'The table went up, up, up,' she said, 'until our hands could scarcely follow it. The candles were blown out by invisible lips, and in the darkness I saw a hand pass up and down—an immense hand—it was that of Peter the Great!'
The muscles of her face grew rigid as she spoke, and her eyes became fixed as if on a terrible apparition. Traces of that brutish and almost half-witted creature of instinct that lurks even in the most refined Russian appeared for a few seconds upon the surface. Then the Society woman suddenly remembered that she had to perform the honours of her house, and the smile came back to her lips and the gleam in her eyes grew softer. Was it that intuition peculiar to elderly women which gives them such a soothing influence over men of irritable nerves that revealed to her how solitary René felt in the midst of these crowdedsalons, where he knew not a soul? As soon as her story was ended she was good enough to turn to him with a smile and say: 'Do you believe in spirits, Monsieur Vincy? Of course you do—you are a poet. But we'll talk of that some other day. You must come with me now, in spite of the fact that I'm neither young nor pretty, and be presented to some of my friends, who are already passionate admirers of yours.'
She had taken the young man's arm, and, although he was above the middle height, she was taller than he by half a head. Her tragic expression was not deceptive. She had really lived through what the strange look in her eyes and the determined set of her features led one to imagine. Her husband had been murdered almost at her feet, and she herself had killed the assassin. René had heard the story from Claude, and he could see the scene before him—the Comte Komof, a distinguished diplomat, stabbed to the heart by a Nihilist in his study; the Comtesse entering at the moment and bringing down the murderer by a well-directed shot. While the young man reflected that those tapering fingers, resplendent with rings as they lay on his coat sleeve, had clutched the pistol, his partner had already commenced some fresh story with that savage energy of expression that in people of Slavonic race is not incompatible with the most refined and elegant manners.
'It was on my arrival in Paris about eight years ago, just after the war. I had not been here since the first Exhibition, in 1855. Ah! my dear sir, the Paris of those days was really charming . . . and your Emperor . . .idéal!She had a way of dwelling on her last syllables when she wished to express her enthusiasm. 'My daughter, the Princess Roudine, was with me—I don't think you know her; she lives in Florence all the year round. She was taken ill, but Doctor Louvet—you know, the little man who looks like a miniature edition of Henri III.—got her over it. I always call him Louvetsky, because he only attends Russians. I could not think of taking her away from Paris, so this house being for sale, ready furnished, I bought it. But I've turned everything upside down. Look here, this used to be the garden,' she added, showing René the largersalon, which they had just entered.
Thissalonwas a vast apartment, whose walls were hung with canvases of all sizes and schools, picked up by the Comtesse in the course of her European rambles. Though René had been strongly impressed from the first by the general air of material well-being everywhere apparent, this feeling was intensified by the spiritual luxury, if one may use such a term, which such cosmopolitanism represents. The way in which the Comtesse had mentioned Florence, as if it were a suburb of Paris, the resources indicated by the improvements effected in the mansion, the fluency with which this grand Russian lady spoke French—how could a young man accustomed to the limited horizon of a struggling family of modestbourgeoisfail to be struck with childlike wonder at the sight of a world such as these details suggested? His eyes opened wide to take in the whole of the charming scene before him. At the end of thesalonheavy, dark red curtains hung across the usual entrance to the dining-room, which apartment, approached by three broad stairs, had been turned for the nonce into a stage. In the centre of the hall stood a marble column surmounted by a bust in bronze of the famous Nicolas Komof, the friend of Peter the Great—this ancestral kind of monument being surrounded by a group of gigantic palms in huge pots of Indian brass ware, whilst lines of chairs were drawn up between the column and the stage.
By this time nearly all the ladies were seated, and the lights shone down upon a living sea of snowy arms and shoulders, some too robust, others too lean, others again most exquisitely moulded; jewels sparkled in tresses fair and dark, the flutter of fans tempered the glances that shot from eloquent eyes, whilst words and laughter became blended in one loud, harmonious murmur. In the ladies' dresses, too, lay a wonderful play of colour, and one side of thesalonpresented a striking contrast to the other, where the men, in their swallow-tails, formed a solid mass of black. A few women, however, had found their way amongst the sterner sex, while here and there a dark patch amidst the seated fair ones betrayed the presence of a male interloper. The whole of the company, although somewhat mixed, was composed of people accustomed to meet daily, and for years, in places that serve as common ground for different sets of Society. There were blue-blooded duchesses from the Faubourg Saint-Germain, whose sporting tastes and charity errands took them to all kinds of places. There were also the wives of big financiers and politicians, representing every degree of cosmopolitan elegance, and there were even the wives of plain artists, following up their husbands' successes through a string of fashionable dinners and receptions.
But to a new-comer like René Vincy the social distinctions that broke up thesaloninto a series of very dissimilar groups were utterly imperceptible. The spectacle upon which he gazed surpassed, in outward magnificence, his wildest dreams. Amidst a hum of voices he allowed himself to be presented to some of the men as they passed, and to a few of the women seated on the back row of chairs, bowing and stammering out a few words in reply to the compliments with which the more amiable ones favoured him. Madame Komof, perceiving his timidity, was kind enough not to leave him, especially since Claude, a prey to some fresh fit of his amorous passion, had disappeared. He had probably gone behind the scenes, and when the signal for raising the curtain was given the poet found himself seated beside the Comtesse in the shadow of the palms that surrounded the ancestral bust, happy that he was in a place where he could escape notice.
Two footmen in livery drew back the curtains from before the miniature stage. The scene being laid 'In a garden, in Venice,' nothing had been required in the way of scenery beyond a piece of cloth stretched across the back of the stage and a bank formed of plants selected from the hostess's famous conservatory. With the somewhat crude appearance of their foliage under the glare of the light these exotic shrubs made a setting very different to that which M. Perrin had arranged with so much taste at the Comédie Française. That model of a manager, if ever there was one, had hit upon the happy idea of placing before his audience one of the terraces on the lagoon that lead by a flight of marble steps down to the lapping waters, with the variegated façades of the palaces standing out against the blue sky and the black gondolas flitting round the corners of the tortuous canals. The change from the usual scenery, the diminutive stage, the limited and eminently select audience, all contributed to increase René's feeling of uneasiness, and he again felt his heart beating as wildly as on the night of the first performance at the theatre.
The appearance of Colette Rigaud, dressedà la Watteau, was the signal for a burst of applause, which the actress smilingly acknowledged. Even in her gay attire, copied from one of the great painter'sfêtes galantes, and in spite of her powdered hair, her patch, and her pale cheeks bedaubed with paint, there was a tone of sadness about her—something in the dreamy look of the eyes and the melancholy expression on the sensual lips that reminded one of Botticelli's madonnas and angels. How many times had not René heard Claude sigh: 'When she has been telling me lies, and then looks at me in her own peculiar way, I begin to pity her instead of getting angry.'
Colette had already attacked the first lines of her part and René's anguish was at its highest pitch, while all around he heard the loud remarks which even well-bred people will make when an artiste appears on a drawing-room stage. 'She's very pretty. Do you think it's the same dress she wears at the theatre? She's a little too thin for my taste. What a sympathetic voice! No, she imitates Sarah Bernhardt too much. I'm in love with the piece, aren't you? To tell you the truth, poetry always sends me to sleep.' The poet's sharp ears caught all these exclamations and many more. They were, however, soon silenced by a loud 'hush!' that came from a knot of young men standing near René, conspicuous among them being a bald-headed individual with rather a prominent nose and a very red face.
The Comtesse thanked him with a wave of her hand, and, turning to her partner, said: 'That's M. Salvaney; he is madly in love with Colette.' Silence was reestablished, a silence broken only by the rustle of dresses and the unfurling of fans.
