were missing; they had been shorn off as neatly as though by the surgeon's knife."
"Impossible!" exclaimed Celestine, who had not taken her enthralled eyes from Raoul's face during the recital of his story. "You exaggerate, my estimable friend. Cut, yes, I grant you, but not cut off. Why, there is hardly now a scar remaining."
"Yet nevertheless it is strictly true," asserted Raoul with some complacency. "That there is so little disfigurement to be seen is due to the wonders of our operative surgery, added to the devotion of the heroic Jean. He also was wounded in the action, not seriously, but in such a manner, by the loss of two fingers, as to unfit him for further active service; yet no sooner had this noble comrade heard of my plight than he insisted on sacrificing two pieces of his own flesh to replace those that I had lost."
"You say this?" demanded the agitated Celestine. "And to me, your affianced?"
"Assuredly," assented Raoul, who was not very bright or subtle. "And why not? The operation was completely successful, so that now, as you have said, scarcely a mark remains to be seen."
"That concerns me not," exclaimed Celestine, springing away from her lover's arms. "Rather would I have you sliced into the semblance of a horse-radish were it but your own natural self. But to have the knowledge every time you embrace me that the lips which touch mine are those of Jean Villjean"
"Not his lips," began Raoul, and pulled himself up—wisely, I think.
"It matters not; I cannot endure the thought," protested Célestine a little wildly. "It was to Raoul de Montbard that I gave myself, not to a being composed of several individualities, least of all Jean Villjean as regards his lips."
"But this is absurd," said Raoul. "That which certainly may have been Jean Villjean formerly is now thoroughly incorporated into my existence. Can Jean move my lips or utter words through them? Why, of course not. But I can, they being part of myself. Be reasonable, Célestine, and do not any longer harbour this unhealthy thought."
"I cannot help it," replied Celestine. "To me it is frankly odious. Do not seek to restrain me, amiable one. I must have a little time in solitude to consider this sudden obstacle to our happiness."
So Célestine Bon applied for leave of absence and obtained it. In the quietude of her own home, possibly, also, influenced by the absence of Raoul, a saner view of the situation gradually prevailed in her mind. This revulsion delighted her; for, she argued, "If, after a week, this has become so little of moment, what will there be after a month? And at the end of a year there will be, pouf! nothing!" Thus Célestine blew away the last trace of her lingering doubt, thereby demonstrating the practical common-sense underlying her more obvious impulsiveness. She at once re-packed and endeavoured to return to her station, but much to her disappointment she was then informed that in the meantime she had been temporarily transferred elsewhere.
In the event it was nearly six months before Célestine got back to her old forest camp of N. She liked the place and had allowed her application for reinstatement to stand, although the first urgent reason for it had by this time passed away, of course. Raoul would have returned to his duties long ago. Yet almost the first person to be encountered on passing the dear old rickety gate of the recuperation camp was de Montbard, looking very much the same as before. They embraced. In less than half-an-hour Célestine had rapidly gone over the groundwork of her emotions; then she turned to the subject of Raoul himself.
"But you, my poor warrior, why do you not speak of yourself? Assuredly your convalescence must have been longer than we anticipated for me to find you still here. Did you then suffer a relapse?"
"On the contrary," replied Raoul. "I was back again at the front within a month of your departure. Ill luck, however, still pursued me, for within a short time the accursed Boche deluged our trench with liquid fire. Thus a second time I was condemned to the inaction of hospital life."
"The pigs!" hissed Célestine. "Were you very badly burned?"
"Only my right arm," replied Raoul heroically; "but of that the skin was destroyed from finger-tip to shoulder."
"That would entail a very serious wound," mused Celestine. "You must possess a marvellous constitution, my Raoul, for the arm about my waist is as firm and vigorous as ever."
"That is due to the skill of the doctors who so cleverly patched me up. But why talk of these trifles? You, my Célestine, upon the honour of my name, you are looking more bewitching than ever."
Did Célestine's rapid intuition perceive a cautionary signal in this reluctance on her lover's part to talk about himself and his achievements? At all events she said:
"But naturally I am much interested in this latest adventure of yours. How was so speedy a recovery effected?"
"Um, well," stammered Raoul uneasily; "I suppose as you say, that my constitution"
"You have made use of the expression 'patch up,' my friend," interposed Celestine with icy firmness. "Did they then, these skilful surgeons, employ tissue grafting?"
"Why, yes; I believe that there was some little detail of the sort," admitted Raoul. "But you have not yet told me how the old place was looking and if the new curé"
"All in good time, my poor sufferer; you naturally demand my first thoughts. Who was the kind friend who so nobly submitted to the inconvenience of having pieces of his skin removed in order to supply your need?"
"I was—er—unconscious at the time," prevaricated the unhappy Raoul. His evasion would not have deceived a Siamese cat, let alone Célestine Bon.
"But assuredly you would have learned his name afterwards," she persisted. "It was an obligation, and a de Montbard does not forget. Was it"—her eyes met his like the points of two stilettos—"was it by any chance Jean Villjean?"
"Why, since you mention him, I remember that it was," assented Raoul with patent artlessness. "He"
"Oh!" exclaimed Celestine, tearing herself free, "but this transcends the possible limit! It is not enough that I must endure Jean Villjean's lips pressed against my face. His arm, down even to the extremities of the fingers—admittedly the most delicate organs of the touch—may now insinuate themselves around my waist. What next, I wonder? I refuse to contemplate the eventuality! The arm from which I tear myself is not that of Raoul de Montbard, to whose memory I shall remain faithful for ever, but the arm of Jean Villjean. Adieu, composite monster!"
With that, Célestine Bon departed from the recuperation camp yet again. This time she did not even wait for official permission, so that with unauthorised absence from duty the incident of her service for the Allied cause regretfully closed. But on that score Mlle. Bon has no misgivings. It was merely impossible for her to act otherwise. Any woman—certainly any Frenchwoman—will understand and will tender her a silent and respectful sympathy.
It is quite true that once more, in the calm atmosphere of her domestic round, Célestine's heart has begun to soften towards the absent warrior, but she is practical enough to be warned by experience. The same sort of thing occurred before, and what happened then? She could endure—nay, treasure—a Raoul reduced by valour to the mere truncation of a man, his features battered beyond recognition, but not one who, before her eyes, is slowly and insidiously passing into the identity of a despised and rejected suitor.
Besides, and here I am bound to confess Célestine touches on possibilities too delicate for my insular pen to probe; where, she demands, is the thing to end? Raoul is brave, rash and obviously unlucky. Jean is, one must admit even though one admits it with a shrug, plucky, devoted to his friend, and practically inexhaustible. The possibilities of operative surgery are, as we begin to see, illimitable. The war, at this critical point in the interlaced destinies of these three hapless beings, scarcely beyond its third year, is declared by the majority to be only just beginning, and while some predict a seven years' course for it, others, with just as formidable an artillery of argument, place its continuance at seventy times seven. Soon there must come a point at which Raoul will have become rather more Jean than Raoul and thenceforward he will, after each operation, become Jeanified with increasing momentum. Heart and brain may remain Raoulish (though even here Célestine has no actual guarantee against medical science), but it may be suspected that these attributes are less prominent in Célestine's fond remembrance than Raoul’s prepossessing exterior.
•••••••
"But they all change, sooner or later," says wise maman consolingly. "Be reconciled, my child."
Hastings, 1920.