CHAPTER V.
"Love Knoweth No Laws."
Before twelve o'clock next day he had bought a box of colours,paintbrushes, and an easel. Pellerin consented to give him lessons, andFrederick brought him to his lodgings to see whether anything waswanting among his painting utensils.
Deslauriers had come back, and the second armchair was occupied by ayoung man. The clerk said, pointing towards him:
"'Tis he! There he is! Senecal!" Frederick disliked this young man. Hisforehead was heightened by the way in which he wore his hair, cutstraight like a brush. There was a certain hard, cold look in his greyeyes; and his long black coat, his entire costume, savoured of thepedagogue and the ecclesiastic.
They first discussed topics of the hour, amongst others the _Stabat_ ofRossini. Senecal, in answer to a question, declared that he never wentto the theatre.
Pellerin opened the box of colours.
"Are these all for you?" said the clerk.
"Why, certainly!"
"Well, really! What a notion!" And he leaned across the table, at whichthe mathematical tutor was turning over the leaves of a volume of LouisBlanc. He had brought it with him, and was reading passages from it inlow tones, while Pellerin and Frederick were examining together thepalette, the knife, and the bladders; then the talk came round to thedinner at Arnoux's.
"The picture-dealer, is it?" asked Senecal. "A nice gentleman, truly!"
"Why, now?" said Pellerin. Senecal replied:
"A man who makes money by political turpitude!"
And he went on to talk about a well-known lithograph, in which the RoyalFamily was all represented as being engaged in edifying occupations:Louis Philippe had a copy of the Code in his hand; the Queen had aCatholic prayer-book; the Princesses were embroidering; the Duc deNemours was girding on a sword; M. de Joinville was showing a map to hisyoung brothers; and at the end of the apartment could be seen a bed withtwo divisions. This picture, which was entitled "A Good Family," was asource of delight to commonplace middle-class people, but of grief topatriots.
Pellerin, in a tone of vexation, as if he had been the producer of thiswork himself, observed by way of answer that every opinion had somevalue. Senecal protested: Art should aim exclusively at promotingmorality amongst the masses! The only subjects that ought to bereproduced were those which impelled people to virtuous actions; allothers were injurious.
"But that depends on the execution," cried Pellerin. "I might producemasterpieces."
"So much the worse for you, then; you have no right----"
"What?"
"No, monsieur, you have no right to excite my interest in matters ofwhich I disapprove. What need have we of laborious trifles, from whichit is impossible to derive any benefit--those Venuses, for instance,with all your landscapes? I see there no instruction for the people!Show us rather their miseries! arouse enthusiasm in us for theirsacrifices! Ah, my God! there is no lack of subjects--the farm, theworkshop----"
Pellerin stammered forth his indignation at this, and, imagining that hehad found an argument:
"Moliere, do you accept him?"
"Certainly!" said Senecal. "I admire him as the precursor of the FrenchRevolution."
"Ha! the Revolution! What art! Never was there a more pitiable epoch!"
"None greater, Monsieur!"
Pellerin folded his arms, and looking at him straight in the face:
"You have the appearance of a famous member of the National Guard!"
His opponent, accustomed to discussions, responded:
"I am not, and I detest it just as much as you. But with such principleswe corrupt the crowd. This sort of thing, however, is profitable to theGovernment. It would not be so powerful but for the complicity of a lotof rogues of that sort."
The painter took up the defence of the picture-dealer, for Senecal'sopinions exasperated him. He even went so far as to maintain that Arnouxwas really a man with a heart of gold, devoted to his friends, deeplyattached to his wife.
"Oho! if you offered him a good sum, he would not refuse to let herserve as a model."
Frederick turned pale.
"So then, he has done you some great injury, Monsieur?"
"Me? no! I saw him once at a cafe with a friend. That's all."
Senecal had spoken truly. But he had his teeth daily set on edge by theannouncements in _L'Art Industriel_. Arnoux was for him therepresentative of a world which he considered fatal to democracy. Anaustere Republican, he suspected that there was something corrupt inevery form of elegance, and the more so as he wanted nothing and wasinflexible in his integrity.
They found some difficulty in resuming the conversation. The paintersoon recalled to mind his appointment, the tutor his pupils; and, whenthey had gone, after a long silence, Deslauriers asked a number ofquestions about Arnoux.
"You will introduce me there later, will you not, old fellow?"
"Certainly," said Frederick. Then they thought about settlingthemselves. Deslauriers had without much trouble obtained the post ofsecond clerk in a solicitor's office; he had also entered his name forthe terms at the Law School, and bought the indispensable books; and thelife of which they had dreamed now began.
