{"id":128,"date":"2024-10-21T09:38:51","date_gmt":"2024-10-21T09:38:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/mme-el\/?p=128"},"modified":"2024-10-21T09:38:51","modified_gmt":"2024-10-21T09:38:51","slug":"marital-fidelity-or-broader-minded","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.d-c-k.com\/mme-el\/marital-fidelity-or-broader-minded\/","title":{"rendered":"Marital fidelity or Broader Minded"},"content":{"rendered":"
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W<\/span>e were yet again in an animated discussion about <\/span>marital fidelity. This was in the context of a man <\/span>who according to the newspaper had killed his <\/span>wife out of jealousy, I could even add a story about a local <\/span>historical personality, member of the nobility, to whom the <\/span>same thing happened. Mme El is rock-hard: the man had <\/span>every right to do that, all she would have had to do was to be <\/span>straight \u2013 \u2018marcher droit\u2019! I question her about this and that, <\/span>she is adamant. She explains that she\u2019s been brought up like <\/span>that and if her husband didn\u2019t behave straight, she would do <\/span>the same to him, adding that, of course, she has to be straight, <\/span>too, so as not to incur the appropriate punishment. She seems <\/span>to shudder for a second, certainly not ready to die for a long <\/span>time. I refer to \u2018thou shalt not kill\u2019, does it not apply in this <\/span>case? She says spontaneously, it doesn\u2019t!<\/span>
But you, she says, you\u2019re broader-minded \u2013 \u2018esprit plus large\u2019, <\/span>are you not? I ask, is that a compliment. She is not sure. A <\/span>statement of fact? I help. She nods and says she\u2019s very \u2018s\u00e9v\u00e8re\u2019, <\/span>severe on this point. I say, in principle I\u2019ve been brought up <\/span>like you. She looks questioningly. I have to think of somebody, <\/span>a firm believer in marital fidelity who knew a hundred if not <\/span>a thousand suggestive jokes and never went beyond patting <\/span>ladies\u2019 shoulders in public. Mme El is a great one for any <\/span>possibilities of punning on this very subject, she loves it and <\/span>welcomes talk about it. She became really lively during our <\/span>discussion, a fully alert, rational being, quick-witted, ready to <\/span>riposte and unafraid.<\/span><\/p>\n

I tell Mme El about our travel plans next week, how it all came <\/span>about. She regrets that she won\u2019t have my company for a few <\/span>days and then listens with interest. I tell her that I had to make <\/span>myself accept it, giving all the pros and cons in the matter, and <\/span>that I decided that the pros were more weighty. Of course, <\/span>she exclaims, they would miss you and yes, the sea must be <\/span>beautiful, she has never seen it and wants me to bring a sample <\/span>back for her. And the most important point: you must be there <\/span>for your husband! Then she laughs, sacrifice yourself for him, <\/span>and more seriously, he will then sacrifice himself for you. All <\/span>very consistent.<\/span>
We were talking about things of the past while looking at the <\/span>photographs on her wall. She was about to become melancholy, <\/span>but then resolutely: \u2018what\u2019s the good? It\u2019s over, finished, forget <\/span>it! \u201ces atal\u201d, it\u2019s like that\u2019.\u00a0<\/span>
I made her write into her diary that \u2018the neighbour is going <\/span>to England soon\u2019. She looked up in alarm. I stressed \u2018le\u2019 voisin, <\/span>not \u2018la\u2019 voisine! She was reassured, even if she can\u2019t understand <\/span>why a couple doesn\u2019t do everything together. It\u2019s every man for <\/span>himself, isn\u2019t it?<\/span>
I told Mme El that my husband had gone away to Spain for a <\/span>week. She looked aghast, asking \u2018with an organization?\u2019, that <\/span>is, not alone\u2026 I reassured her: a meeting of Britishers which <\/span>is of no interest to me. She could accept that, even if she can\u2019t <\/span>understand this approach to things by a married couple.<\/span>
A few days later she complained like so often about feeling <\/span>tired, listless, lethargic, lazy, \u2018j\u2019ai la chichette\/la flemme\/la <\/span>cagne\/la faignantize\u2019. I quoted her favourite saying about eating, <\/span>sleeping and loving to her and she said that obviously the third <\/span>one is the one she prefers. I said, it stirs one up. And she \u2018yes\u2019 <\/span>with determination, adding that it was \u2018amusant\u2019, amusing.<\/span>