René now listened in delightful intoxication to the music of his own verses, for by the silence as well as by the murmurs of approval that were occasionally heard he felt, he knew, that his work was as surely captivating this select audience as it had captivated the 'house' on its first night at the Théâtre Français, then filled with tired critics, worn-out reporters, scoffingboulevardiers, and smart women. Gradually his thoughts took him back, in spite of himself, to the period when he had first thought out and then written the little play which was that night procuring him such a new and delightful thrill of gratification, after having so completely changed the tenor of his life. He saw himself once more in the Luxembourg garden at the close of a bright spring day; the charm of the deepening twilight, the smell of the flowers, the dark blue sky seen through the spare foliage, and the marble statues of the queens—all these things had deeply impressed him as he walked with Rosalie, silent, by his side. She had such a simple way of looking up at him with her great black eyes, in which he could read unconscious though tender passion.
It was on that evening that he had first spoken to her of love, there, amidst the scent of the early lilac, whilst the voices of Madame Offarel and Emilie could be heard, indistinctly, in the distance. He had returned to the Rue Coëtlogon a prey to that fever of hope which brings tears to one's eyes and moves one's nature to its inmost depths. Finding it impossible to sleep, he had sat there alone in his room and drawn a comparison between Rosalie and the object of an earlier but less innocent attachment—a girl named Elise, living in the Quartier Latin. He had met her in abrasserie, where he had been taken by the only two comrades he possessed. Faded as she was, Elise could still boast of good looks, in spite of the black under her eyes, the powder all over her face, and the carmine on her lips. She had taken a fancy to him, and although she shocked him dreadfully by her gestures and her mode of thought, by her voice and her expressions, he had continued the acquaintanceship for about six months—six months that had left him nothing but a bitter memory. Being one of those in whom passion leads to affection, he had become attached to the girl in spite of himself, and he had suffered cruelly from her coquetry, the coarseness of her feelings, and the stock of moral infamy that formed the groundwork of the poor creature's nature.
Seated at his writing-table that night, and dreaming ecstatically of Rosalie's purity, he had conceived the idea of a poem in which he should draw a contrast between a coquette and a true, tender-hearted girl. Then, being an ardent admirer of Shakespeare and de Musset, his vulgar love affair with Elise underwent a strange metamorphosis and became an Italian romance. There and then he made a rough sketch of the 'Sigisbée,' and composed fifty lines. It was the simple story of a young Venetian noble, named Lorenzo, who had fallen in love with Princess Cœlia, a cold and cruel coquette. The unhappy swain, after wasting much time and many tears in wooing this unrelenting beauty, was advised by a young Marquis de Sénecé, a Frenchrouéon a visit to Venice, to affect an interest in the sweet and pretty Countess Beatrice in order to awaken Cœlia's jealousy. He then discovered that the Countess had long loved him, and when Cœlia, caught in the trap, tried to lead him back, Lorenzo, profiting by experience, said the perfidious lady nay, and gave himself up entirely to the charms of her who loved him without guile.
Colette, as Cœlia, was speaking while Lorenzo sat lamenting. Therouéwas cynical and Beatrice lost in dreams. These characters, coming straight from the world of Benedict and Perdican, of Rosalind and Fortunio, strutted on and off, enveloped in a ray of poetry as sweet and light as a moonbeam. As René heard the frequent exclamations of 'Charming!' or 'Exquisite!' that escaped from the crowd of women before him he recalled the nights of wakefulness that this or that passage had cost him. There were these pathetic lines, for instance, written by Lorenzo to Cœlia, and afterwards shown by the latter to Beatrice. How sweet Colette's voice became, in spite of its mocking note, as she read them out.
If kisses for kisses the roses could payWhen our lips o'er their petals in ecstasy stray;If the lilacs and tall slender lilies could guessHow their sweet perfume fills us with sorrowfulness;If the motionless sky and the sea never stillCould know how with joy at their beauties we thrill;If all that we love in this strange world belowA soul in exchange on our souls could bestow:But the sea set around us, the sky set above,Lilacs, roses, and you, sweet, know nothing of love.
If kisses for kisses the roses could payWhen our lips o'er their petals in ecstasy stray;If the lilacs and tall slender lilies could guessHow their sweet perfume fills us with sorrowfulness;If the motionless sky and the sea never stillCould know how with joy at their beauties we thrill;If all that we love in this strange world belowA soul in exchange on our souls could bestow:But the sea set around us, the sky set above,Lilacs, roses, and you, sweet, know nothing of love.
And as he listened the past returned to René more vividly than ever; he was back in his peaceful room again, and felt once more the secret pleasure of rising each morning to resume his unfinished task. By Claude's advice, and from a childish desire to imitate the ways of genius—a foolish but pretty trait in most young writers—he had adopted the method formerly practised by Balzac. In bed by eight o'clock at night, he would get up before four in the morning, and, lighting the fire and the lamp, would make himself some coffee over a little spirit-stove, all prepared for him by his sister in the evening. As the fire burned up brightly and the aroma of the inspiring Mocha filled the little room, he would sit down at the table with Rosalie's portrait before him and begin work. Gradually the noises of Paris grew more distinct as the great city awakened once more to life. Then he would put down his pen and gaze at the engravings that adorned the wall or turn over the leaves of a book. About six o'clock Emilie would make her appearance. In spite of her household cares, this loving sister found time to copy day by day the lines that her brother had written. For nothing in the world would she have allowed one of René's manuscripts to pass into the hands of the printers. Poor Emilie! How happy it would have made her to hear the applause that drowned Colette's voice, and what unalloyed pleasure René's would have been had not the change in his feelings with respect to Rosalie sent a pang of sadness through his heart at the very moment when the play was finishing amidst the enthusiasm of the whole audience.
'It is a glorious success,' said the Comtesse to the young author. 'You will see how these people will fight for you.' And as if to corroborate what might only have been the flattery of a gracious hostess, René could hear, during the hubbub that succeeded the close of the piece, broken sentences that came to him amid thefrou-frouof the dresses, the noise of falling chairs, and the commonplaces of conversation.
'That's the author! Where? That young man. So young! Do you know him? He's a good-looking fellow. Why does he wear his hair so long? I rather like to see it—it looks artistic. Well, a man may be clever, and still have his hair cut. But his play is charming. Charming! Charming! Who introduced him to the Comtesse? Claude Larcher. Poor Larcher! Look at him hanging round Colette. He and Salvaney will come to blows one of these days. So much the better; it will cool their blood. Are you going to stay to supper?'
These were a few of the snatches of conversation that reached the author's sensitive ears as he bowed and blushed under the weight of the compliments showered upon him by a woman who had carried him away from Madame Komof almost by force. She was a long, lean creature of about fifty, the widow of a M. de Sermoises, who, since his death, had been promoted to 'my poor Sermoises,' after having been, while alive, the laughing-stock of the clubs on account of his fair partner's behaviour. The lady, as she grew older, had transferred her attention from men to literature, but to literature of a serious and even devotional kind. She had heard from the Comtesse in a vague sort of way that the author of the 'Sigisbée' was the nephew of a priest, and the air of romance that pervaded the little play gave her reason to think that the young writer had nothing in common with the literature of the day, the tendencies of which she held in virtuous execration. Turning to René with the exaggerated tone of pomposity adopted by her in giving utterance to her poor, prudish ideas—a judge passing sentence of death could scarcely be more severe—she said: 'Ah, monsieur! what poetry! What divine grace! It is Watteau on paper. And what sentiment! This piece is epoch-making, sir—yes, epoch-making. We women are avenged by you upon those self-styled analysts who seem to write their books with a scalpel in a house of ill-fame.'
'Madame,' stammered the young man, taken off his feet by this astonishing phraseology.