It was delightful, owing to their youth, which made everything assume abeautiful aspect. As Deslauriers had said nothing as to any pecuniaryarrangement, Frederick did not refer to the subject. He helped to defrayall the expenses, kept the cupboard well stocked, and looked after allthe household requirements; but if it happened to be desirable to givethe door-keeper a rating, the clerk took that on his own shoulders,still playing the part, which he had assumed in their college days, ofprotector and senior.
Separated all day long, they met again in the evening. Each took hisplace at the fireside and set about his work. But ere long it would beinterrupted. Then would follow endless outpourings, unaccountable burstsof merriment, and occasional disputes about the lamp flaring too much ora book being mislaid, momentary ebullitions of anger which subsided inhearty laughter.
While in bed they left open the door of the little room whereDeslauriers slept, and kept chattering to each other from a distance.
In the morning they walked in their shirt-sleeves on the terrace. Thesun rose; light vapours passed over the river. From the flower-marketclose beside them the noise of screaming reached their ears; and thesmoke from their pipes whirled round in the clear air, which wasrefreshing to their eyes still puffed from sleep. While they inhaled it,their hearts swelled with great expectations.
When it was not raining on Sunday they went out together, and, arm inarm, they sauntered through the streets. The same reflection nearlyalways occurred to them at the same time, or else they would go onchatting without noticing anything around them. Deslauriers longed forriches, as a means for gaining power over men. He was anxious to possessan influence over a vast number of people, to make a great noise, tohave three secretaries under his command, and to give a big politicaldinner once a month.
Frederick would have furnished for himself a palace in the Moorishfashion, to spend his life reclining on cashmere divans, to the murmurof a jet of water, attended by negro pages. And these things, of whichhe had only dreamed, became in the end so definite that they made himfeel as dejected as if he had lost them.
"What is the use of talking about all these things," said he, "whenwe'll never have them?"
"Who knows?" returned Deslauriers.
In spite of his democratic views, he urged Frederick to get anintroduction into the Dambreuses' house.
The other, by way of objection, pointed to the failure of his previousattempts.
"Bah! go back there. They'll give you an invitation!"
Towards the close of the month of March, they received amongst otherbills of a rather awkward description that of the restaurant-keeper whosupplied them with dinners. Frederick, not having the entire amount,borrowed a hundred crowns from Deslauriers. A fortnight afterwards, herenewed the same request, and the clerk administered a lecture to him onthe extravagant h
abits to which he gave himself up in the Arnoux'ssociety.
As a matter of fact, he put no restraint upon himself in this respect. Aview of Venice, a view of Naples, and another of Constantinopleoccupying the centre of three walls respectively, equestrian subjects byAlfred de Dreux here and there, a group by Pradier over the mantelpiece,numbers of _L'Art Industriel_ lying on the piano, and works in boards onthe floor in the corners, encumbered the apartment which he occupied tosuch an extent that it was hard to find a place to lay a book on, or tomove one's elbows about freely. Frederick maintained that he needed allthis for his painting.
He pursued his art-studies under Pellerin. But when he called on theartist, the latter was often out, being accustomed to attend at everyfuneral and public occurrence of which an account was given in thenewspapers, and so it was that Frederick spent entire hours alone in thestudio. The quietude of this spacious room, which nothing disturbed savethe scampering of the mice, the light falling from the ceiling, or thehissing noise of the stove, made him sink into a kind of intellectualease. Then his eyes, wandering away from the task at which he wasengaged, roamed over the shell-work on the wall, around the objects ofvirtu on the whatnot, along the torsos on which the dust that hadcollected made, as it were, shreds of velvet; and, like a traveller whohas lost his way in the middle of a wood, and whom every path bringsback to the same spot, continually, he found underlying every idea inhis mind the recollection of Madame Arnoux.
He selected days for calling on her. When he had reached the secondfloor, he would pause on the threshold, hesitating as to whether heought to ring or not. Steps drew nigh, the door opened, and theannouncement "Madame is gone out," a sense of relief would come uponhim, as if a weight had been lifted from his heart. He met her, however.On the first occasion there were three other ladies with her; the nexttime it was in the afternoon, and Mademoiselle Marthe's writing-mastercame on the scene. Besides, the men whom Madame Arnoux received werenot very punctilious about paying visits. For the sake of prudence hedeemed it better not to call again.
