I liked him very much, only in my liking for him there was lacking the element of tenderness, of kindliness; I liked him with a sort of fear and uneasiness, with a painful feeling that in his presence I did not amount to much and that I was eclipsed, so to speak, by the grandeur of his genius.... I liked him as one likes the sea, the tempest, as one likes some immense force of nature. Lirat inspired me with fear, his presence paralyzed what little intellectual powers there were in me, for I was always afraid that I might say something foolish at which he would jeer. He was so severe, so relentless to everybody; he knew so well how to discover, to reveal the ridiculous side in artists, in writers whom I considered superior to myself, and to characterize them by some apt remark unforgettable and fierce, that in his presence I found myself in a state of constant mistrust, of ever present disquietude. I always asked myself: "What does he think of me? What scornful thoughts do I inspire in him?"
I had that feminine curiosity which obsessed me to know what opinion he had of me. By means of distant allusions, absurd affections or hypocritical circumlocutions, I would sometimes try to surprise or provoke him into frankness, and I suffered even more when he deigned to pay me a curt compliment, as one who throws a few pennies to a pauper whom one wishes to be rid of; at least, that is what I imagined. In a word, I liked him very much, I assure you; I was very much devoted to him, but in this affection and in this devotion there was an element of uncertainty, which destroyed the charm of those feelings; there was also a certain grudge which rendered those feelings almost painful, a grudge caused by the sense of my inferiority. Never, not even when I was most intimate with him, was I able to conquer that feeling of base and timid pride, never could I enjoy a friendship which I prized very highly. Lirat, on the other hand, was simple in his relations with me, often affectionate, sometimes "fatherly" in his attentions, and of all his friends, who were very few in number, I was the only one whose companionship he sought.
Like all those who hold tradition in contempt, like all who rebel against the prejudices of conventional education, against the idiotic formulae of the School, Lirat was very much discussed; spoken of with contempt—I should rather say. It must be stated also that his conception of free and lofty art conflicted with all the professed conventions and accepted ideas, and that by their forceful synthesis and prodigious knowledge of life which obscured his craftsmanship, his works of art disconcerted the lovers of prettiness and grace and of the frigid correctness of academic unity. The return of modern painting to the great gothic art—this they could never forgive him.
He fashioned the man of today in his craving for enjoyment, a frightfully tortured soul with a body sapped by neurosis, with flesh tormented by lust, which quivers under the influence of passion that lures man on and sinks its claws into his skin. In his representations of the human body wrought in avenging postures, with monstrous apophyses guessed at under the garments, there was such human emphasis, such grief over infernal voluptuousness, such tragic power, that a shudder passed through one's frame when looking at them. It was no longer curly headed, pomaded love, adorned with ribbons and fainting with yearning, rose in mouth, by the light of the moon, or strumming on a guitar under the balcony; it was Love besmirched with blood, drunk with the filth of vice, Love with its onanistic furies, wretched Love which fastens upon man its mouth like a cupping glass and drains his veins, sucks the marrow of his bones and emaciates his frame. And in order to give these representations a still greater intensity of horror, to weigh them down with the burden of even greater affliction, he cast them in the midst of peaceful, smiling surroundings of surpassing clearness, among pink and blue landscapes with softened vistas, amidst glorious sunshine, with the radiant sea in the background. All around them nature was resplendent with all the magic of her delicate and changing colors.
When for the first time he consented to place his works on a free exhibit, together with a group of friends, the critics and the mob, which influences the critics, shouted with indignation. But the anger did not last very long—for there is a sort of nobility, or generosity in anger—and they merely contented themselves with laughing. Then the humbug which is always represented by mediocre opinion with its foul spittle, this humbug came to replace the menace of raised fists. And viewing the superb artistry of Lirat, they were convulsed with laughter, holding their sides with both hands. Clever, merry-making people deposited pennies on the edge of the frames as one does for a Jack-in-the-box, and this was considered excellent sport—for it actually became a sport for people of the better sort, with purses.
In the magazines, in the studios, in the salons, in the clubs and the cafés the name of Lirat served as a term of comparison, as an indispensable standard whenever one wanted to designate something devoid of sense or some sort of obscenity; it even seemed as if women—and girls too—could not pronounce that reprobate name without blushing. The year-end reviews dragged it into their revolting lampoons, people sang it at the cabarets. Then from these "centres of Parisian culture" it spread to the street—where one saw it blossom forth again into a vulgar bud, upon the sloppy lips of drivers, in the shriveled mouths of street boys, "It's a go, eh! Lirat!" For a few years poor Lirat really enjoyed an uproarious popularity.... But one gets tired of everything, even of abusing a person. Paris abandons its puppets which it raises to the throne as quickly as it does its martyrs whom it hoists on the gibbet; in its perpetual hunger for new playthings, it never gets itself excited overly much before the statues of its heroes or at the sight of the blood of its victims.
Now there was only silence for Lirat's portion. It was very seldom indeed that in some of the magazines there was again heard an echo of the past, in the form of some annoying anecdote. Besides, he decided not to exhibit any more, saying:
"Leave me alone in peace!... Is painting done to be seen ... tell me ... painting ... do you understand?... One works for himself, for two or three living friends and for others whom one has never known and who are dead ... Poe, Baudelaire, Dostoiewsky, Shakespeare.... Shakespeare! ... do you understand?.... And the rest?... The rest don't amount to anything."
Having reduced his needs to a minimum, he lived on little with admirable and touching dignity. Provided he earned enough with which to buy his brushes, paints, canvas, pay his models and his landlord, make a studying trip each year, he did not wish for more. Money did not tempt him at all, and I am sure that he never sought success. But if success had come to him, I am also sure that Lirat would not have resisted the joy, so human, of relishing factitious delights. Though he did not want to admit it, though he affected to defy injustice gayly, he felt it more keenly than anyone else, and at heart suffered from it cruelly. He suffered from the present neglect shown to him as much as he had suffered from the former insults. Only once did a young critic publish an enthusiastic and high-sounding article about him in a magazine. The article was well-meant but full of banalities and errors; one could see that its author was not sufficiently familiar with art and that he did not understand anything about the talent of the great artist.
"Have you read it?" Lirat shouted, "have you read it, eh, tell me?... What idiots these critics are!... If they keep on talking about me, they will finally force me to paint in a cave, understand?... What do they take me for anyway—a vulgarizer?... And then what business is it of this fellow here—whether I make paintings, boots or slippers?... That's my private affair!"
Nevertheless he had put it away in a drawer as a thing of great value, and several times I surprised him reading it. It was very well for him to say with supreme detachment, when we were inveighing against the stupidity of the public: "Well, what would you want them to do?... Do you expect the people to start a revolution because I paint my canvases plainly?" But in reality this contempt for notoriety, this apparent resignation concealed deep but secret sentiment. Deep in his very sensitive and very generous soul there accumulated profound aversions, which were vented with terrible and malignant fervor on the whole world. If, on the one hand, his talent had gained in strength and ruggedness on account of this, his character, on the other hand, had lost something of its inherent nobility, and his critical spirit had been deprived of some of its penetrating quality and brilliance.
He ended by giving himself over entirely to decrying everybody and everything, the excess of which threatened to render him odious; at times it bore evidence of nothing but a childishness which made him ridiculous. Great souls nearly always have petty weaknesses—that is a mysterious law of nature, and Lirat did not escape the effects of this law. Above everything else, he held fast to his well-established reputation of an ill-natured man. He bore very well with the opinion which denied him talent, but what he could not tolerate was that they called in question the propriety of his insulting humanity with his sarcastic jibes.