'You will come and see me, won't you?' she continued. 'I am at home on Wednesdays from five to seven. I think you will prefer the people I receive in my house to those you have met here to-night; the dear Comtesse is a foreigner, you know. Some of the members of theInstitutdo me the honour of consulting me about their works. I have written a few poems myself. Oh! quite unpretentious things—lines to the memory of poor Monsieur de Sermoises—a small collection that I have called "Lilies from the Grave." You must give me your candid opinion upon them. Madame Hurault—Monsieur Vincy,' she added, presenting the writer to a woman of about forty, whose face and figure were still elegant in outline. 'Charming, wasn't it? Watteau on paper!'
'You must be very fond of Alfred de Musset, sir, remarked this lady. She was the wife of a Society man who, under the pseudonym of Florac, had written several plays that had fallen flat in spite of the untiring energy of Madame Hurault, who, for the past sixteen years, had not given a single dinner at which some critic, some manager, or some person connected with some critic or manager had not been present.
'Who is not fond of him at my age?' replied the young man.
'That is what I said to myself as I listened to your pretty verse,' continued Madame Hurault; 'it produced the same effect as music already heard.' Then, having launched her epigram, she remembered that in many a young poet there lurks a future critic, and tried to smooth down by an invitation the phrase that betrayed the cruel envy of a rival's wife. 'I hope you will come and see us; my husband is not here, but he will be glad to make your acquaintance. I am always at home on Thursdays from five till seven.'
'Madame Ethorel—Monsieur Vincy,' said Madame de Sermoises, again introducing René, but this time to a very young and very pretty woman—a pale brunette, with large dreamy eyes and a delicacy of complexion that contrasted with her full, rich voice.
'Ah! monsieur,' she began, 'how you appeal to the heart! I love that sonnet which Lorenzo recites—let me see, how does it go?—
The spectre of a year long dead.'
The spectre of a year long dead.'
'"The phantom of a day long dead,"' said René, involuntarily correcting the line which the pretty lips had misquoted; and with unconscious pedantry he repressed a smile, for the passage in question, two verses of five lines each, presented not the slightest resemblance to a sonnet.
'That's it,' rejoined Madame Ethorel; 'divine, sir, divine! I am at home on Saturdays from five till seven. A very small set, I assure you, if you will do me the honour of calling.'
René had no time to thank her, for Madame de Sermoises, a prey to that strange form of vanity that delights in reflected glory, and which inspires both men and women with an irresistible desire to constitute themselves the showman of any interesting personage, was already dragging him away to fresh introductions. In this way he had to bow first to Madame Abel Mosé, the celebrated Israelitish beauty, all in white; then to Madame de Suave all in pink, and to Madame Bernard all in blue. Then Madame de Komof once more took possession of him in order to present him to the Comtesse de Candale, the haughty descendant of the terrible marshal of the fifteenth century, and to her sister the Duchesse d'Arcole, these high-sounding French names being succeeded by others impossible to catch, and belonging to some of the hostess's relatives. René was also called upon to shake hands with the men who were in attendance on these ladies, and thus made the acquaintance of the Marquis de Hère, the most careful man in town, who with an income of twenty thousand francs lived as though he had fifty; of the Vicomte de Brèves, doing his best to ruin himself for the third time; of Crucé, the collector; of San Giobbe, the famous Italian shot, and of three or four Russians.
The names of most of these Society women and clubmen were familiar to the poet from his having read them, with childish avidity, in the fashionable intelligence published by the newspapers for the edification of youngbourgeoisdreaming of high life. He had formed such grand and entirely false notions of the 'upper ten' of Paris—a little world of wealthy cosmopolitans rather than French aristocrats—that a feeling of both rapture and disenchantment came over him at the realisation of one of his earliest dreams. The splendour of his surroundings charmed him, and his success soothed his professional vanity. There were smiles for him on such tempting lips and kind looks in such glorious eyes. But though all this was very flattering, it overwhelmed him with a sense of shyness, and, whilst the crowd of strange faces struck a kind of terror into his soul, the commonplace praise destroyed his illusions. What makes Society—of whatever class it be—utterly insupportable to many artists is the fact that they appear in it on rare occasions only, in order to be lionised, and that they expect something extraordinary, whilst those who really belong to Society move in the atmosphere of a drawing-room with the natural ease that accompanies a daily habit. The indescribable feeling of disenchantment, the daze of excitement produced by endless introductions, the intoxication of flattery and the anguish of timidity all made René eager to find his friend. Claude had disappeared, but the poet's eyes fell upon Colette, who, having come down from the stage in her bright-coloured dress of the last century and her powdered hair, formed a striking contrast in colour to the black coats of the men by whom she was surrounded. She, too, was evidently embarrassed—a feeling betrayed by her somewhat nervous smile, by the look of defiance in her eyes, and the rapid opening and shutting of her fan. With her it was the embarrassment of an actress suddenly transported beyond her sphere, proud of, and yet distressed by, the attentions she commands.
She met René with a smile that showed real pleasure in finding one of her own set, and breaking off her conversation with the owner of a terra-cotta complexion, who could be no other than Claude's rival, Salvaney, she cried, 'Ah! here is my author!—Well,' she added, shaking hands with the poet, 'I suppose you are quite satisfied? How well everything has gone off! Come, Salvaney, compliment Monsieur Vincy, even if you don't understand anything about it. And your friend Larcher,' she went on, 'has he disappeared? Tell him for me that he nearly made me die of laughing on the stage. He was wearing a love-lock and his weeping-willow air. For whom was he acting his Antony?'
A cruel look came into her greenish eyes, and in the curl of her lips there was an expression of hatred called forth by the fact that the unhappy Claude had gone without bidding her good night. Though she deceived and tortured him, she loved him in her way, and loved above all to bring him to her feet. She experienced a keen delight in making a fool of him before Salvaney, and in thinking that the simple René would repeat all her words to his friend.
'Why do you say such things?' replied the young man in an undertone while Colette's partner was shaking hands with a friend; 'you know very well that he loves you.'
'I know all about that,' said the actress with a harsh laugh. 'You swallow all he tells you—I know the story. I am his evil genius, his fatal woman, his Delilah. I have quite a heap of letters in which he treats me to a lot of that kind of thing. That does not prevent him from getting as drunk as a lord, under pretence of escaping from me. I suppose it's my fault, too, that he gambles and drinks and uses morphia? Get out!' And, shrugging her pretty shoulders, she added more gaily: 'The Comtesse is making signs for us to go down to supper. . . . Salvaney, your arm!'
The numerous introductions had taken up some time, and René, suddenly called back to his surroundings by Colette's last words, saw that there were but very few people left in thesalons.The Comtesse had not invited more than about thirty to stay, and gave the signal for adjourning to the supper-room by taking the arm of the most illustrious of her guests, an ambassador then much run after in fashionable circles. The other couples marched off behind her, mounting a narrow staircase adorned with some marvellous wood-carving brought from Italy. This led to an apartment which, though furnished as a boudoir, was really asalonin size. In the centre was a long table, laden with flowers, and fruit, and sparkling with crystal and silver. Near each plate stood a small pink glow-lamp encircled with moss—an English novelty that called forth the admiration of the guests as they sat down wherever they chose.
René, having in his bashful way gone up alone among the last, chose an empty seat between the Vicomte de Brèves and the fair woman in red whom Larcher and he had met in the ante-room, and whom Claude had spoken of as Madame Moraines, the daughter of the famous Bois-Dauffin, one of the most unpopular ministers of Napoleon III. Feeling quite unobserved where he was, for Madame Moraines was carrying on a conversation with her neighbour on the left whilst the Vicomte de Brèves was busily engaged with his partner on the right, René was at length able to collect his thoughts and to take a look at the guests, behind whom the servants were continually passing to and fro as they attended to their wants. His glance wandered from Colette, who was laughing and flirting with Salvaney, to Madame Komof, no doubt telling some fresh tale of her spirit experiences, for her eyes had resumed their piercing brilliancy, her looks were agitated, and her long bejewelled hands trembled as she sat oblivious of all around her table—she generally so attentive and so eager to please her guests! René's feeling of solitude had now become almost painful in its intensity, either because the varied sensations undergone that evening had tried his nerves or because the sudden transition from flattery to neglect appeared to him a symbol of the worthlessness of the world's applause. Some of the women who had overwhelmed him with praise were gone; the others had naturally chosen seats near their own friends. At the other end of the table he could see himself reflected in the actor who had taken the part of Lorenzo, the only one of the players besides Colette who had stayed to supper, and who, looking very stiff and awkward in his gorgeous attire, was doing justice to the viands without exchanging a word with anyone.