But he did not fail to present himself regularly at the office of _L'ArtIndustriel_ every Wednesday in order to get an invitation to theThursday dinners, and he remained there after all the others, evenlonger than Regimbart, up to the last moment, pretending to be lookingat an engraving or to be running his eye through a newspaper. At lastArnoux would say to him, "Shall you be disengaged to-morrow evening?"and, before the sentence was finished, he would give an affirmativeanswer. Arnoux appeared to have taken a fancy to him. He showed him howto become a good judge of wines, how to make hot punch, and how toprepare a woodcock ragout. Frederick followed his advice with docility,feeling an attachment to everything connected with Madame Arnoux--herfurniture, her servants, her house, her street.
During these dinners he scarcely uttered a word; he kept gazing at her.She had a little mole close to her temple. Her head-bands were darkerthan the rest of her hair, and were always a little moist at the edges;from time to time she stroked them with only two fingers. He knew theshape of each of her nails. He took delight in listening to the rustleof her silk skirt as she swept past doors; he stealthily inhaled theperfume that came from her handkerchief; her comb, her gloves, her ringswere for him things of special interest, important as works of art,almost endowed with life like individuals; all took possession of hisheart and strengthened his passion.
He had not been sufficiently self-contained to conceal it fromDeslauriers. When he came home from Madame Arnoux's, he would wake uphis friend, as if inadvertently, in order to have an opportunity oftalking about her.
Deslauriers, who slept in the little off-room, close to where they hadtheir water-supply, would give a great yawn. Frederick seated himself onthe side of the bed. At first, he spoke about the dinner; then hereferred to a thousand petty details, in which he saw marks of contemptor of affection. On one occasion, for instance, she had refused his arm,in order to take Dittmer's; and Frederick gave vent to his humiliation:
"Ah! how stupid!"
Or else she had called him her "dear friend."
"Then go after her gaily!"
"But I dare not do that," said Frederick.
"Well, then, think no more about her! Good night!"
Deslauriers thereupon turned on his side, and fell asleep. He feltutterly unable to comprehend this love, which seemed to him the lastweakness of adolescence; and, as his own society was apparently notenough to content Frederick, he conceived the idea of bringing together,once a week, those whom they both recognised as friends.
They came on Saturday about nine o'clock. The three Algerine curtainswere carefully drawn. The lamp and four wax-lights were burning. In themiddle of the table the tobacco-pot, filled with pipes, displayed itselfbetween the beer-bottles, the tea-pot, a flagon of rum, and some fancybiscuits.
They discussed the immortality of the soul, and drew comparisons betweenthe different professors.
One evening Hussonnet introduced a tall young man, attired in afrock-coat, too short in the wrists, and with a look of embarrassment inhis face. It was the young fellow whom they had gone to release fromthe guard-house the year before.
As he had not been able to restore the box of lace which he had lost inthe scuffle, his employer had accused him of theft, and threatened toprosecute him. He was now a clerk in a wagon-office. Hussonnet had comeacross him that morning at the corner of the street, and brought himalong, for Dussardier, in a spirit of gratitude, had expressed a wish tosee "the other."
He stretched out towards Frederick the cigar-holder, still full, whichhe had religiously preserved, in the hope of being able to give it back.The young men invited him to pay them a second visit; and he was notslow in doing so.
They all had sympathies in common. At first, their hatred of theGovernment reached the height of an unquestionable dogma. Martinon aloneattempted to defend Louis Philippe. They overwhelmed him with thecommonplaces scattered through the newspapers--the "Bastillization" ofParis, the September laws, Pritchard, Lord Guizot--so that Martinon heldhis tongue for fear of giving offence to somebody. During his sevenyears at college he had never incurred the penalty of an imposition, andat the Law School he knew how to make himself agreeable to theprofessors. He usually wore a big frock-coat of the colour of putty,with india-rubber goloshes; but one evening he presented himself arrayedlike a bridegroom, in a velvet roll-collar waistcoat, a white tie, and agold chain.
The astonishment of the other young men was greatly increased when theylearned that he had just come away from M. Dambreuse's house. In fact,the banker Dambreuse had just bought a portion of an extensive woodfrom Martinon senior; and, when the worthy man introduced his son, theother had invited them both to dinner.
"Was there a good supply of truffles there?" asked Deslauriers. "And didyou take his wife by the waist between the two doors, _sicut decet_?"
Hereupon the conversation turned on women. Pellerin would not admit thatthere were beautiful women (he preferred tigers); besides the humanfemale was an inferior creature in the aesthetic hierarchy.
"What fascinates you is just the very thing that degrades her as anidea; I mean her breasts, her hair----"
"Nevertheless," urged Frederick, "long black hair and large darkeyes----"
"Oh! we know all about that," cried Hussonnet. "Enough of Andalusianbeauties on the lawn. Those things are out of date; no thank you! Forthe fact is, honour bright! a fast woman is more amusing than the Venusof Milo. Let us be Gallic, in Heaven's name, and after the Regencystyle, if we can!