To avenge the scouring words with which he characterized them, some of the enemies of Lirat attributed to him unnatural vices; others simply called him an epileptic, and these coarse and cowardly calumnies, strengthened every day by ingenious comments, based on "certain" stories which made the rounds of the studios—these calumnies found ready listeners willing, some owing to his actual malice, others prompted solely by the intemperance of the painter's tongue, to receive and spread them.
"You know Lirat?... He had another attack yesterday, this time on the street."
And names of important personages were mentioned who had assisted in the scene and who had seen him rolling in the mud, lying, with foam at his mouth.
I must confess that I myself at the beginning of our friendship was greatly troubled by these stories. I could not think of Lirat without at the same time picturing to myself horrible fits in which, I was told, he was writhing. Victim of a delusion born of an obsession with this idea, I seemed to discover in him symptoms of horrible diseases; I often imagined that he suddenly became livid, that his mouth was distorted, that his body was convulsed in horrible spasms, that his eyes, wild and streaked with red, were shunning the light and seeking the shadow of deep vacuous space, like the eyes of trapped beasts that are about to die. And I regretted that I did not see him fall, shriek, writhe here in his studio filled with his genius, under my avid glance that watched him and hoped for the worst!... Poor Lirat!... And still I loved him!...
The day was drawing to a close. All over Rodrigues place one heard the slamming of doors; the noise of steps upon the street was rapidly dying away, and in the shops voices were heard rising in song at the end of the day's work. Lirat had not uttered a word since resuming his work, except to fix my posture, which I did not keep just the way he wanted.
"The leg a little this way!... A little more now!... Your chest not quite so drawn in!... You'll excuse me, my dear Mintié, but you pose like a pig!"
He worked now feverishly, now haltingly, mumbling in his mustache, swearing from time to time. His crayon snapped at the canvas with a sort of uneasy haste of angry nervousness.
"Ah, shucks!" he cried out, pushing away the easel with a kick.... "I can do nothing but botch-work today!... The devil take me, one might think I was competing for a prize."
Moving back his chair he examined his sketch with a frigid air and muttered:
"Whenever women come here it's the same old story.... When they go away the women leave you the soul of a Boulanger in the pretty claws of a Henner.... Henner, do you understand?... Let's go out."
When we were at the end of the street:
"Are you coming to dine with me, Lirat?" I asked him.
"No," he replied in a dry tone, reaching out his hand.
And he walked away, stiff, formal, solemn, with the business air of a deputy who has just discussed the budget.
That evening I did not go out and remained at home to muse in solitude. Stretched on a sofa, with half-closed eyes, and body made torpid by the heat, almost slumbering, I liked to go back to my past, to bring to life things dead and to recall memories which escaped me. Five years had passed since the war—the war in which I began my apprenticeship in life by entering the tormenting profession of a man-killer.... Five years already!...Still it seemed like yesterday ... the smoke, the fields covered with snow, stained with blood and ruins, these fields where, like ghosts, we wandered about piteously, worn out with fatigue.... Only five years!... And when I came back to the Priory, the house was empty, my father dead!... My letters had come to him only rarely, at long intervals and they had always been short, dry, written in haste on the back of my knapsack. Only once, after a night of terrible anguish had I become tender, affectionate; only once had I poured out my heart to him, and this letter which should have brought him sweetness, hope and consolation he had not received!... Every morning, Marie told me, he used to come out to the gate an hour before the arrival of the mailman and watch the turn of the road, a prey to mortal fear. Old wood cutters would pass on their way to the woods; my father used to question them:
"Hey there, uncle Ribot, you have not seen the mailman, by any chance?"
"Why no, Monsieur Mintié—it's a little early yet."
"Oh, no, uncle Ribot, he is rather late."
"That might be, Monsieur Mintié, that might be."
When he noticed the kepi and red collar of the mailman he became pale, trembling with the fear of bad news. As the mailman approached, the heart of my father beat furiously, almost bursting.
"Nothing but magazines today, Monsieur Mintié."
"How is that!... No letters at all! You must be mistaken, my boy. Look ... look again...."
He made the mailman search in his letter bag, untie the bundles and go through them again....
"Nothing!... Why it's impossible!"
And he would return to the kitchen, seat himself in the rocking chair heaving a sigh:
"Just think of it," he would say to Marie who gave him a bowl of milk, "just think of it, Marie, if his poor mother had been alive!"
During the day, when in town, he used to visit people who had sons in the army; the conversation was always the same.
"Well, have you heard from your boys."
"Why, no, M'sieur Mintié. How about you, have you heard anything from Jean?"
"I haven't either."
"That's very strange. How is it possible?... Can you explain it?..."
That they themselves did not get any letters only half surprised them, but that Mintié, the mayor, had not received any either, surprised them very much. Most unusual conjectures were made; they turned to the confusing statements of the papers, they questioned old soldiers who told them their war experiences with the most extravagant and lavish details; at the end of a couple of hours, they would part with lighter hearts.
"Don't worry M'sieur Mayor. You'll see him back a colonel, sure."
"Colonel, colonel!" my father would say, shaking his head.... "I don't ask that much.... Just so he comes back!..."
One day—nobody knew how that happened—Saint-Michel found itself full of Prussian soldiers. The Priory was occupied. Long sabres were found in our old house. From this moment, my father became more ill than ever, he took fever and was confined to his bed, and in his delirium he repeated without end: "Put the horses to, Felix, put the horses to, for I want to go to Alençon to get some news of Jean!" He imagined himself starting out on the road. "Gid up, gid up, Bichette, gid up, come on!... We are going to have some news of Jean this evening.... Gid up, gid up, come on!... And my poor father gently breathed his last in the arms of the curé Blanchetière, surrounded by Felix and Marie who were sobbing!... After a six months' stay at the Priory, now sadder than ever, I was weary to death... Old Marie, accustomed to manage the house according to her own notions, was unbearable to me; in spite of her devotion, her whims exasperated me, and there always were long altercations in which I never had the last word. For my only company I had the good curé to whom nothing appealed as much as the profession of a notary. From morning till night he used to lecture to me thus:
"Your grandfather was a notary, so was your father, your uncles, your cousins, in fact your whole family.... You owe it to yourself, my dear child, not to desert your post. You shall be Mayor of Saint-Michel, you may even hope to replace your poor father at the general council, in a few years.... Why man alive, that's something! And then—take my word for it—times are going to be pretty hard for decent people who love the good Lord.... You see that rascal Lebecq, he is municipal counsellor. All he thinks of is how to rob and kill people, that brigand there.... We need at the head of our country a right-minded man to uphold religion and defend the principles of righteousness.... Paris, Paris!... Oh! these silly heads, those youngsters!... But will you please tell me what good you have accomplished at Paris?...Why, the very air there is infected! Look at big Mange, he comes from a good family, but that did not prevent him from coming back from Paris with a red cap on. Isn't that a pretty affair?"
And he would continue in this vein for hours, taking his snuff, evoking the vision of the red cap of big Mange which appeared to him more abominable than the horns of the devil.
What was there to do at Saint-Michel? There was no one to whom I could communicate my thoughts, my dreams; there was no outlet for the ardor of life where I could expend that intellectual energy, that passion for knowledge and for creative work which the war, in developing my muscles, in strengthening my body, had awakened in me, and which omnivorous reading overstimulated in me more and more every day. I realized that Paris alone, which formerly had frightened me so much, that Paris alone could furnish nourishment for ambitions, as yet indefinite, which spurred me on, and with the estate settled, and the library sold I left suddenly, leaving the Priory to the care of Felix and Marie.... And here I am back in Paris!...