In this frame of mind René began to look at his fair neighbour, whose charms had made such an impression upon him during their momentary encounter in the hall. He had not been mistaken in judging her at the first glance as a creature of thoroughly aristocratic appearance. Everything about her, from her delicately-cut features to her slim waist and slender wrists, had an air of distinction and of almost excessive grace. Her hands seemed fragile, so dainty were her fingers and so transparent. The fault of such kind of beauty lies in the very qualities that constitute its charm. Its exceeding daintiness is frequently too pronounced, and what might really be graceful becomes peculiar. Closer study of Madame Moraines showed that this ethereal beauty encased a being of strength, and that beneath all this exquisite grace was hidden a woman who lived well, and whose sound health was revealed in many ways. Her shapely head was gracefully poised on a full neck, while her well-rounded shoulders were not disfigured by a single angle. When she smiled she showed a set of sharp white teeth, and the way in which she did honour to the supper testified that her digestion had withstood the innumerable dangers with which fashionable women are beset—from the pressure of corsets to late suppers, to say nothing of the daily habit of dining out. Her eyes, of a soft, pale blue, would remind a dreamer of Ophelia and Desdemona, but possessed that perfect, humid setting in which the physiognomists of yore saw signs of a full enjoyment of life, the freshness of her eyelids telling of happy slumbers that recruit the whole constitution, whilst her lovely complexion showed her rich blood to be free of any taint of anæmia.
To a philosophising physician, the contrast between the almost ideal charm of this physiognomy and the evident materialism of this physiology would have furnished food for reflections not altogether reassuring. But the young man who was stealing glances at this beauty whilst toying with the morsel ofchaufroidset before him was a poet—that is to say, quite the opposite of a physician and a philosopher. Instead of analysing, he was beginning to take a delight in this proximity. He had that evening unwittingly succumbed to a spell of sensuality which was personified, so to speak, in this captivating woman, around whom there floated such a subtle and penetrating aroma. A faithful disciple of the masters of Parnassus, he had in his youth possessed a childish mania for perfumes, and he now inhaled with delight the rare and intoxicating odour he recognised as white heliotrope, remembering how he had once, when a prey to the nostalgia of refined passions, written a rhymed conceit in which the following lines occurred:
Opoponax then sang, 'neath shades so sweet,The story of those lips that never meet.
Opoponax then sang, 'neath shades so sweet,The story of those lips that never meet.
Once more, but more strongly than ever, there sprang up within him, the simple wish he had expressed to Claude Larcher in the carriage that evening—to be loved by a woman like the one whose sweet laughter was that instant ringing in his ear. Dreams—idle dreams! That hour would pass without his having even exchanged a word with this dreamlike creature, as far from him here as if a thousand miles had lain between them. Did she even know that he existed? But just as he was sadly asking himself this question he felt his heart begin to beat more quickly. Madame Komof, having by this time recovered from her excitement, had no doubt perceived the distress depicted on the young man's face, and from her place at the end of the table said to the Vicomte de Brèves: 'Will you be good enough to introduce Monsieur Vincy to his neighbour?'
René saw the glorious blue eyes turn towards him, the fair head bend slightly forward, and a sympathetic smile come to those lips which he had just mentally compared to a flower, so fresh, pure, and red were they. He expected to hear from Madame Moraines one of the commonplace compliments that had exasperated him all the evening, and he was surprised to find that, instead of at once speaking of his play, she simply continued the topic upon which she had been conversing with her neighbour.
'Monsieur Crucé and I were talking about the talent displayed by Monsieur Perrin in putting plays on the stage. Do you remember the scenery of the "Sphinx"?'
She spoke in a low, sweet voice that matched her style of beauty, and gave her that additional and indefinable attraction which helps to render a woman's charms irresistible to those who come under their spell. René felt that this voice was as intoxicating as the scent, which now grew stronger as she turned towards him. He had to make an effort to reply, so keen was the sensation that overpowered him. Did Madame Moraines perceive his agitation? Was she flattered by it, as every woman is flattered by receiving the homage of unconquerable timidity? However that might be, she was such an adept in the art of opening a conversation—no easy matter between a Society belle and a timid admirer—that, before ten minutes were over, René was talking to her almost confidentially, and expressing his own ideas on stage matters with a certain amount of natural eloquence, growing quite enthusiastic in his praise of the performances at Bayreuth, as described to him by his friends. Madame Moraines sat and listened, putting on that peculiar air worn by these thoroughbred hypocrites when they are looking at the man they have determined to ensnare. Had anyone told René that this ideal woman cared as much about Wagner or music as about her first frock, and that she really enjoyed only light operettas, he would have looked as blank as if the boisterous mirth going on around him had suddenly changed into cries of terror.
Colette, who had evidently had just a little more champagne than was good for her, was laughing somewhat immoderately, and the guests were already addressing each other by familiar appellations; amidst all this noise René heard his neighbour say: 'How delightful it is to meet a poet who is really what one expects a poet to be! I thought that the species had died out. Do you know,' she added, with a smile that reversed their parts, and turned her, the grand Society dame, into a person intimidated by the indisputable superiority of another; 'do you know that I was going to ask for an introduction to you just now in thesalon?I had enjoyed the "Sigisbée" so much! But I said to myself—what is the use? And now chance has brought us together. For a man who has just had a triumph,' she continued, with a malicious little smile, 'you were not looking very happy.'
'Ah! madame,' he replied; 'if you only knew—'and in obedience to the irresistible power this woman already exercised over him, he added: 'You will think me very ungrateful. I cannot explain to you why, but their compliments seemed to freeze me.'
'Therefore I didn't pay you any,' she said, adding in a negligent tone, 'You don't go out much, I suppose?' 'You must not make fun of me,' he replied with that natural grace that constituted his chief charm; 'this is my first appearance in Society. Before this evening,' he went on, seeing a look of curiosity come into the woman's eyes, 'I had only read of it in novels. I am a real savage, you see.'
'But,' she asked, 'how do you spend your evenings?'
'I have worked very hard until lately,' he replied; 'I live with my sister, and I know almost no one.'
'Who introduced you to the Comtesse?' inquired Madame Moraines.
'One of my friends, whom I dare say you know—Claude Larcher.'
'A charming man,' she said, 'with only one fault—that of thinking very badly of women. You must not believe all he says,' she added, again assuming her timid smile; 'he would deprave you. The poor fellow has always had the misfortune to fall in love with flirts and coquettes, and is foolish enough to think that all women are like them.'