'Flow, generous wines; ladies, deign to smile!'[2]
[Footnote 2: _Coules, bons vins; femmes, deignez sourire._]
We must pass from the dark to the fair. Is that your opinion, FatherDussardier?"
Dussardier did not reply. They all pressed him to ascertain what histastes were.
"Well," said he, colouring, "for my part, I would like to love the sameone always!"
This was said in such a way that there was a moment of silence, some ofthem bei
ng surprised at this candour, and others finding in his words,perhaps, the secret yearning of their souls.
Senecal placed his glass of beer on the mantelpiece, and declareddogmatically that, as prostitution was tyrannical and marriage immoral,it was better to practice abstinence. Deslauriers regarded women as asource of amusement--nothing more. M. de Cisy looked upon them with theutmost dread.
Brought up under the eyes of a grandmother who was a devotee, he foundthe society of those young fellows as alluring as a place of ill-reputeand as instructive as the Sorbonne. They gave him lessons without stint;and so much zeal did he exhibit that he even wanted to smoke in spite ofthe qualms that upset him every time he made the experiment. Frederickpaid him the greatest attention. He admired the shade of this younggentleman's cravat, the fur on his overcoat, and especially his boots,as thin as gloves, and so very neat and fine that they had a look ofinsolent superiority. His carriage used to wait for him below in thestreet.
One evening, after his departure, when there was a fall of snow, Senecalbegan to complain about his having a coachman. He declaimed againstkid-gloved exquisites and against the Jockey Club. He had more respectfor a workman than for these fine gentlemen.
"For my part, anyhow, I work for my livelihood! I am a poor man!"
"That's quite evident," said Frederick, at length, losing patience.
The tutor conceived a grudge against him for this remark.
But, as Regimbart said he knew Senecal pretty well, Frederick, wishingto be civil to a friend of the Arnoux, asked him to come to theSaturday meetings; and the two patriots were glad to be brought togetherin this way.
However, they took opposite views of things.
Senecal--who had a skull of the angular type--fixed his attention merelyon systems, whereas Regimbart, on the contrary, saw in facts nothing butfacts. The thing that chiefly troubled him was the Rhine frontier. Heclaimed to be an authority on the subject of artillery, and got hisclothes made by a tailor of the Polytechnic School.
The first day, when they asked him to take some cakes, he disdainfullyshrugged his shoulders, saying that these might suit women; and on thenext few occasions his manner was not much more gracious. Wheneverspeculative ideas had reached a certain elevation, he would mutter: "Oh!no Utopias, no dreams!" On the subject of Art (though he used to visitthe studios, where he occasionally out of complaisance gave a lesson infencing) his opinions were not remarkable for their excellence. Hecompared the style of M. Marast to that of Voltaire, and MademoiselleVatnaz to Madame de Stael, on account of an Ode on Poland in which"there was some spirit." In short, Regimbart bored everyone, andespecially Deslauriers, for the Citizen was a friend of the Arnouxfamily. Now the clerk was most anxious to visit those people in the hopethat he might there make the acquaintance of some persons who would bean advantage to him.
"When are you going to take me there with you?" he would say. Arnoux waseither overburdened with business, or else starting on a journey. Thenit was not worth while, as the dinners were coming to an end.
If he had been called on to risk his life for his friend, Frederickwould have done so. But, as he was desirous of making as good a figureas possible, and with this view was most careful about his language andmanners, and so attentive to his costume that he always presentedhimself at the office of _L'Art Industriel_ irreproachably gloved, hewas afraid that Deslauriers, with his shabby black coat, hisattorney-like exterior, and his swaggering kind of talk, might makehimself disagreeable to Madame Arnoux, and thus compromise him and lowerhim in her estimation. The other results would have been bad enough, butthe last one would have annoyed him a thousand times more.
The clerk saw that his friend did not wish to keep his promise, andFrederick's silence seemed to him an aggravation of the insult. He wouldhave liked to exercise absolute control over him, to see him developingin accordance with the ideal of their youth; and his inactivity excitedthe clerk's indignation as a breach of duty and a want of loyaltytowards himself. Moreover, Frederick, with his thoughts full of MadameArnoux, frequently talked about her husband; and Deslauriers now beganan intolerable course of boredom by repeating the name a hundred times aday, at the end of each remark, like the parrot-cry of an idiot.