What have I accomplished during these five years, to use the words of the curé?... Carried away by vague ardors, by confused enthusiasm which blended together some sort of a chimeric ideal with a kind of impracticable apostleship, how far did I get?... I am no longer the timid child whom the footmen, in the vestibule flooded with light, used to put to flight. If I have not acquired much self-assurance, I at least know how to behave in society without appearing too ridiculous. I pass pretty much unnoticed, a condition which is the best that could be wished for a man of my calibre who possesses none of the graces and qualities which are necessary to shine there.
Very often I ask myself: what am I doing here in this society to which I do not belong, where they respect only success however fraudulently obtained, only money, no matter from what filthy place it comes; where every spoken word acts as a wound inflicted on everything I love best and everything I admire most?... Besides, is not man with all his differences of education which are betrayed only in his gestures, in his manner of greeting, in his more or less graceful bearing, pretty much the same no matter where he is?... What! were these the high-spirited artists, the much admired writers whose glory is sung, whose genius is acclaimed ... these petty, vulgar, frightfully pedantic beings, slavishly aping the manners of the society they rail at, ludicrously vain, fiercely jealous, lying prostrate before wealth, and kneeling in the dust, worshipping publicity—that old blackguard, which they carry about on velvet cushions.... Oh, how much better I love the herdsmen and their oxen, the pig drivers and their pigs, yes the pigs, round and pink, digging the earth with their snouts and whose fat smooth backs reflect the clouds that float above!
I read excessively, without discrimination, without system, and from this faulty reading there was left in my mind nothing but a chaos of disjointed facts and incomplete ideas, from the tangle of which I did not know how to extricate myself.... I tried to acquire knowledge in every way, but I realized that I was just as ignorant today as I had been in the past.... I had had mistresses whom I loved for a week, sentimental and romantic blondes, fierce brunettes, impatient to be caressed, and love showed me only the frightful emptiness of the human heart, the deceptiveness of affection, the lie of the ideal, the nothingness of pleasure....
Believing myself converted to the formulæ of descriptive art by means of which I was going to harness my ambition and fix my shifting and thrilling dreams upon the pinion of words, I had published a book which was praised and which proved to be "a best seller." Of course, I was flattered by this little success; I, too, spoke of myself with pride as of a rare talent; I, too, gave myself superior airs in order to deceive others all the better. And wishing to deceive myself as well, I often looked upon myself in the mirror with the complacency of a comedian, in order that I might discover certain marks of genius in my eyes, on my forehead, in the majestic bearing of my head.
Alas! Success rendered yet more painful the inner knowledge of my impotence. My book did not amount to much; its style was forced, its conception infantile: a passionate harangue, an absurd phraseology took the place of ideas in it. At times I would read over the passages praised by the critics, and in those passages discover something of everybody: Herbert Spencer and Scribe, Jean Jacques Rousseau and Commerson, Victor Hugo, Poe and Eugene Chavette. Of my own contribution, I, whose name was displayed on the title page, on the yellow cover of the volume, found nothing. Following the caprices of my memories, aroused by the intermittent light of my recollections, I expressed the thoughts of one and used the style of another; none of the ideas or style belonged to me. And important looking persons whose tastes are infallible and whose judgment is law praised my personality, my originality, the unexpected nature and subtleness of my impressions!...
How sad it was!... Whither was I going? I knew no more about it today than I did yesterday. I had the conviction that I could not be a writer, because all the effort of which I was capable had been spent in writing that miserable and incoherent book. Had I had a more humble and compromising ambition, were I only prompted by desires less noble, by those which never cause remorse—such as love of money, official titles, dissoluteness!... But, no! Only one thing which I could never attain lured me, and that was talent.... To be able to say to myself, yes ... to say to myself: "This book, this sonnet, this phrase is yours, you wrung it from your brains swollen with passion; it is your thought that quivers here; it is pieces of your flesh and drops of your blood, that it scatters over the sorrowful pages; it is your nerves that vibrate in it like the strings of a violin under the bow of a divine musician. What you have accomplished here is beautiful and grand!" For this moment of supreme joy I would be willing to sacrifice my future, my wealth, my life; I would be willing even to kill!...
And never, never will I be able to say that to myself!... Ah how I envied the eternal self-contentment of the mediocre!... Now I again felt a passionate desire to return to Saint-Michel. I wished I could drive the plough in the brown furrow, roll in the fields of yellow clover, smell the wholesome odor of the stables, and, above all, lose myself in the thick of the coppice wood, penetrating into it farther and farther....
The light went out and my lamp was smoking. A cold like a gentle caress filled my legs and sent a current of pleasurable chills through my back. Outside not a sound was heard; the street grew silent. It had been long since I heard the dull trundle of the omnibus rolling on the causeway. The clock struck six. But a sort of laziness kept me glued to my sofa: while thus stretched out I felt a physical pleasure amidst a great mental depression. I had to make a strenuous effort to free myself from this languor and to go into my bedroom. I found it impossible to fall asleep. No sooner did I close my eyes than it seemed to me that I had been thrown into a black and very deep pit, and suddenly I awoke, panting and perspiring. I again lit my lamp, tried to read.... I could not concentrate my mind on the lines of the text which seemed to swerve, to cross one another, to abandon themselves to a fantastic dance under my very eyes.
What a stupid life mine is!... Why am I so different, preyed upon by obnoxious chimeras? Who has poured into my soul this deadly poison of weariness and discouragement? Before others there stretches a vast horizon illumined by the sun! But I am walking in the darkness, stopped on every side by walls which obstruct my way and against which I vainly beat my head and knees.... Perhaps it is because they possess love! Love, ah yes! If I could only love!
And again I saw the beautiful virgin of Saint-Michel, the radiant virgin of plaster of paris with its robe adorned with stars and its golden nimbus descending from heaven. All around her suns were revolving, inclining themselves like celestial flowers, and doves in the exaltation of prayers were flying about, brushing her with their wings.... I recalled the ecstasies, the fits of mystic adoration which she evoked in me; all the sweet joys which I had experienced came back to me at the mere contemplation of her. Did she not also speak to me, then, at the chapel? And those unuttered words which poured into my childish soul such ineffable tenderness, this language more harmonious than angels' voices and the music of golden harps, this language more fragrant than the perfume of roses,—was it not the divine language of love?
As I listened with all my senses to this language which was music to me, I was lifted into a world unknown and wondrous; a new enchanted life sprouted, burst into bud and flourished all around me. The horizon receded into mysterious infinity: space shone bright like the interior of the sun, and I felt myself growing so tall and strong that in one embrace I was pressing to my breast all the beings, all the flowers, all the swarms of creatures born of the glance of love exchanged between the Holy Virgin of plaster and a little child.
"Holy Virgin, kindly Virgin!" I cried. "Speak to me, speak to me again,—as you used to in the past, in the chapel.... And give me love once more, for love is life and I am dying because I am no longer able to love."
But the Virgin was not listening to me any longer. She glided into the chamber and curtsying, mounted the chairs, pried into the furniture pieces, singing strange airs all the time. A drawn bonnet of otter skin now replaced her nimbus of gold, her eyes became like those of Juliette Roux, very large, very sweet, which smiled at me from a plaster face under a veil of very fine gauze. From time to time she approached my bed, waving above me her embroidered handkerchief which exhaled a violent perfume.
"Monsieur Mintié," she said, "I am at home every day from five to seven. And I shall be delighted to see you, delighted!"