As she uttered these words an expression of intense sadness came into her eyes. Her handsome face betrayed all kinds of emotions, from the pride of a woman who feels outraged by the cruel sayings of a misogynist writer to pity for Claude, and even a kind of modest fear that René might be led into similar errors—a fear that implied a mute esteem of his character. A silence ensued, during which the young man was surprised to find himself rejoicing in the absence of his friend. It would have been painful to him to listen on his way home to the brutal paradoxes with which Colette's jealous lover had regaled him during their drive from the Rue Coëtlogon to the Rue du Bel-Respiro. He had been right after all in silently protesting against Claude's withering tirades, even before he had known a single one of these superior creatures, towards whom he felt attracted by an irrepressible hope of finding, amongst them, the woman he should love for life! And he sat there listening to Madame Moraines as she spoke of secret troubles often hidden by a life of pleasure, of virtues concealed under the mask of frivolity, and of works of charity such as were undertaken by one or other of the friends whom she named. She said all this so simply and so sweetly that not a single intonation betrayed aught but a sincere love of the good and the beautiful, and as the company rose from the table she observed, with a kind of divine modesty at having thus laid bare her inmost feelings:
'This is a very strange conversation for a supper; you must have heard of so many "fives to sevens" that I hardly dare to ask you to come and see me. But in case you should be passing that way, pray remember that I am always at home before dinner on Opera days. I should like you to see my husband, who is not here this evening—he wasn't very well. He made me come, because the Comtesse had asked us so often—which proves,' she added, as she shook hands with René, 'that one is sometimes rewarded for doing one's duty, even though it be a social one.'
The shock of the novel and varied sensations experienced by René Vincy on that eventful evening had been so great that it was impossible for him to analyse them as he made his way on foot from the Rue du Bel-Respiro to the Rue Coëtlogon. Had Claude not left the house so suddenly, tortured by the pangs of jealousy, the two friends would have returned together. Whilst walking along the deserted streets with the silent stars shining above, they would have indulged in one of those confidential talks in which, when young, we give full utterance to the feelings inspired by the events of the past few hours. By the mere mention of the name of Madame Moraines, René might then have discovered what a hold on his thoughts had suddenly been secured by this rare specimen of beauty, the living embodiment of all his ideas of aristocracy. Perhaps from Claude, too, he might have gathered a few correct notions concerning the lady, and the difference that existed between a mere fashionable woman like Madame Moraines and a realgrande dame, he would then have been spared the dangerous fever of imagination which, all along his route, conjured up to his delight visions of Suzanne. He had heard the Comtesse call her by that pretty name as she gave her a farewell kiss, and he could see her again in her long, fur-lined cloak, her shapely head looking quite lost encircled by the deep ermine collar. He could again see the slight inclination of that dainty head in his direction before she got into the carriage. He could see her still, as she sat at supper, with that look in her glorious eyes, so full of intelligence, and that way she had of moving her lips to utter words, very simple in themselves, but each of which proved that this woman's soul matched her beauty, just as her beauty was worthy of her surroundings.
He was scarcely aware of the length of his journey, covering nearly a third of Paris. He gazed up at the sky above, and down into the Seine waters as they rolled darkly along, while the long lines of gas-lamps before him seemed even to lengthen the dim, far-reaching perspective of the streets. The night gave him an idea of immensity—a symbol, it seemed to him then, of his own life. The mental formation peculiar to poets who are poets only predisposes them to attacks of what, for want of a more definite name, might be called the lyric state; this is something like the intoxication produced by hope or despair, according as the power of exaggerating present sensations to the highest degree is applied to joy or sorrow. What, after all, was this entry into Society, which for the moment seemed to this simple boy an entry upon a new life? Scarcely a glance stolen through a half-open door, and which, to be of any use at all, would have to be followed up by a course of petty strategy that only an ambitious man would have dreamt of. A man eager to make his way would have asked himself what impression he had created, what kind of people he had met, which of the women who had invited him were worth a single visit, and which of them deserved more assiduous attentions. Instead of all that, the poet felt himself surrounded by an atmosphere of happiness. The sweetness of the latter portion of the evening spread itself over the whole, and he entirely forgot the feelings of distress that had once or twice overwhelmed him.
It was in this frame of mind that he reached home. As he pushed the heavy house door open, and crept on tip-toe to his room, it pleased him to compare the world he had left behind with the world to which he returned. Was it not this very contrast that lent his pleasure a tinge of romance? Being, however, at that age when the nervous system recruits itself with perfect regularity in spite of the most disordered state of the mind and feelings, his head had no sooner touched his pillow than he was fast asleep. If he dreamt of the splendour he had seen, of the applause that had filled the vastsalon, of the sweet face of Madame Moraines set in a wealth of fair tresses, he was oblivious of it all when he awoke about ten o'clock next morning.
A ray of sunlight came streaming through a narrow slit in the blinds. All was quiet in the little street, and there was no noise in the house—nothing to betray the necessary but exasperating performance of matutinal household duties. This silence surprised the young man. He looked at his watch to see how long he had slept, and once more he experienced that feeling, of which he never tired—that of being beloved by his sister with an idolatrous intensity extending to even the smallest details of life. At the same time recollections of the preceding evening came back to his mind. A score of faces rose up before him, all gradually melting away into the delicate features, mobile lips, and blue eyes of Madame Moraines. He saw her even more distinctly than he had done a moment after leaving her, but neither the clearness of the vision nor the infinite delight it afforded him to dwell upon it led him to suspect the feelings that were awakening within him. It was an artistic impression, nothing more—an embodiment, as it were, of all the most beautiful ideals he had ever read into the lines of romancists and poets. Idly reclining on his pillow, he enjoyed thinking of her in the same way as he enjoyed looking round his old, familiar room, with its air of peace and quiet. His gaze dwelt lovingly upon all the objects visible in the subdued light—upon his table, put in order by Emilie's hands, upon his engravings set off by the dark tone of the red cloth, upon the bindings of his favourite books, upon the marble chimney-piece with its row of photographs in leather frames. His mother's portrait was among them—the poor mother who had died before seeing the realisation of her most ardent hopes, she once so proud of the few scattered fragments she had occasionally come across in tidying her son's room! His father's likeness was there too, with its emaciated, drink-sodden features. Often did René think that the want of will power, of which he was dimly conscious, had been transmitted to him by his unhappy parent. But that morning he was not in the humour to reflect upon the dark side of life, and it was with childish glee that he gave two or three smart raps on the bedside. This was his manner of summoning Françoise in the morning to pull up the blinds and open the shutters. Instead of the servant it was Emilie that entered, and as soon as the sunlight was let into the room it was on his sister's face with its loving smile that the young man gazed—a face now beaming with hopeful curiosity.
'A triumph!' he cried, in reply to Emilie's mute interrogation.
The kind-hearted creature clapped her hands for joy, and sitting down on a low chair at the foot of the bedstead, said, in the tone that we use to a spoilt child: 'You mustn't get up yet . . . Françoise will bring you your coffee. I thought that you would wake up about ten, and I had just ground it when you knocked. You shall have it quite fresh.' The maid entering at that moment, holding in her big red hands the tray with its little load of china, Emilie continued: 'I will serve you myself. Fresneau has gone to take Constant to school—so we have plenty of time—tell me all about it.' And René was obliged to give her a full account of thesoirée, without omitting any details.
'What did Larcher say?' asked his sister. 'What was the courtyard like? And the hall? What did the Comtesse wear?' She was highly amused by the fantastic metaphors of Madame de Sermoises, and cried: 'What a wretch!' when she heard the epigram of the unsuccessful playwriter's wife; she laughed at the ignorance of pretty Madame Ethorel, and was indignant at Colette's cruelty. But when the poet attempted to describe the dainty features of Madame Moraines, and to give her an idea of their talk at supper, she felt as though she would have liked to thank the exquisite lady who had thus at the first glance discovered what René really was. The habits she had contracted long years since of seeing everything through her brother's eyes and senses made her the most dangerous of confidantes for the poet. She possessed the same imaginative nature as he himself—an artistic imagination yearning after the beautiful—and, since it was all for another's sake, she gave herself up to it unreservedly. There is a kind of impersonal feminine immorality peculiar to mothers, sisters, and all women in love which ignores the laws of conscience where the happiness of one particular man is at stake. Emilie, who was all self-denial and modesty in what concerned herself, indulged only in dreams of splendour and ambition for her brother, often giving expression to thoughts which René dared hardly formulate.