We talked about riding because her two great-grandchildren <\/span>had been taken to a stables this morning. She brightened up <\/span>saying that she liked riding very much, be it only the heavy <\/span>draught horse which used to work on their farm in her <\/span>grandfather\u2019s and some of her father\u2019s time, did I? I\u2019m afraid <\/span>I haven\u2019t the slightest experience in this field, never once on <\/span>horseback all my life and I didn\u2019t miss it either, but I could <\/span>contribute my daughters, both keen riders, especially Jenny <\/span>whose husband had complained about it. But he has nothing <\/span>to complain about, I said to Mme El, she pays for it out of <\/span>her own pocket and doesn\u2019t do any harm to anybody. Mme <\/span>El heartily agreed, riding is wonderful and it\u2019s better than <\/span>running after men!<\/span>
Mme El has a good day and a bad one in turns. Something <\/span>must have happened to her right hand recently weakening it <\/span>even further. It has been the weaker of the two for a long time, <\/span>but she was able to write, even if I had to watch that she put <\/span>her arm on the table instead of holding it up. But now writing <\/span>is hardly possible because of pain in the hand. Today\u2019s saint <\/span>is, however, Bernard\u2019s, her husband\u2019s name and she made an <\/span>all-out effort in her diary to greet him and wish him a \u2018bonne <\/span>f\u00eate\u2019. After that she was happy to be entertained by me. <\/span>I tell her about the small things in our life, for example my <\/span>husband at the moment wanting to sell a chain-saw, he has <\/span>three, a big, a medium and a small one \u2013 and then there\u2019s you, <\/span>Mme El chipped in \u2013 and he now finds that the biggest one is <\/span>too heavy, I went on, so he wants to sell it \u2013 and you with it, she <\/span>said which made me laugh and she concerned \u2018I don\u2019t mean <\/span>it\u2019. I\u2019m sure she doesn\u2019t, it wouldn\u2019t be her idea of marriage, <\/span>yet she\u2019s shrewd. A few days before her final departure, bed-<\/span>ridden and in pain, she inquired after \u2018Monsieur Steve\u2019, had <\/span>he come back from his ramble? I could reassure her, he had.<\/span><\/p>\n

She much admired my warmest pullover which I must wear <\/span>these days because feeling cold. I explained it to her: knitted <\/span>by me thirty years ago out of three natural shades of wool, <\/span>brown, white and beige. She didn\u2019t know the colour beige <\/span>and I concluded there must be specific sheep not present in <\/span>this country. Mme El\u2019s grandparents and then her father had <\/span>sheep, too, among them a ram which deliberately knocked <\/span>down her grandmother, as a result of which he was sold and <\/span>converted into lamb. They bought another ram, for the ewes <\/span>can\u2019t be without a male, she said. Just like the hens, I threw <\/span>in. Yes, and her gander had a goose, didn\u2019t he. \u2018And I my mate\u2019, <\/span>she laughed, \u2018mon copain\u2019, referring to her husband.<\/span>
Mme El has vivid recollections of her youth. When I ask her <\/span>to tell me about it, she unfailingly responds full-heartedly and <\/span>quite forgetting that she wants to eat: \u2018une jeunesse \u2018difficile\u2019, <\/span>a tough youth, she says seriously, a touch gloomy, regretfully.<\/span>
The sour tone puzzles me: was she unhappy then? No, her <\/span>facial expression tells me that she wouldn\u2019t go as far as that. <\/span>Only, her grandmother kept her under tight control, she was <\/span>never allowed to go out and have fun with her girlfriends \u2013 and <\/span>with the boys, I suppose \u2013 no dances or other merry-makings.<\/span>
Mme El begrudgingly concedes that looking back it may have <\/span>been a good thing. What about her father, grandma\u2019s son, I <\/span>ask her, I gather he liked to enjoy himself in various ways, why <\/span>didn\u2019t his mother clamp down on him?<\/span>