"Virgin, kindly Virgin!" I implored again. "Speak to me, please. Speak to me as you did formerly in the chapel."
"Tu, tu, tu, tu!" hummed the Virgin who, causing her lilac robe to swell out and removing her cloak, adorned with golden stars with the tips of her long, thin fingers, began to turn around slowly as if dancing a waltz, her head swaying from one side to the other.
"Good Virgin!" I repeated in a rather irritated voice, "why don't you speak to me!"
She stopped, posted herself in front of me, stripped off her plaster garments one after another, and entirely nude, lustful and magnificent, her bosom shook with clear, sonorous, precipitous laughter:
"Monsieur Mintié," she said, "I am at home every day from five to seven. And I'll give you Charles' old trousers." And she threw her otter skin bonnet at me.
I sat up on my bed.... With a stupid gaze and breathing with difficulty, I looked about me. But the room was quiet, the lamp continued to burn sadly and my open book was lying on the carpet.
The next morning I got up late, having slept badly, pursued by the thought of Juliette in my sleep disturbed by nightmares. During the remainder of that troubled, feverish night she did not leave me for an instant, assuming the most extravagant forms, abandoning herself to the most wretched pranks, and lo! I again beheld her in the morning, and this time she was the same as when I met her before at Lirat's, with her air of modesty, her discreet and charming manners.
I felt a kind of sadness—not exactly sadness, but regret, the regret one feels at the sight of a rose-bush whose roses have wilted and whose petals are scattered over the muddy ground. For I could not think of Juliette without thinking at the same time of Lirat's malignant words: "There was also an affair with a wrestler of Neuilly whom she gave twenty francs." What a pity!... When she entered the studio I could swear that she was the most virtuous of women.... Her very manner of walking, greeting, smiling, seating herself bespoke good breeding, a peaceful, happy life without hasty acts of indiscretion, without degrading remorse. Her hat, her cloak, her dress, her whole appearance was of a refined and charming elegance, meant for the enjoyment of just one, for the cheerfulness of a secluded house, closed to the seekers of unclean spoils.... And her eyes, radiating a perfectly legitimate tenderness, her eyes from which shone such candor, so much sincerity, which seemed to have no knowledge of lies, her eyes more beautiful than the lakes haunted by the moon!...
"Is Charles all right?" Lirat had asked.
Charles?... Her husband, to be sure!... And naïvely I pictured to myself a respectable interior of a room, with jolly children playing on the carpet, a family lamp, grouping kind and simple beings around its gentle shimmer; a chaste bed, protected by a crucifix and a hallowed branch of boxtree!... Then suddenly, crashing into this peace, the bullhead from the Bouffes, the croupier of the gambling club, and Charles Malterre who broke Lirat's lounge by rolling on it, while crying in rage!... I conjured the image of the comedian—a pallid face, wrinkled, glabrous, with impudent bloodshot eyes, with sensual lips, wearing an open collar, a pink cravat, a low-plaited short jacket!
I was unnerved and irritated.... What did it matter to me, after all? Did the life of this woman concern me, was it related to me in any way?... Was it my business to interest myself in the fate of women whom chance threw in my path?... I don't care what she is, this Mlle. Juliette Roux!... She is neither my sister nor my fiançée, nor my friend; there is not a single bond of kinship between us.... If I had seen her yesterday walking on the street, like one of the thousands of persons whom one brushes against every day and who pass on and vanish, she would have already been drawn into the vortex of oblivion and never again would I be likely to see her.
"Maybe Lirat is mistaken?" I repeated, while breakfasting. I knew his exaggerations, his passion for ridicule, his horror of and contempt for woman. What he said of Juliette he was saying of all other women. Who knows,—perhaps this comedian, this croupier, all the details of this ignominious affair in the exposure of which his spiteful spirit found gratification, existed only in his imagination? And Charles Malterre?
Undoubtedly I should have preferred to see her married. I should have been pleased to see her leaning openly on the arm of a man, respected, envied by the most honest! But she loved this Malterre, she lived decently with him, she was devoted to him: "Charles will be sorry to learn of your refusal." The almost entreating voice in which she said those words was still in my ears. This means that she was mindful of the things that might or might not please Malterre.
And at the thought that Lirat, in making improper use of a false situation, was calumniating her in an odious manner, my heart grew heavy, a feeling of great pity swept over me and I caught myself saying aloud: "Poor girl!" Still this Malterre had been writhing on the lounge, he had cried, he had laid bare his heart to Lirat, had shown him her letters. Well, what of it? What have I to do with this woman? Let her have all the singers, all the croupiers, all the wrestlers she wants! To hell with her! And I went out humming a gay air, with the free bearing of a gentleman whose spirit is not in the least troubled by anything. And why should it be, I ask you?...
I went down the boulevards, stopping in front of the booths, strolling in spite of the sun, which was like a niggardly and pallid smile of December still permeated with fog; the air was cold and piercing. On the sidewalk women were passing, shivering with cold, wrapped in long cloaks of otter skin, some of them dressed in small drawn bonnets of fur like Juliette's, and every time these cloaks and bonnets attracted my attention I observed them with genuine pleasure. I liked to follow them with my glance until they were lost in the crowd. At the corner of the Rue Taitbout, I remember, I came upon a tall slender woman, pretty and resembling Juliette so closely that I brought my hand to my hat ready to greet her. I was excited—oh, it was not the violent beating of the heart which halts your breathing, weakens the flow of blood in your veins and stuns you; it was a light touch, a caress, something very sweet, which brings a smile upon the lips and a cheerful surprise to the eyes.
But this woman was not Juliette. I felt somewhat peeved and avenged myself by thinking her very ugly. Two o'clock already!... Shall I go to see Lirat? Why? To make him talk about Juliette, to compel him to admit that he had lied to me, to make him tell me of her traits of character, sublime and poignant, tell me some touching stories of her devotion, sacrifice—that tempted me. I thought the matter over, however, knowing that Lirat would be angry, that he would mock at me, at her, and I had a horror of his sarcasms; I already heard sinister words, abominable phrases coming out of a twisted corner of his mouth with a hissing sound.
At the Champs-Elysées, I called a hackney-coach and proceeded toward the Bois. Why dissemble? There I hoped to meet Juliette. Yes, certainly I hoped it, but at the same time I feared it. Not to see her at all, I felt, would prove a disappointment to me. On the other hand, were she in the habit of exhibiting herself in this market place of gallantry regularly like the other ladies, I should again feel hurt, and in the end I did not know what it was that stirred me more: the hope of seeing her or the fear of meeting her.
There were few people in the Bois. On the grand lake drive, carriages were passing slowly at a considerable distance from one another, the drivers perched high upon their seats. Sometimes a brougham would leave the strung-out line, turn and disappear to the trot of its horses, carrying away God knows where the profile of a woman, or some white and pallid faces, or the end of a ruffled dress seen for a moment through the window of the coach door.... My heart and the blood in my temples were beating faster, impatience caused the tips of my fingers to twitch; my neck was tired from turning in the same direction in an effort to penetrate the shadow of the carriages and began to hurt; anxiously I was chewing the end of a cigar which I could not make up my mind to light, for fear of missing her carriage in the act. Once I thought I saw her inside a brougham, which was going in the opposite direction.
"Turn, turn," I shouted to the driver, "and follow that brougham."