'Ah! I knew you would succeed,' she cried. 'It's all very well for the Offarels to talk, but your place is not in our modest set. What you writers want is all this grandeur and magnificence. Heavens! how I wish you were rich! But you will be some day. One of these fine ladies will fall in love with you and marry you, and even in a palace you will not cease to be my loving brother, I know. Is it possible for you to go on living like this for ever? Can you fancy yourself in a couple of rooms on the fourth floor with a lot of crying children and a wife with a pair of servant's hands like mine'—holding them out for his inspection—'and being obliged to work by the hour, like a cab-driver, to earn your living? Here, it is true, you have not lived in luxury, but you have had your time to yourself.
'Dear, good sister!' exclaimed René, moved to tears by the depths of affection revealed in these words, and still more by the moral support they lent to his secret desires. Although Rosalie's name had never been mentioned between them in any particular way, and Emilie had never been taken into her brother's confidence, René was well aware that his sister had long guessed his innocent secret. He knew that, holding such ambitious views, she would never have approved of such a marriage. But would she have spoken as she did if she had known all the details? Would she have advised him to commit an act of treachery—for that it was, and of a kind, too, most repugnant to a heart born for noble deeds—the treachery of a man who transfers his love, and foresees, nay, already feels, the pain which his irresistible perfidy will necessarily inflict upon himself?
As soon as Emilie had gone René, his mind busied with the thoughts his sister's last words had suggested, rose and dressed himself, and for the first time found courage to look the situation well in the face. He remembered the little garden in the Rue de Bagneux, and the evening when he had first impressed a kiss upon the girl's blushing cheek. It is true, he had never been her avowed lover; but what of those kisses and their secret betrothal? One truth appeared to him indisputable—that a man has no right to steal a maiden's love unless he feels strong enough to cherish it for ever. But he also felt that his sister had given voice to the thought that had filled him ever since the success of his play had opened up such a horizon of hope. 'This grandeur and magnificence!' Emilie had said, and again the vision of all the splendour he had witnessed rose up before him—again, set in this rich frame, he saw the face of Madame Moraines with that sweet smile of hers. In his loyalty the young poet tried to banish this seductive apparition from his mind.
'Poor Rosalie, how sweet she is, and how she loves me!' he said, finding some sad satisfaction in the contemplation of the deep love he had inspired, and carrying these feelings with him to the breakfast table. How simply that table was laid, and how little resemblance it bore to the splendid display of the previous night. The table-cover was of oil-cloth, adorned with coloured flowers; on this stood a very modest service of white china, the heavy glasses that accompanied it being rendered necessary by the combined clumsiness of Fresneau, Constant, and Françoise, which would have made the use of crystal too costly for the family budget. Fresneau, with his long beard and his look of distraction, ate quickly, leaning his elbows on the table and carrying his knife to his mouth; he was as common in manners as he was kind of heart, and, as if to emphasise more strongly by contrast the impression which the idle cosmopolitanism of high life had made upon René, he laughingly gave on account of his morning.
At seven he had given a lesson at Ecole Saint-André. From eight to ten he had taken a class of boys in the same school who were still too young to follow the ordinary curriculum. Then he had just had time to jump into a Pantheon omnibus which took him to a third lesson in the Rue d'Astorg. 'I bought a paper on the way,' added the good man, 'to read the account of last night's affair. Dear me,' he exclaimed, undoing the strap that held his small parcel of books, 'I must have lost it.'
'You are so careless,' said Emilie almost angrily.
'Oh! it doesn't matter!' cried René gaily; 'Offarel will tell us all about it. You know that he is my walking guide-book. By to-night he will have read all the Paris and provincial newspapers.'
Knowing that the smallest details of last night's performance would be collected by Rosalie's father and commented upon by her mother, René was the more anxious to give the girl a full account of it himself. There is an instinct in man—is it hypocrisy or pity?—which impels him to treat with the utmost regard the woman who no longer holds his affections. Directly lunch was over he bent his steps towards the Rue de Bagneux. It had formerly been his custom to call upon the Fresneaus pretty frequently about that time. While covering the short distance he had often extemporised a few verses, after the manner of Heine, which he poured into Rosalie's ear when they were alone. The power of walking in a day-dream had, however, long since left him, and rarely had the vulgarity of this corner of Paris struck him to such a degree. All in it was eloquent of the sordid lives of thepetit bourgeois—from the number of the little shops to the display of their cheap and varied wares that covered half the pavement. In the windows of the restaurants were bills of fare offering meals of various courses at extraordinarily low prices. Even the cooking utensils on sale in the bazaars seemed to have an air of poverty about them.
These and a score of other details reminded the young man of the limited resources of small incomes, of an existence reduced to that shabby gentility which has not the horrible and attractive picturesqueness of absolute want. When we begin to love we find in all the surroundings of our beloved so many reasons for increased affection, and when we cease to love these same details furnish the heart with as many reasons for further hardening. Why did the impression made upon René by the wretchedness of the neighbourhood cause him to feel annoyed with Rosalie? Why did the appearance of the Rue de Bagneux make him as angry with the girl as any personal wrong done to himself? This street, with its line of old houses and a blank wall at the bottom, had a most deserted and poverty-stricken air. At the moment when René entered it one end was almost blocked up by a cart heavily laden with straw, the three horses yoked to it, in country fashion, by stout ropes, standing with their heads half hidden in their nosebags whilst the driver was finishing his dinner in a small, greasy-looking cookshop. A Sister of Mercy was walking along the pavement on the left carrying a large umbrella under her arm; the wind flapped the wings of her immense white cap up and down, and the cross of her rosary beat against her blue serge dress. Why, after having heaped upon Rosalie all the displeasure caused by the sight of her miserable surroundings, did René involuntarily connect Madame Moraines with the religious ideas the good Sister's dress evoked? The manner in which that beautiful creature had spoken only the night before of the pious works performed by many so-called frivolous women came back to him. Three times that day had Suzanne's image come before him, and each time more distinctly. Great heavens! What joy were his if his good genius brought him face to face with her in some retired street like this as she was going to visit her poor! But that was out of the question, so René turned down a passage at the end of which were the ground floor apartments occupied by the Offarels. Profiting by the example of the Fresneaus, they, too, had realised the ambition of every family of thepetite bourgeoisieof Paris, and had found in this deserted quarter of the capital a suite of rooms with a bit of garden as large as a pocket-handkerchief.
'Ah! Monsieur René!' exclaimed Rosalie, coming to the door in answer to the young man's ring at the bell. The Offarels only employed the services of a charwoman who left at twelve o'clock, and concerning whom the old lady always had an inexhaustible stock of anecdotes. At the sight of her lover, poor Rosalie, generally somewhat pale, coloured with joy, and she could not repress the cry of pleasure that rose to her lips.
'How good of you to come and tell us so soon how your play got on!' she said, taking the visitor into the dining-room, a dismal apartment with a north light, and in which there was no fire. Madame Offarel was so stingy that in winter, when the weather was not too cold, she would save the expense of fuel, and make her daughters wear mittens and capes instead! 'We are just going through the linen,' remarked the good lady, motioning René to a chair.
On the table lay the whole of the fortnightly washing, from the old man's shirts to the girls' underclothes, the bluish whiteness of the calicots and cottons being enhanced by the darkness of the room. It was the poor linen of a family in straitened circumstances; there were stockings evidently darned times out of number, serviettes full of holes, cuffs and collars frayed at the edges—in fact, a whole heap of things that Rosalie felt were not for a poet's eyes. She therefore gave him no time to sit down, but said, 'Monsieur René had much better come into the drawing-room—it's so dark here.'