When there was a knock at the door, he would answer, "Come in, Arnoux!"At the restaurant he asked for a Brie cheese "in imitation of Arnoux,"and at night, pretending to wake up from a bad dream, he would rouse hiscomrade by howling out, "Arnoux! Arnoux!" At last Frederick, worn out,said to him one day, in a piteous voice:
"Oh! don't bother me about Arnoux!"
"Never!" replied the clerk:
"He always, everywhere, burning or icy cold, The pictured form of Arnoux----"[3]
[Footnote 3: _Toujours lui! lui partout! ou brulante ou glacee, L'imagede l'Arnoux._]
"Hold your tongue, I tell you!" exclaimed Frederick, raising his fist.
Then less angrily he added:
"You know well this is a painful subject to me."
"Oh! forgive me, old fellow," returned Deslauriers with a very low bow."From this time forth we will be considerate towards Mademoiselle'snerves. Again, I say, forgive me. A thousand pardons!"
And so this little joke came to an end.
But, three weeks later, one evening, Deslauriers said to him:
"Well, I have just seen Madame Arnoux."
"Where, pray?"
"At the Palais, with Balandard, the solicitor. A dark woman, is she not,of the middle height?"
Frederick made a gesture of assent. He waited for Deslauriers to speak.At the least expression of admiration he would have been most effusive,and would have fairly hugged the other. However, Deslauriers remainedsilent. At last, unable to contain himself any longer, Frederick, withassumed indifference, asked him what he thought of her.
Deslauriers considered that "she was not so bad, but still nothingextraordinary."
"Ha! you think so," said Frederick.
They soon reached the month of August, the time when he was to presenthimself for his second examination. According to the prevailing opinion,the subjects could be made up in a fortnight. Frederick, having fullconfidence in his own powers, swallowed up in a trice the first fourbooks of the Code of Procedure, the first three of the Penal Code, manybits of the system of criminal investigation, and a part of the CivilCode, with the annotations of M. Poncelet. The night before, Deslauriersmade him run through the whole course, a process which did not finishtill morning, and, in order to take advantage of even the last quarterof an hour, continued questioning him while they walked along thefootpath together.
As several examinations were taking place at the same time, there weremany persons in the precincts, and amongst others Hussonnet and Cisy:young men never failed to come and watch these ordeals when the fortunesof their comrades were at stake.
Frederick put on the traditional black gown; then, followed by thethrong, with three other students, he entered a spacious apartment, intowhich the light penetrated through uncurtained windows, and which wasgarnished with benches ranged along the walls. In the centre, leatherchairs were drawn round a table adorned with a green cover. Thisseparated the candidates from the examiners in their red gowns andermine shoulder-knots, the head examiners wearing gold-laced flat caps.
Frederick found himself the last but one in the series--an unfortunateplace. In answer to the first question, as to the difference between aconvention and a contract, he defined the one as if it were the other;and the professor, who was a fair sort of man, said to him, "Don't beagitated, Monsieur! Compose yourself!" Then, having asked two easyquestions, which were answered in a doubtful fashion, he passed on atlast to the fourth. This wretched beginning made Frederick lose hishead. Deslauriers, who was facing him amongst the spectators, made asign to him to indicate that it was not a hopeless case yet; and at thesecond batch of questions, dealing with the criminal law, he came outtolerably well. But, after the third, with reference to the "mysticwill," the examiner having remained impassive the whole time, his m
entaldistress redoubled; for Hussonnet brought his hands together as if toapplaud, whilst Deslauriers liberally indulged in shrugs of theshoulders. Finally, the moment was reached when it was necessary to beexamined on Procedure. The professor, displeased at listening totheories opposed to his own, asked him in a churlish tone:
"And so this is your view, monsieur? How do you reconcile the principleof article 1351 of the Civil Code with this application by a third partyto set aside a judgment by default?"
Frederick had a great headache from not having slept the night before. Aray of sunlight, penetrating through one of the slits in a Venetianblind, fell on his face. Standing behind the seat, he kept wrigglingabout and tugging at his moustache.
"I am still awaiting your answer," the man with the gold-edged capobserved.
And as Frederick's movements, no doubt, irritated him:
"You won't find it in that moustache of yours!"
This sarcasm made the spectators laugh. The professor, feelingflattered, adopted a wheedling tone. He put two more questions withreference to adjournment and summary jurisdiction, then nodded his headby way of approval. The examination was over. Frederick retired into thevestibule.
While an usher was taking off his gown, to draw it over some otherperson immediately afterwards, his friends gathered around him, andsucceeded in fairly bothering him with their conflicting opinions as tothe result of his examination. Presently the announcement was made in asonorous voice at the entrance of the hall: "The third was--put off!"