I did not at all reflect whether or not I was acting properly towards a woman to whom I had been introduced only the day before, and casually at that, one whose reputation I wanted to see rehabilitated at all costs. Half leaning against the lowered window of the coach door, I never lost sight of the brougham. And I was saying to myself: "Perhaps she recognized me! Perhaps she is going to stop, get out of the carriage, appear in the street." Indeed, I was saying this to myself without the slightest notion of attempting a gallant conquest. I was saying that as if it were the simplest and most natural thing in the world. The brougham rolled on speedily, lightly, bounding on its springs, and my hackney coach followed it with difficulty.
"Faster!" I gave the order, "faster, and get ahead of it!"
The driver lashed his horse, which started into a gallop, and in a few seconds the wheels of the two carriages touched each other. Then a woman's head, with dishevelled hair under a very large hat, with a nose comically turned up, with lips cracked from the excessive use of paint and crimson like a living flesh wound, appeared in the frame of the coach door. With a scornful glance, she took in the driver, the cab, the horse and myself, put out her tongue and then withdrew into a corner of her carriage. It was not Juliette! I did not come home until night, very much disappointed and yet delighted with my useless drive!
I had no plans for the evening. Still I spent more than the usual time in dressing myself. I did it with the greatest care, and, for the first time, the knot of my cravat seemed to me a matter of great importance, and I was very much absorbed in the process of tying it carefully. This unexpected discovery brought in its train others equally important. For example, I noticed that my shirt was ill cut, that the shirt front wrinkled disgracefully at the opening of the vest; that my dress coat looked very old and curiously out of style. In a word, I thought I looked very ridiculous and promised myself to change all that in the future. Without making elegant appearance an exacting and tyrannical law of my life, it was quite permissible, I thought, to look like the rest of the people. Simply because one dressed well, one was not necessarily a fool.
These preoccupations consumed my time till the dinner hour. Usually I ate at home, but this evening my apartment appeared to me so small, so dismal; it suffocated me, and I felt the need of space, of noise, of merriment.
At the restaurant I took an interest in everything: the coming and going of people, the gilding on the ceiling, the large mirrors which multiplied to infinity the parlors, waiters, electric globes, the flowers on ladies hats, the counters on which were spread dressed meats of all kinds, where pyramids of fruit, red and gold colored, rose amid salads and sparkling glassware. I watched the women above all, I studied their somewhat airy manner of eating, the joy in their eyes, the movement of their ungloved arms encircled by heavy bracelets of glittering gold, the exposed lines of their necks so delicate and tender, which gradually receded into the bosom, under the roseate lace napkin. This fascinated me, it affected me like something altogether new, like a landscape of some distant country suddenly glimpsed. I was wonder-struck, like a boy.
Ordinarily, impelled by the brooding disposition of my nature, I would fasten my attention on the intimate moral life of a human being, that is to say, I would point out its ugliness or suffering; at this moment, on the contrary, I abandoned myself to the joy of solely perceiving its physical charm: I was delighted to observe the magic spell cast by the women; even in the ugliest one I found some little detail such as a curve in the back of a neck, a languor in eyes, a suppleness of hands—always something or other—which made me happy, and I reproached myself for having until now arranged my life so badly, for having isolated myself like a barbarian in a dark melancholy chamber, for not having lived, while all this time Paris was offering me, at every step, joys so easily attained and so sweet to relish.
"Is Monsieur perhaps waiting for someone?" the waiter asked me.
Some one? Why no, I was not waiting for anyone. The door of the restaurant opened and I quickly turned around. Then I understood why the waiter had asked that question. Each time the door opened I would hastily turn around as I did just now and would stare anxiously at the people entering as if I knew that someone was about to enter, someone I was waiting for.... Some one! Well, for whom could I be waiting?
I very seldom went to the theatre; to force me there, a special occasion or obligation or inducement was required. I quite believe that of my own accord I would never think of going there. I even affected a supreme contempt for the kind of literary stuff offered for sale in these pushcart markets of mediocrity. Conceiving, as I did, the theatre as a place not of idle distraction but of serious art, it was repugnant to me to see human passion warbling one and the same sentimental tune amidst the mechanism of always identical scenes, to see gaiety, bedecked with tinsel, tumbling into the same pit of tomfoolery. A manufacturer of such plays, be they ever so applauded, seemed to me an artist gone astray; he bore the same relation to the poet that an unfrocked clergyman bears to a priest, or a deserter does to a soldier!
And I always remembered Lirat's remark, so powerfully concise, so profoundly discerning. We had been attending the funeral of the painter M——. The celebrated dramatist D—— was the chief mourner. At the cemetery he delivered an address. This did not surprise anyone, for did not H—— and D—— enjoy a reputation of equal greatness? At the end of the ceremony Lirat took my arm and we walked back to Paris very sad. Lirat, who seemed lost in painful meditation, was silent. Suddenly he stopped, crossed his arms and, swaying his head with an irresistibly comical air because it was intended to be grave, exclaimed: "But why did that fellow D—— interfere, tell me?" And he was right. Why did he interfere, really? Did they come from the same stock and were they headed for the same glory—the one an ardent artist with grandiose thoughts and immortal works, and the other, whose sole ideal was to entertain with silly nonsense an assembly of wealthy and reputable bourgeois each evening. Yes, really, why did he interfere?
How removed I was from such morose sentiments when, after dinner, having sauntered along the boulevards, enjoying the feeling of physical well-being which gave to my movement a special lightness and elasticity, I seated myself in a chair at the Varieté, where a successful musical comedy was being played! With my face deliciously freshened by the cold air outside, my heart entirely won over to a sort of universal forebearance, I was really enjoying myself. With what? I did not know and little cared to know, not being in the mood for psychological self-analysis.
As was proper, I arrived during the intermission, when the crowd, very elegant in appearance, was filling the lobbies. After having left my overcoat at the check room, I passed through the parterre boxes with that same sweet impatience, that same delicious anguish, which I had already experienced at the Bois; on reaching the first balcony I continued the same careful inspection of the loges. "Why is she not here?" I asked myself. Each time I failed to distinguish clearly a woman's face, whether it was because the face was slightly bent, in shadow, or cut off from view by a fan, I would say to myself: "That's Juliette!" And each time it was not Juliette at all. The play amused me; I laughed heartily at the flat jokes which constituted the essence of the piece: I enjoyed all this perverse ineptitude, this vulgar coarseness and really found in it a quality of irony which did not lack literary merit. At the love scenes I grew sentimental. During the last intermission I met a young man whom I scarcely knew. Glad of the opportunity to pour out the banalities which had accumulated in me and were pressing for an outlet, I clung to him.
"An amazing thing, isn't it?" he said to me. "It is stunning, eh?"
"Yes, it isn't bad!"
"Not bad! Not bad!... Why that is a masterpiece, an astounding masterpiece! What I especially like is the second act. There is a situation for you, not that ... a tense situation! Why it is high comedy, you know! And the gowns! And that Judic, ah! that Judic!..."
He struck his thigh and clicked his tongue:
"It got me all excited, my dear! It's astonishing!"
We thus discussed the merits of the various acts, scenes and actors.
When we were parting:
"Tell me," I asked him, "do you happen to know a certain Juliette Roux?"
"Wait now! Oh, perfectly well! A little brunette, very 'chic'? No, I got mixed up. Wait now! Juliette Roux! Don't know her."
An hour later I was seated at a table with a glass of soda water in front of me, in the café de la Paix where, after the theatre, used to assemble the most beautiful representatives of the fashionable world. A great many women came in and out, insolent, loud-mouthed, their faces covered with fresh layers of rice powder, their lips newly painted with rouge! At the adjoining table a little blonde lady, already aged but very animated, was speaking in a nasal voice; a brunette, farther away, was simpering with a turkey's ludicrous majesty, and with the same hand which had raked manure on the farm she held a fan, while her escort, leaning against his chair, his hat pushed back, his legs spread apart, was obdurately sucking his cane's head.