Before her mother had had time to say anything further she had pushed the visitor into the apartment honoured by that pompous name, and which, in reality, more often served as a workroom for Angélique. The latter added a little to the income of the family by occasionally translating an English novel, and was at that moment seated at a small table near the window, writing. A dictionary was lying at her feet, those extremities being encased in a pair of slippers the backs of which she had trodden down for ease. No sooner had she caught sight of Vincy than she gathered up her books and papers and fled.
'Excuse me, Monsieur René,' she exclaimed, brushing back with one hand the hair that hung about her head and casting an apologetic look at her dress—a loose morning wrapper wanting some half-dozen buttons down the front. 'I am a perfect fright—don't look at me, please.'
The young man sat down and let his eyes wander round the well-known room, whose chief ornament consisted in a row of aquarelles executed by M. Offarel in Government time. There were about a dozen, some representing bits of landscape that he had discovered in his Sunday walks, others being copies of pictures he admired, and which René's more modern taste therefore detested. A faded felt carpet, six cloth-covered chairs and a sofa completed the furniture of this room, which René had once looked upon as a symbol of almost idyllic simplicity, but which now appeared doubly hateful to him in his present state of mind, aggravated by the acidity of Madame Offarel's accents.
'Well, did you enjoy yourself amongst all your grand folks last night? I suppose your friend only visits people now who keep a carriage, eh? Whenever he opens his mouth you hear of nothing but countesses and princesses. Dear me! He needn't think himself as grand as all that—he was giving lessons only ten years ago.'
'Mamma!' exclaimed Rosalie in beseeching tones.
'Well, what does he want to be so stuck up about?' continued the old lady. 'He looks at us as much as to say "Poor devils!"'
'How mistaken you are in him!' replied René. 'He is rather fond of going into smart society, it is true, but that is only natural in an artist. Why, it's the same with me,' he went on, with a smile. 'I was delighted to go to this affair last night and see that magnificent house filled with flowers and fine dresses. Do you think that prevents me appreciating my modest home and my old friends? All writers have that mad longing for splendour—even Balzac and Musset had it. It is a childish fancy of no importance.'
Whilst the young man was speaking Rosalie darted a look at her mother that told of more happiness than her poor eyes had expressed for months past. In thus confessing to and ridiculing his own inmost feelings, René was obeying impulses too complicated for the simple girl to understand. When Madame Offarel had spoken of 'your grand folks' the young man had seen by the look of anguish in her daughter's eyes that his love for the false glamour of elegance had not escaped Rosalie's perspicacity. He was ashamed of being found guilty of such a plebeian failing, and therefore laid bare his impressions as though he were not their dupe—partly in order to reassure the girl and spare her unnecessary pain, partly in order to indulge in a little weakness without having to reproach himself unduly.
Certain natures—and, owing to the habit of introspection, these are frequently found amongst writers—find pardon for their sins in mere confession. In defending Claude Larcher, René, with an irony that would have escaped sharper critics than a trusting girl, managed to administer a sharp rebuke to his own follies. Whilst openly ridiculing what he himself called his snobbishness, he continued to make those mean-spirited mental comparisons that would force themselves upon him all that day. He could not help measuring the gulf that separated the creatures he had seen at Madame Komof's—living blooms reared in the hothouse of European aristocracy—from the pale-faced and simple-looking creature before him, her hands spoilt by work, her hair tied back in a knot, and dressed so plainly as to look almost uncouth. The comparison, when dwelt upon, became quite painful, and caused the young man one of those inexplicable fits of ill-humour that always nonplussed Rosalie.
Knowing him as she did, she could always see when he had them, but she never guessed their cause. She knew by instinct that there were two Renés existing side by side—the one kind, tender, and good, easily moved and unable to withstand grief—in a word, the René she loved; the other cold, indifferent, and easily irritated. The bond that united these two beings she was, however, unable to find. All she knew was that before the triumphant success of the 'Sigisbée' she had seen only the first of these two Renés, and since then only the second. She was afraid to say 'the unfortunate success;' she had been so proud of it, and yet she would have given so much to go back to the time when her darling was poor and unknown, but all her own. How quickly he could make his voice hard, so hard that even the words addressed to another seemed by their intonation alone to be intended to wound her. At that moment, for instance, he was talking to her mother, and the mere accent that he gave to words empty in themselves touched Rosalie to the quick.
Suddenly Madame Offarel, who had been listening intently for a few seconds, started up. 'I can hear Cendrette scratching at the door,' she said; 'the dear creature wants to go out.'
With these words she returned to the dining-room in order to open the yard door for her favourite cat. She was probably delighted to have an excuse for leaving the two young people together; for, Cendrette having gone off, she stood for some time stroking Raton, another of her feline boarders. 'How clever you are, my Raton! How I love you, my little demon!' These were some of the pet names that she had devised for her cats, and as she repeated them and a dozen others in rather loud tones she was saying to herself: 'If he has come at once, that proves he is still faithful to her—but when will he propose? Poor girl! He'll not find a jewel like her in any of his gilded saloons. She's pretty, gentle, good, and true!' Then aloud: 'Isn't that so, my Raton? You understand, don't you, my son?' And as the cat arched her back, rubbed her head against her mistress's skirt, and purred voluptuously, the mother's internal monologue went on: 'And he is a good match, too. We didn't despise him before; so we have a right to set our caps at him now. She won't have to drudge, as I do for Offarel. It's a pity that she should have to spoil her pretty fingers botching up this old linen.' With the mechanical activity of an old housewife, she made a small pile of the handkerchiefs already gone through, and continued her thoughts: 'Her little dowry, too! What a surprise it will be!' By exercising the most stringent economy, she had managed to save, out of her husband's modest salary, some fifteen thousand francs, which she had invested unknown to M. Offarel. She smiled to herself and listened with some anxiety. 'I wonder what they are talking about!'
She knew that her daughter was fond of René, but she was still ignorant of the secret bonds that united the young people. What would have been her astonishment had she known that Rosalie had already frequently but timidly exchanged stolen kisses with her lover, and that immediately her mother's back was turned she had taken René's hand in hers and murmured in a voice of gentle reproach, 'How could you go off last night without saying good-bye?'
'Claude dragged me out,' said René, reddening, and pressing his sweetheart's fingers. She was, however, not taken in either by the excuse or the feigned caress, and, drawing back her hand, shook her head sadly, while her words came out with an evident effort.
'No,' she observed; 'you are not so nice to me as you used to be. How long is it since you last wrote me a line of poetry?'
'You're not so silly as to think people can sit down and write poetry when they like?' replied the young man, almost harshly. He was seized by that irritability which is a sure sign of the decline of love. The obligation to make a show of sentiment—a most cruel duty—was felt by him in one of its thousand forms.
By an instinct which leads them to sound the depths of their present misfortune whilst desperately clinging to their past happiness, the women who feel love slipping from them formulate these small, unpretending demands that have the same effect upon a man as a clumsy tug at the curb has upon a restive horse. The lover who has come with the firm intention of being gentle and affectionate immediately rears. Rosalie had made a mistake; she felt that as plainly as she had felt René's indifference a few minutes ago, and a feeling of despair, such as she had never known before, crept over her. Since her lover's departure on the previous evening she had been jealous—she had no reason to be, and she would scarcely admit to herself that she was—but she was jealous all the same. 'Whom will he meet there? To whom is he talking?' she had asked herself again and again instead of going to sleep. And now she thought, 'Ah! he is already unfaithful, or he would not have spoken to me in this manner.'
The silence that followed the harsh reply was so painful that she timidly asked, 'Did the actors play their parts well last night?'
Why was she hurt to see how eager René was to answer her question, and to turn the conversation from a more serious subject? Because the heart of a woman who is really in love—and that Rosalie was—is susceptible to the lightest trifles, and in despair she heard René reply: 'They acted divinely,' after which he immediately plunged into a dissertation on the difference between acting on a stage some distance from the audience and acting in the limited space of a drawing-room.