"Sent packing!" said Hussonnet. "Let us go away!"
In front of the door-keeper's lodge they met Martinon, flushed, excited,with a smile on his face and the halo of victory around his brow. He hadjust passed his final examination without any impediment. All he had nowto do was the thesis. Before a fortnight he would be a licentiate. Hisfamily enjoyed the acquaintance of a Minister; "a beautiful career" wasopening before him.
"All the same, this puts you into a mess," said Deslauriers.
There is nothing so humiliating as to see blockheads succeed inundertakings in which we fail. Frederick, filled with vexation, repliedthat he did not care a straw about the matter. He had higherpretensions; and as Hussonnet made a show of leaving, Frederick took himaside, and said to him:
"Not a word about this to them, mind!"
It was easy to keep it secret, since Arnoux was starting the nextmorning for Germany.
When he came back in the evening the clerk found his friend singularlyaltered: he danced about and whistled; and the other was astonished atthis capricious change of mood. Frederick declared that he did notintend to go home to his mother, as he meant to spend his holidaysworking.
At the news of Arnoux's departure, a feeling of delight had takenpossession of him. He might present himself at the house whenever heliked without any fear of having his visits broken in upon. Theconsciousness of absolute security would make him self-confident. Atlast he would not stand aloof, he would not be separated from her!Something more powerful than an iron chain attached him to Paris; avoice from the depths of his heart called out to him to remain.
There were certain obstacles in his path. These he got over by writingto his mother: he first of all admitted that he had failed to pass,owing to alterations made in the course--a mere mischance--an unfairthing; besides, all the great advocates (he referred to them by name)had been rejected at their examinations. But he calculated on presentinghimself again in the month of November. Now, having no time to lose, hewould not go home this year; and he asked, in addition to the quarterlyallowance, for two hundred and fifty francs, to get coached in law by aprivate tutor, which would be of great assistance to him; and he threwaround the entire epistle a garland of regrets, condolences, expressionsof endearment, and protestations of filial love.
Madame Moreau, who had been expecting him the following day, was doublygrieved. She threw a veil over her son's misadventure, and in answertold him to "come all the same." Frederick would not give way, and theresult was a falling out between them. However, at the end of the week,he received the amount of the quarter's allowance together with the sumrequired for the payment of the private tutor, which helped to pay fora pair of pearl-grey trousers, a white felt hat, and a gold-headedswitch. When he had procured all these things he thought:
"Perhaps this is only a hairdresser's fancy on my part!"
And a feeling of considerable hesitation took possession of him.
In order to make sure as to whether he ought to call on Madame Arnoux,he tossed three coins into the air in succession. On each occasion luckwas in his favour. So then Fate must have ordained it. He hailed a caband drove to the Rue de Choiseul.
He quickly ascended the staircase and drew the bell-pull, but withouteffect. He felt as if he were about to faint.
Then, with fierce energy, he shook the heavy silk tassel. There was aresounding peal which gradually died away till no further sound washeard. Frederick got rather frightened.
He pasted his ear to the door--not a breath! He looked in through thekey-hole, and only saw two reed-points on the wall-paper in the midst ofdesigns of flowers. At last, he was on the point of going away when hechanged his mind. This time, he gave a timid little ring. The door flewopen, and Arnoux himself appeared on the threshold, with his hair all indisorder, his face crimson, and his features distorted by an expressionof sullen embarrassment.
"Hallo! What the deuce brings you here? Come in!"
He led Frederick, not into the boudoir or into the bedroom, but into thedining-room, where on the table could be seen a bottle of champagne andtwo glasses; and, in an abrupt tone:
"There is something you want to ask me, my dear friend?"
"No! nothing! nothing!" stammered the young man, trying to think of someexcuse for his visit. At length, he said to Arnoux that he had called toknow whether they had heard from him, as Hussonnet had announced that hehad gone to Germany.
"Not at all!" returned Arnoux. "What a feather-headed fellow that is totake everything in the wrong way!"
In order to conceal his agitation, Frederick kept walking from right toleft in the dining-room. Happening to come into contact with a chair, heknocked down a parasol which had been laid across it, and the ivoryhandle got broken.
"Good heavens!" he exclaimed. "How sorry I am for having broken MadameArnoux's parasol!"
At this remark, the picture-dealer raised his head and smiled in a verypeculiar fashion. Frederick, taking advantage of the opportunity thusoffered to talk about her, added shyly:
"Could I not see her?"
No. She had gone to the country to see her mother, who was ill.