An uncontrollable feeling of disgust rose within me; I was ashamed of being here, and I compared the ridiculous and noisy manners of these women with the reserved deportment of the gentle Juliette at Lirat's studio. These raucous and piercing voices rendered even more suave the freshness of her voice, the voice which I still heard saying to me: "Delighted, Monsieur! But I know you well." I arose.
"What a scoundrel this Lirat is, all the same," I exclaimed while getting into bed, furious at the fact that he had so treated a young woman whom I had met neither on the street, at the Bois, in the restaurant, at the theatre, nor at the night cabaret.
"Madame Juliette Roux, if you please?"
"Will Monsieur please come in?" the maid asked.
Without demanding my name or waiting for my answer, she made me cross a small, dark antechamber, and led me into a room where at first I could only distinguish a lamp covered by a large lamp-shade, which burned low in a corner. The maid raised the flame of the lamp and carried out an otter skin cape which had been thrown on the sofa.
"I will go tell madame," she said.
And she disappeared, leaving me alone in the room.
So I was at her house! For eight days the thought of this visit had tortured me. I had no special business, I simply wanted to see Juliette; some kind of keen curiosity, which I did not stop to analyze, drew me to her. Several times I had gone to the Rue Saint Petersbourg with the firm intention of calling on her, but at the last moment my nerve failed me, and I left without mustering sufficient courage to cross her threshold. And now I was the most embarrassed being in the world, and I regretted my foolish step, for obviously it was a foolish step. How would she receive me? What should I say? What caused me the greatest uneasiness was that after I had made a thorough search in my brain I found not a single phrase, not a single word with which to begin our conversation when Juliette entered. What if words should fail me and I should be left standing here with gaping mouth! How ridiculous that would be!
I examined the room into which Juliette was presently to come. It was a dressing room which also served as a parlor. It made a rather unfavorable impression on me. The toilet table, ostentatiously displayed with its two wash basins of cracked, pink cut glass, shocked me. The walls and ceiling, hung with loud red satin, the furniture, bordered with elaborate plush hangings, the knick-knacks, costly and ugly, placed here and there on the furniture, the queer tables serving no apparent purpose, consols weighed down with heavy ornaments—all this bespoke a vulgar taste. I noticed in the center of the mantlepiece, between two massive vases of onyx, a terra cotta statuette of Cupid, smiling with a sort of grimace and offering a flower held at the tips of his outspread fingers. Every detail revealed, on the one hand, a love of expensive and unrefined luxury, and on the other a regrettable predilection for romance and puerile affection. It was at once distressing and sentimental. Nevertheless, and that was a relief to me, I saw here no evidence of that incongruity, that transitory air, that severity of aspect so characteristic of ladies' boarding houses, those apartments where one is made aware of a haggard existence, where by the number of knick-knacks one can count the number of lovers who have passed there, lovers for an hour, a night, a year; where every chair tells of the lack of decency, the unfaithfulness; where on the glass one can see the tragedy of fortune's fickleness; on the marble, traces of a tear still warm; on the candlestick, blood drops still moist. The door opened and Juliette appeared wearing a white, long flowing dress. I trembled, color came to my face; but she recognized me and, smiling that smile of hers which at last I found again, she stretched out her hand.
"Ah! Monsieur Mintié!" she said, "how nice of you not to have forgotten me! Has it been long since you saw that eccentric Lirat?"
"Why, yes, Madame, I have not seen him since the day I had the honor of meeting you at his place."
"Ah, my God, I thought you two never separated at all."
"It is true," I replied, "that I see him quite often. But I have been working all these days."
As I thought I detected a note of irony in the sound of her voice, I added, to provoke her:
"What a great artist, isn't he?"
Juliette let this remark pass unanswered.
"So you are always working?" She took up the subject again. "For the rest, I am told you live like a regular recluse. Really, one sees very little of you, Monsieur Mintié!"
The conversation took a quite ordinary turn, the theatre furnishing food for nearly all of it. A remark which I made seemed to astound her, and she was rather scandalized.
"What, you don't like the theatre? Is it possible—and you an artist? I am passionately fond of it. The theatre is so amusing! We are going to the Varieté tonight, for the fourth time, mind you."
A feeble yelp came from behind the door.
"Ah, my God!" Juliette exclaimed, hurriedly rising. "My Spy whom I left in my room! Shall I present Spy to you, Monsieur Mintié? Don't you know Spy?"
She opened the door, drew aside the hangings, which were very wide.
"Come, Spy!" she said coaxingly. "Where have you been, Spy? Come over here, poor thing!"
And I saw a diminutive little animal, with a pointed snout, long ears, advancing, dancing on its thin paws that resembled a spider's legs and whose whole body, bent and skinny, quivered as though in fever. A ribbon of red silk, carefully tied on the side, encircled its neck in place of a collar.
"Come on, Spy. Say hello to Monsieur Mintié!"
Spy turned on me his round, stupid and cruel eyes which were on a level with his head, and barked viciously.
"That's right, Spy. Now give your paw. Will you give me your paw? Come, now!"
Juliette bent down and threatened the dog with her finger. Spy finally put his paw in his mistress' hand. She picked him up, patted and embraced him.
"Oh! the dear little dog! Oh, darling dog! Oh, my love, my dearest Spy!"
She sat up again, still holding the dog in her arms like a child, rubbing her cheek against the snout of the frightful beast, whispering caressing and endearing words into his ears.
"Now show us that you are pleased, Spy! Show it to your little mammy!"
Spy barked again, then licked the lips of Juliette who joyously abandoned herself to these odious caresses.
"Ah, what a dear you are, Spy! Ah, how very, very nice you are!"
And addressing herself to me, whom she seemed to have forgotten completely since Spy's unfortunate entry, she suddenly asked:
"Do you like dogs, Monsieur Mintié?"
"Very much, Madame," I answered.
Then she told me, with a wealth of childish detail, the history of Spy, his habits, his urgent needs, his tricks, the scraps with the housekeeper who could not stand him.
"But you ought to see him when he is asleep," she said to me. "You know he has a bed, sheets, an eiderdown coverlet, like a real person. Every night I put him to bed. And his little head looks so funny on it, all black. Aren't you very funny, Monsieur Spy?"
Spy chose a comfortable place on Juliette's dress, and, after turning several times, rolled himself into a black lump, almost entirely lost in the cloth's silken folds.
"That's it! By-by, Spy, my little baby!"
During this long conversation with Spy, I had a chance to observe Juliette at leisure. She was indeed very beautiful, even more beautiful than I had dreamed she was under her veil. Her face was truly radiant. It had such freshness, such an aurora-like clearness, that the very air about her seemed illumined. Whenever she turned or bent forward I saw her thick hair, very dark, descending along her dress in an enormous tress, which added something peculiarly virginal and youthful to her appearance. I thought I saw a perpendicular, wilful wrinkle furrowed in the middle of her forehead, at the root of her hair, but it was visible only in certain instances of light reflection, and the luminous sweetness of her eyes, the extremely graceful curve of her mouth tempered its rigid aspect. One felt that under her ample garments quivered a supple, nervous body of passionate pliancy; what delighted me most were her hands, delicate, deft and of surprising agility, whose every movement, even of indifference or anger, was a caress.