Mme El waves this aside: He was a man, he could please <\/span>himself \u2013 which later didn\u2019t stop her from clamping down on <\/span>her own son, to the point of then worrying whether this has <\/span>had a negative impact on their relationship. However, I could <\/span>reassure her on that. If he has no time for her nowadays, <\/span>it\u2019s because \u2018he has to live with two women and only one of <\/span>them can be the boss\u2019, as once observed to me by Rose\u2019s man <\/span>who<\/span> has done extensive works in their house. Mme El fully <\/span>understands this situation and acquiesces, even if she tells me <\/span>that it was a great joy to have a son, \u2018was\u2019, for she doesn\u2019t <\/span>seem to have one anymore.<\/span>
I say to her that she was married young, at twenty-one.<\/span>
Wasn\u2019t that lucky, quite a few women never find a husband <\/span>at all. She replies that she wouldn\u2019t have been allowed to <\/span>get married before coming of age because they wanted her <\/span>to be responsible, fully aware of what she was doing. And <\/span>then she had to marry the man her grandmother had chosen <\/span>for her, and if not, she would have been turned out, the last <\/span>thing Mme El would have wanted, she tells me, being mighty <\/span>attached to the house where four generations of her family <\/span>were born and where she had spent all her life. Casting loving <\/span>glances around her room, she says she loves these walls.<\/span>
So the marriage went ahead and never any regrets! Her <\/span>grandmother had channelled her into the wanted path from <\/span>which she didn\u2019t deviate all her life. It basically meant one <\/span>man only and everything within the law allowed, needless to <\/span>say, and Mme El gives me to understand that she did have fun <\/span>in her marriage.<\/span>
La<\/span> Coutigo<\/span>8<\/a><\/sup>La Coutigo, poem by Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Mistral translated by Jean Bouti\u00e8re \/French philologist, specialist in Romance philology (1898-1967), head of the department of Romanian language at National School of Oriental languages at Sorbonne. As \u2018Me faras la coutigo, Danis? \u2019 (\u2018Tu me chatouilleras, Denis?\u2019 \u2013 \u2018Will you tickle me Denis \u2019, followed by \u2018Oh! que riren!\u2019 \u2018Et nous de rire !\u2019 \u2013 \u2018Let\u2019s have fun ! \u2019).<\/span><\/span> she laughs mischievously and in all fairness hints <\/span>that she doesn\u2019t know what she might have done, had her <\/span>grandma not been so strict with her. In fact she can\u2019t speak <\/span>too highly of this physically small woman in spite of the spoil-<\/span>sport factor, a woman she cared for as a matter of course <\/span>when old age had struck her.<\/span>
Trying to bring Mme El out of her mental \u2018fain\u00e9antise\u2019, I held <\/span>out a bait and it worked: I told her about a new law allowing <\/span>marriage between partners of the same sex. Didn\u2019t she come<\/span> to <\/span>life! She opened wide her eyes in disbelief. Never before had <\/span>she heard about anything as outlandish! She summed up her <\/span>outrage in the one word \u2018no!\u2019, shaking her head vigorously.<\/span>
I said I fully understood her reaction, remembering that I <\/span>reacted just like that some thirty years ago when I first heard <\/span>about such a proposition in Great Britain.<\/span>
She asked me what my opinion was. I explained that <\/span>personally I couldn\u2019t care less. Would any third party be <\/span>disadvantaged by this law? I didn\u2019t see that this was the case, <\/span>it only affects the two getting married. And why shouldn\u2019t <\/span>they? Nature has made them like that, they can\u2019t help it and <\/span>there\u2019re more of them than you think. Why should they be <\/span>disadvantaged administratively or otherwise? She looked <\/span>nonplussed and said nothing.<\/span>
Mme El\u2019s village love-stories would have delighted Henri <\/span>Pourrat<\/span>9<\/a><\/sup>Henri Pourrat (1887-1959) was a French writer and anthropologist who collected the oral literature of the Auvergne, nine hundred and forty-five tales in thirteen volumes in Le Tr\u00e9sor des Contes, one of them entitled Les Amours.<\/span><\/span> like one of the neighbours who for years has been <\/span>known in terms of the sum of money he offered to another <\/span>neighbour, a spinster, if she let him \u2026 The spinster declined <\/span>and didn\u2019t keep the secret.<\/span><\/p>\n