He did not venture to ask any questions as to the length of time thatshe would be away. He merely enquired what was Madame Arnoux's nativeplace.
"Chartres. Does this astonish you?"
"Astonish me? Oh, no! Why should it! Not in the least!"
After that, they could find absolutely nothing to talk about. Arnoux,having made a cigarette for himself, kept walking round the table,puffing. Frederick, standing near the stove, stared at the walls, thewhatnot, and the floor; and delightful pictures flitted through hismemory, or, rather, before his eyes. Then he left the apartment.
A piece of a newspaper, rolled up into a ball, lay on the floor in theanteroom. Arnoux snatched it up, and, raising himself on the tips of histoes, he stuck it into the bell, in order, as he said, that he might beable to go and finish his interrupted siesta. Then, as he graspedFrederick's hand:
"Kindly tell the porter that I am not in."
And he shut the door after him with a bang.
Frederick descended the staircase step by step. The ill-success of thisfirst attempt discouraged him as to the possible results of those thatmight follow. Then began three months of absolute boredom. As he hadnothing to do, his melancholy was aggravated by the want of occupation.
He spent whole hours gazing from the top of his balcony at the river asit flowed between the quays, with their bulwarks of grey stone,blackene
d here and there by the seams of the sewers, with a pontoon ofwasherwomen moored close to the bank, where some brats were amusingthemselves by making a water-spaniel swim in the slime. His eyes,turning aside from the stone bridge of Notre Dame and the threesuspension bridges, continually directed their glance towards theQuai-aux-Ormes, resting on a group of old trees, resembling thelinden-trees of the Montereau wharf. The Saint-Jacques tower, the Hotelde Ville, Saint-Gervais, Saint-Louis, and Saint-Paul, rose up in frontof him amid a confused mass of roofs; and the genius of the July Columnglittered at the eastern side like a large gold star, whilst at theother end the dome of the Tuileries showed its outlines against the skyin one great round mass of blue. Madame Arnoux's house must be on thisside in the rear!
He went back to his bedchamber; then, throwing himself on the sofa, heabandoned himself to a confused succession of thoughts--plans of work,schemes for the guidance of his conduct, attempts to divine the future.At last, in order to shake off broodings all about himself, he went outinto the open air.
He plunged at random into the Latin Quarter, usually so noisy, butdeserted at this particular time, for the students had gone back to jointheir families. The huge walls of the colleges, which the silence seemedto lengthen, wore a still more melancholy aspect. All sorts of peacefulsounds could be heard--the flapping of wings in cages, the noise made bythe turning of a lathe, or the strokes of a cobbler's hammer; and theold-clothes men, standing in the middle of the street, looked up at eachhouse fruitlessly. In the interior of a solitary cafe the barmaid wasyawning between her two full decanters. The newspapers were leftundisturbed on the tables of reading-rooms. In the ironingestablishments linen quivered under the puffs of tepid wind. From timeto time he stopped to look at the window of a second-hand book-shop; anomnibus which grazed the footpath as it came rumbling along made himturn round; and, when he found himself before the Luxembourg, he went nofurther.
Occasionally he was attracted towards the boulevards by the hope offinding there something that might amuse him. After he had passedthrough dark alleys, from which his nostrils were greeted by fresh moistodours, he reached vast, desolate, open spaces, dazzling with light, inwhich monuments cast at the side of the pavement notches of blackshadow. But once more the wagons and the shops appeared, and the crowdhad the effect of stunning him, especially on Sunday, when, from theBastille to the Madeleine, it kept swaying in one immense flood over theasphalt, in the midst of a cloud of dust, in an incessant clamour. Hefelt disgusted at the meanness of the faces, the silliness of the talk,and the idiotic self-satisfaction that oozed through these sweatingforeheads. However, the consciousness of being superior to theseindividuals mitigated the weariness which he experienced in gazing atthem.
Every day he went to the office of _L'Art Industriel_; and in order toascertain when Madame Arnoux would be back, he made elaborate enquiriesabout her mother. Arnoux's answer never varied--"the change for thebetter was continuing"--his wife, with his little daughter, would bereturning the following week. The longer she delayed in coming back, themore uneasiness Frederick exhibited, so that Arnoux, touched by so muchaffection, brought him five or six times a week to dine at a restaurant.
In the long talks which they had together on these occasions Frederickdiscovered that the picture-dealer was not a very intellectual type ofman. Arnoux might, however, take notice of his chilling manner; and nowFrederick deemed it advisable to pay back, in a small measure, hispolite attentions.