It was hard for me to form a definite opinion of her. There was in this woman a mixture of innocence and voluptuousness, of shrewdness and stupidity, of kindness and malevolence, which was disconcerting. And a curious thing! At one moment I saw the horrible image of the singer at the Bouffes taking shape near her. And this image formed Juliette's shadow, so to speak. Far from vanishing, this image, as I looked at it, was assuming in some way a fixed corporeal form. It grimaced, wriggled, leaped with lurid contortions, its foul, obscene lips distended toward Juliette, who seemed to draw the image toward herself and whose hand sank in its hair and passed tremblingly along its body, happy to sully herself with its impure contact. And the sordid juggler was removing Juliette's clothes and showing her to me in a swoon, in the wretched splendor of sin! I had to shut my eyes and make a painful effort to dispel this abominable image, and Juliette immediately assumed her expression of enigmatic, candid tenderness.
"And above all, come to see me, often, very often," she said, seeing me to the door, while Spy, who had followed her into the antechamber, barked and danced on his thin, spider legs.
Outside, I felt the return of a sudden and passionate affection for Lirat and, reproaching myself for being sulky with him, I resolved to ask him to dine with me that very evening. On my way from the Rue Saint Petersbourg to the Boulevard de Courcelles where Lirat lived, I made some bitter reflections. The visit had disillusioned me, I was no longer under the spell of a dream and I quickly returned to desolate reality, to the denial of love. What I had imagined about Juliette was quite vague.
My spirit, exalted by her beauty, was ascribing to her moral qualities and mental attainments which I could not define and which I assumed were extraordinary, the more so since Lirat, by attributing to her, without reason, a dishonorable existence and shameful proclivities, had made her a veritable martyr in my eyes, and my heart was moved. Pushing this folly still further, I thought that by some sort of irresistible sympathy she would confide her suffering to me, the grave and sorrowful secrets of her soul; I already saw myself consoling her, speaking to her of duty, virtue, resignation. I looked forward to a series of solemn and touching things.
Instead of all this poesy—a frightful dog who barked at my feet and a woman just like others, without brains, without ideas, occupied solely with pleasures, confining her enthusiasm to the Théâtre des Varietés and the caressing of her Spy, her Spy!... Ha! Ha! Ha!... Her Spy whom she loved with the tenderness and devotion of a porter! And on my way I kicked the air, at an imaginary Spy and, imitating Juliette's voice, was saying: "Come, dear! Oh, dear little dog! Oh, my love, my dearest Spy!" Shall I admit it, I also had a grudge against her for not having said a word about my book. That no one spoke about it in ordinary life was almost a matter of indifference to me. But a compliment from her would have delighted me! I would have felt so happy to know that she had been moved by some page, provoked by another, as I hoped she had been. And instead—nothing! Not even an allusion! Yet, I remember, I had cleverly furnished her with an opportunity for such consideration.
"Decidedly, she is a goose!" I said to myself as I rapped at Lirat's door.
Lirat received me with open arms.
"Ah! my little Mintié!" he exclaimed, "it's very nice of you to come to dine with me. And you have come just in time, I tell you. We are going to have cabbage soup."
He rubbed his hands, and seemed very happy. He wanted to help me remove my overcoat and hat and, dragging me into the small room which served as his parlor, he repeated:
"My little Mintié, I am so glad to see you. Will you come tomorrow to the studio?"
"Surely."
"Well, you shall see! You shall see! First of all, I am going to give up painting, do you understand?"
"Are you going into business?"
"Listen to me! Painting is humbug, my little Mintié."
He grew animated, moved about the room briskly, waving his arms.
"Giotto! Mantegna! Velasques! Rembrandt! Well, Rembrandt! Watteau! Delacroix! Ingres! Yes and then who? No, that is not true? Painting depicts nothing, expresses nothing, it's all humbug! It's all right for the art critics, bankers, and generals who have their portraits on horseback with a howitzer shell exploding in the foreground. But to render a glimpse of the sky, the shade of a flower, the ripple of the water, the air,—you understand? The air—all this impalpable and invisible nature, with a paste of paint colors! With a paste of paint colors?"
Lirat shrugged his shoulders.
"With a paste of paint colors coming out of tubes, with a paste of paint colors made by the dirty hands of chemists, with a paste of paint colors, heavy, opaque and which sticks to the fingers like jelly! Tell me ... painting ... what humbug! No, but you will admit, my little Mintié, that it is humbug! A drawing, an engraving, a two-tone piece ... that's the thing! That does not deceive, it's honest ... the amateurs sneer at that kind of work and don't presume to bother you about it ... it evokes no empty enthusiasm in their 'salons'! But real art, majestic art, artistic art is there. Sculpture ... yes ... when it is beautiful, it shakes you.... But next to it is the art of drawing, drawing ... my little Mintié, without Prussian blue, just plain drawing! Will you come to my studio tomorrow?"
"Certainly."
He continued to chop his phrases, fumble his words, excited by their very sound.
"I am beginning a series of etchings. You'll see! A nude woman, coming out of a deep shadow, carried upward on the wings of a beast. Scattered about, in unnatural positions, are parts of human corpses with dirty folds and swellings of decaying flesh ... a belly cut open and losing its viscera, a belly of terrible outline, hideous and true! A dead head, but a living dead head, you understand? Greedy, gluttonous, all lips. She is rising in front of a crowd of old men in tall hats, silk coats and white cravats. She is rising and the old men bend toward her panting, with hanging jaws, watering mouths, contracted eyes ... all have lewd faces!"
Stopping before me with an air of defiance, he continued:
"And do you know what I am going to call it? Do you know? I am going to call it Love, my little Mintié. What do you think of it?..."
"That seems to me a little bit too symbolic," I ventured.
"Symbolic!" interrupted Lirat. "You are talking nonsense, my little Mintié! Symbolic! Why that's life itself! Let's go out and eat."
Our dinner was a very gay affair; Lirat displayed a charming disposition; he was full of original ideas, without extremes or paradoxes, on art. He had again found his normal self, as in the better days of his life. Several times I had a notion to tell him that I had seen Juliette. A kind of shame held me back; I had not the courage.
"Work, work, my little Mintié," he said to me, when we were parting. "To create, always to create, to draw from one's sinews or from one's brains no matter what ... be it only a pair of rubbers. There is nothing outside of that!"
Six days later I went again to Juliette and gradually I formed the habit of calling regularly and spending an hour before dinner. The disagreeable impression left on me at the time of my first visit had vanished. Little by little, without suspecting it, I grew so used to the red tapestry in her parlor, to the terra cotta statue of Cupid, to Juliette's childish prating, even to Spy who had become my friend, that whenever I passed a day without seeing her, it seemed as though a great void had been created in my life.
Not only did the things which at first had shocked me no longer do so, but, on the contrary, they now moved me, and each time Juliette talked to Spy or attended to him with exaggerated care, it was a positive pleasure to me, appearing as an added proof of the simplicity and affectionate qualities of her heart. In the end I, too, began to speak this dog language. One evening, when Spy was sick, I grew uneasy and, removing the covers and quilts which covered him, I gently murmured: "Baby Spy has a hurt; where does it hurt our little baby?" Only the image of the singer, rising near Juliette, somewhat disturbed the tranquility of our meetings, but I only had to close my eyes for a moment or turn away my head, and the image would instantly disappear. I persuaded Juliette to tell me her life. Until now she had always refused.
"No! no!" she would say.
And she would add with a smile, looking at me with her large, sad eyes:
"What will we gain, my friend?"
I insisted, I begged.
"It is your duty to reveal it to me and my duty to know it."