'Poor child!' thought Madame Offarel as she returned to thesalon, 'she is so simple; she has not got him to talk of anything but that wretched play!' Then, in order to be revenged on some one for René's procrastination in proposing, she added aloud, 'Tell me—isn't your friend Larcher rather jealous of your success?'
René had entered the house in the Rue de Bagneux a prey to painful impressions, and when he left it his impressions were more painful still. Then he had been discontented with his surroundings—now he was discontented with himself. He had called on Rosalie with the idea of giving her a little pleasure, and sparing her the trifling pain of hearing all about his success from the mouth of another; instead of which his visit had only caused the girl fresh grief. Although the poet had never harboured aught else than an imaginary love for this child with the beautiful black eyes, that love had gone deep enough to implant in his breast what is last to die in the break-up of any passion—an extraordinary power of following the least movements of that virgin heart, and a pity, as unavailing as it was distressing, for all the pain he had caused it.
Once more he asked himself this question: 'Is it not my duty to tell her I no longer love her?' An insoluble question, for it admits of only two replies—both impossible ones—the first, cruel and brutal in its egoism, if our feelings are plain; the second a frightful mixture of pity and treachery, if they are complicated. The young man shook his head as if to chase away the obtrusive thought, and muttering the eternal 'We shall see—later on,' by which so many agonies have been prolonged, forced himself to look about him. He had mechanically turned his steps towards that portion of the Faubourg Saint-Germain where, in younger days, he had loved to walk, and, inspired by Balzac, that dangerous Iliad of poor plebeians, imagine that he saw the face of a Duchesse de Langeais or de Maufrigneuse looking out from every window.
He was now in that wide but desolate thoroughfare called Rue Barbet-de-Jouy, which, by reason of the total absence of shops, the grandeur of its buildings, and the countrified look of its enclosed gardens, seems a fitting frame for some fine lady of artificial aristocracy. An inevitable association of ideas brought René's mind back to the Komof mansion, and the thought of that lordly dwelling conjured up, for the fourth time that day, but more clearly than ever, the image of Madame Moraines. This time, however, worn-out by the fretful emotions through which he had passed, he became entirely absorbed in the contemplation of that image instead of trying to dispel it. To think of Madame Moraines was to forget Rosalie, and experience, moreover, a peculiarly sweet sensation.
After a few minutes of this mental contemplation the natural roamings of his fancy led the young man to ask himself, 'When shall I see her again?' He recalled the tone of her voice and her smile as she had said, 'On Opera days, before dinner.' Opera days? This novice of Society did not even know them. He felt a childish pleasure, out of all proportion to its ostensible cause—like that of a man who is realising his wildest dreams—in gaining the Boulevard des Invalides as quickly as possible and in finding one of the posts that display theatrical advertisements. It was Friday, and the bills announced a performance of theHuguenots. René's heart began to beat faster. He had forgotten Rosalie, his remorse of a little while ago, and the question that he had put to himself. That inner voice which whispers in our soul's ear such advice as would, upon reflection, astonish us, had just said to him: 'Madame Moraines will be at home to-day. What if you went?'
'What if I went?' he repeated aloud, and the bare idea of this visit parched his throat and set him trembling. It is the facility with which extreme emotions are brought into play upon the slightest provocation that makes the inner life of young men full of such strange and rapid transitions from the heights of joy to the depths of misery. René had no sooner put the temptation that beset him into words than he shrugged his shoulders and said, 'It's madness.' Having arrived at that decision, he commenced to plead the cause of his own desire under pretence of summing up the objections. 'How would she receive me?' The remembrance of her beautiful eyes and of her sweet smile made him reply, 'But she was so gentle and so indulgent.' Then he resumed his questioning. 'What could I say to justify a visit less than twenty-four hours after having left her?' 'Pooh!' replied the tempting voice, 'the occasion brings its own inspiration.' 'But I am not even dressed.' Well, he had only to go to the Rue Coëtlogon. 'But I don't even know her address.' 'Claude knows it—I have only to ask him.'
The idea of calling on Larcher having once presented itself to his mind, he felt that it would be impossible not to put at least that part of his plan into execution. To call on Claude was the first step towards reaching Madame Moraines; but, instead of confessing that, René was hypocrite enough to pretend other reasons. Ought he not really to go and obtain news of his friend? He had left him so unhappy, so truly miserable, on the previous evening. Perhaps he was now fretting like a child? Perhaps he was preparing to pick a quarrel with Salvaney? In this way the poet excused himself for the haste with which he was now making for the Rue de Varenne. It was not only Suzanne's address that he hoped to obtain, but information about her too—and all the while he was trying to persuade himself that he was simply fulfilling a duty of friendship.
In a very short time he had reached the corner of the Rue de Bellechasse, and a few moments later he found himself before the great doors of the strange house in which Larcher had taken up his abode. Pushing these open, he entered an immense courtyard in which everything spoke of desolation, from the grass that grew between the stones to the cobwebs that covered the windows of the deserted stables on the left. At the bottom of the courtyard stood a noble mansion, built in the reign of Louis XIV., and bearing the proud motto of the Saint-Euvertes, whose town house this had been,Fortiter.The stones of this building, already bearing traces of the ravages of time, its long shuttered windows and its silence were all in harmony with the solitude of the courtyard. The old Faubourg Saint-Germain contains many such houses, strange as the destiny of their owners, and which will always prove peculiarly attractive to minds in search of the psychologically picturesque—if we may unite these two words to define an almost indefinable shade of meaning.
René had heard the history of this mansion from his friend; how the old Marquis de Saint-Euverte, reduced to despair by the almost simultaneous loss of his wife, his three daughters, and their husbands, had, six years ago, gone to live with his grandsons on his estates in Poitou. An epidemic of typhoid fever suddenly breaking out in a small watering-place where all the family were staying together had made this happy old man the lonely guardian of a tribe of orphans. Even during the lifetime of the Marquise—an excellent business woman—two small wings in the house had been let to quiet tenants. These wings had also a history of their own, the grandfather of the present Marquis having placed them at the disposal of two cousins—Knights of Saint-Louis and at one time political refugees—who, after a wretched, wandering existence, had ended their days here. M. de Saint-Euverte had left everything as his wife had arranged it. Claude therefore one day found himself the only tenant in the whole of this silent, gloomy building, for the occupant of the other wing had been scared away by the loneliness of the place, and no one else had yet seemed anxious to bury himself in this tomb, standing between a desolate courtyard and a still more desolate garden.
But all these points, that were so displeasing to others, were a source of delight to Larcher. The oddness of the place appealed particularly to this dreamer and maker of paradoxes. It pleased him to set his irregular existence as an artist and a swell clubman in this framework of imposing solitude; and here, too, he could shut himself up with his secret agonies. The love of analytical introspection with which he knew he was infected, and which, like a doctor cultivating his own disease for the sake of a fine 'case,' he carefully nurtured, could not have found a better home. Then, again, here Larcher enjoyed absolute freedom. Theconcierge, won over by a few theatre tickets and fascinated by the reputation of his tenant, would have allowed him to hold a saturnalian feast in every hall of the Saint-Euverte mansion had Claude felt any desire to found anotherClub de Haschischinsor to reproduce some scene of literary orgies out of love for the romanticism of 1830. Theconciergewas absent from his post when René arrived, so that the poet walked straight across the courtyard to the house. Entering the main hall, where the magnificent lamps bore testimony to the grandeur of the receptions once held here, he mounted the stone staircase, whose wrought-iron balustrade formed a splendid ornament to the huge well of the house. On the second floor he turned down a corridor, at the end of which heavy curtains of Oriental texture proclaimed a modern installation hidden in the depths of a mansion that seemed to be peopled only with the bewigged ghosts ofgrands seigneurs.