At last, conquered by this argument which I never tired of using in various and appealing forms, she consented. Oh, with what sadness!
Her home was in Liverdun. Her father was a physician and her mother, who led a frivolous life, had left her husband. As for Juliette, she had been placed in the home of the Sisters. Her father came home drunk every evening, and there were terrible scenes, for he was very ill-natured. The scandal grew to such proportions that the Sisters sent Juliette away, not wishing to keep the daughter of a wicked woman and a drunkard in their house. Ah, what a miserable life it was! Always locked up in her room and sometimes beaten by her father for no cause whatever! One night, very late, the father entered Juliette's room. "How shall I express it to you!" Juliette said blushing. "Oh, well, you understand...." She jumped out of bed, shouted, opened the window. But the father was frightened and went away. The next morning Juliette left for Nancy, planning to live by working. It was here she had met Charles.
While she was talking in a gentle, even voice I took her hand, her beautiful hand which I pressed with feeling, at the sad points of the story. I was indignant over the action of her father. And I cursed the mother for abandoning her child. I felt the stirrings of a self-sacrificing devotion, and a vindictive desire to avenge her wrongs. When she had finished I wept with burning tears.... It was an exquisite hour.
Juliette received very few people; some of Malterre's friends, and two or three of Malterre's feminine friends. One of them, Gabrielle Bernier, a tall, pretty blonde woman, always entered the house in the same fashion.
"Good morning, Monsieur, good morning, dearie. Don't trouble yourself, I'll be gone in a minute."
And she would sit down on the brace of the armchair, smoothing her muff with a brusque motion of her hand.
"Just think of it, I have just had another scene with Robert. If you only knew what sort of a man he is! He comes to my house and says whimpering: 'My dear little Gabrielle, I must leave you, my mother told me so this morning, she won't give me any more money.' 'Your mother! I wish I had a chance to answer her. Well, you can tell your mother in my name, that whenever she is ready to give up her lovers, I'll quit you that very day. But in the meantime, she'll have to dig into her pockets alright.' And I don't believe it's true either—a dirty trick like that! I think it's Robert who has cooked it up! We are going to the Ambigu tonight. Are you going?"
"Thank you."
"Well, I must be off! Don't trouble yourself. Good day, Monsieur; good day, dearie."
Gabrielle Bernier irritated me very much.
"Why do you receive such women?" I would say to Juliette.
"What harm is there, my friend? She amuses me."
Malterre's friends, on the other hand, spoke of races and high life; they always had club and women stories to tell and never tired of discussing theatrical matters. It seemed to me that Juliette took an exaggerated pleasure in these conversations, but I excused her, ascribing it to excessive politeness. Jesselin, a very rich young man, considered a serious fellow, was the leader of the circle and all bowed before his evident superiority. "What will Jesselin say? We must ask Jesselin. Jesselin did not advise that." He was very much sought after. He had traveled widely and knew better than anyone else the best hotels. Having been in Afghanistan, he remembered one particular thing of the entire trip through Central Asia, namely that the Emir of Caboul, with whom he had had the honor of playing chess one day, played as fast as the French. "Why that Emir certainly amazed me." Quite often he would also offer this information: "You know how much I enjoy travel. Well, I can say this much. In sleeping cars, in cabins, in a Russian telega, no matter how or where I was, at half past seven every evening I was in my dress suit!"
Malterre did not like me, friendly though he was. Having a quiet, timid nature, he dared not show his aversion for me, for fear of displeasing Juliette, but I could see it flaring up in his smiling look which was like that of a good-natured but frightened dog, and in his handshake I felt it clamoring for an outlet.
I was happy only when alone with Juliette. There, in the red parlor, under the ægis of the terra cotta statuette of Cupid, we sometimes sat for hours, without uttering a word. I would look at her, she would droop her head, pensively playing with the trimming of her dress or the lacework of her waist. Often my eyes for some reason unknown, filled with tears, which rolled down my cheeks like some perfume, flooding my soul with its magic liquid. And my whole being felt a sensation of satiety and delicious torpor.
"Ah! Juliette! Juliette!"
"Come, come my friend, be sensible."
Those were the only words of love that escaped us.
Some time after this, Juliette gave a dinner to celebrate Charles' birthday. During the whole evening she appeared nervous and irritated. To Charles who offered a timid remark, she replied harshly and curtly, in a manner which seemed foreign to her. It was two o'clock in the morning before the crowd left. I alone remained in the parlor. Near the door, Malterre stood with his back to me, talking to Jesselin who was putting on his overcoat in the vestibule. And I saw Juliette, her elbows resting on the piano, looking fixedly at me. A gleam of fierce passion flashed in her eyes, suddenly turned dark, almost terrible, marking them as with a novel flame. The wrinkle on her forehead deepened, her nostrils quivered; a strange expression of something unchaste wandered on her lips. I leaped toward her. My knees sought her own, my body cleaved to hers, my mouth pressed against her own, I clasped her in a furious embrace.
She abandoned herself to me entirely and in a very low, choking voice:
"Come tomorrow!" she said.
I wish I did not have to continue this story. I wish I could stop here.... Ah, how I wish I could do that! At the thought that I am about to disclose so much ignominy, my courage fails me, I blush for shame, a feeling of cowardice instantly seizes me and agitates the pen in my hand.... And I sue for mercy from myself.... Alas! I must clamber to the top of this ascending, sorrowful Golgotha, even though my flesh be torn to bleeding pieces, even though my living body be broken against the rocks and stones! Sins like mine, which I am not trying to justify by hereditary defects or by the pernicious effects of an education so contrary to my nature, call for terrible atonement, and the atonement which I have chosen is a public confession of my life.
I say to myself that merciful and noble hearts will think kindly of my self-imposed humiliation and I also say to myself that my example will perhaps serve as a lesson to others.... Even if there were only one young man who, on the verge of falling, should happen to read these pages and feel so horrified and so disgusted as to be forever saved from evil, it seems to me that the salvation of his soul would signify the beginning of the redemption of my own. And then again, I hope, although I no longer believe in God, I hope that in the depth of those sanctuaries of peace where in the silence of soul-redeeming nights there rises to heaven the sad and soothing chant of those who pray for the dead, I hope that there, too, I may be granted my share of compassion and of Christian forgiveness.
I had an income of twenty-two thousand francs; furthermore, I was certain that by doing literary work I could earn an equal sum, at least. Nothing seemed difficult to me, the path lay straight before me without a single obstacle, I had but to march on.... My shyness, my fears, my doubts, exhaustingly painful efforts, spiritual agonies oh, those things no longer mattered! A novel, two novels a year, a few plays for the theatre.... What did that amount to for a young man in love as I was?... Weren't people talking about X.... and Z.... two hopeless and notorious idiots who in a few years amassed a large fortune?... Ideas for a novel, a comedy, a dramatic play came to me in droves ... and I indicated their arrival by a broad and haughty gesture....
I saw myself already monopolizing all the libraries, all the theatres, all the magazines, the attention of the whole world.... In the hours when inspiration should prove slow and painful, all I would need to do would be to look at Juliette and masterpieces would come forth from her eyes as in a fairy-tale. I did not hesitate to demand Malterre's departure and complete charge of Juliette's affairs. Malterre wrote heart-rending letters, begged, threatened and finally departed. Later on Jesselin, displaying his usual vaunted tact, told us that Malterre, grief-stricken, had taken a trip to Italy.
"I accompanied him as far as Marseilles," he told us. "He wanted to kill himself and was crying all the time. You know I am not a gullible sort of a chap ... but he actually made me feel sorry for him. Now really!"