So, being anxious to do things on a good scale, the young man sold allhis new clothes to a second-hand clothes-dealer for the sum of eightyfrancs, and having increased it with a hundred more francs which he hadleft, he called at Arnoux's house to bring him out to dine. Regimbarthappened to be there, and all three of them set forth for Les TroisFreres Provencaux.
The Citizen began by taking off his surtout, and, knowing that the twoothers would defer to his gastronomic tastes, drew up the _menu_. But invain did he make his way to the kitchen to speak himself to the _chef_,go down to the cellar, with every corner of which he was familiar, andsend for the master of the establishment, to whom he gave "a blowingup." He was not satisfied with the dishes, the wines, or the attendance.At each new dish, at each fresh bottle, as soon as he had swallowed thefirst mouthful, the first draught, he threw down his fork or pushed hisglass some distance away from him; then, leaning on his elbows on thetablecloth, and stretching out his arms, he declared in a loud tone thathe could no longer dine in Paris! Finally, not knowing what to put intohis mouth, Regimbart ordered kidney-beans dressed with oil, "quiteplain," which, though only a partial success, slightly appeased him.Then he had a talk with the waiter all about the latter's predecessorsat the "Provencaux":--"What had become of Antoine? And a fellow namedEugene? And Theodore, the little fellow who always used to attend downstairs? There was much finer fare in those days, and Burgundy vintagesthe like of which they would never see again."
Then there was a discussion as to the value of ground in the suburbs,Arnoux having speculated in that way, and looked on it as a safe thing.In the meantime, however, he would lie out of the interest on his money.As he did not want to sell out at any price, Regimbart would find outsome one to whom he could let the ground; and so these two gentlemenproceeded at the close of the dessert to make calculations with a leadpencil.
They went out to get coffee in the smoking-divan on the ground-floor inthe Passage du Saumon. Frederick had to remain on his legs whileinterminable games of billiards were being played, drenched ininnumerable glasses of beer; and he lingered on there till midnightwithout knowing why, through want of energy, through sheersenselessness, in the vague expectation that something might happenwhich would give a favourable turn to his love.
When, then, would he next see her? Frederick was in a state of despairabout it. But, one evening, towards the close of November, Arnoux saidto him:
"My wife, you know, came back yesterday!"
Next day, at five o'clock, he made his way to her house. He began bycongratulating her on her mother's recovery from such a serious illness.
"Why, no! Who told you that?"
"Arnoux!"
She gave vent to a slight "Ah!" then added that she had grave fears atfirst, which, however, had now been dispelled. She was seated closebeside the fire in an upholstered easy-chair. He was on the sofa, withhis hat between his knees; and the conversation was difficult to carryon, as it was broken off nearly every minute, so he got no chanceof giving utterance to his sentiments. But, when he began tocomplain of having to study legal quibbles, she answered, "Oh! Iunderstand--business!" and she let her face fall, buried suddenly in herown reflections.
He was eager to know what they were, and even did not bestow a thoughton anything else. The twilight shadows gathered around them.
She rose, having to go out about some shopping; then she reappeared in abonnet trimmed with velvet, and a black mantle edged with minever. Heplucked up courage and offered to accompany her.
It was now so dark that one could scarcely see anything. The air wascold, and had an unpleasant odour, owing to a heavy fog, which partiallyblotted out the fronts of the houses. Frederick inhaled it with delight;for he could feel through the wadding of his coat the form of her arm;and her hand, cased in a chamois glove with two buttons, her little handwhich he would have liked to cover with kisses, leaned on his sleeve.Owing to the slipperiness of the pavement, they lost their balance alittle; it seemed to him as if they were both rocked by the wind in themidst of a cloud.
The glitter of the lamps on the boulevard brought him back to therealities of existence. The opportunity was a good one, there was notime to lose. He gave himself as far as the Rue de Richelieu to declarehis love. But almost at that very moment, in front of a china-shop, shestopped abruptly and said to him:
"We are at the place. Thanks. On Thursday--is it not?--as usual."
The dinners were now renewed; and the more visits he paid at MadameArnoux's, the more his love-sickness increased. The contemplation ofthis woman had
an enervating effect upon him, like the use of a perfumethat is too strong. It penetrated into the very depths of his nature,and became almost a kind of habitual sensation, a new mode of existence.
The prostitutes whom he brushed past under the gaslight, the femaleballad-singers breaking into bursts of melody, the ladies rising onhorseback at full gallop, the shopkeepers' wives on foot, the grisettesat their windows, all women brought her before his mental vision, eitherfrom the effect of their resemblance to her or the violent contrast toher which they presented. As he walked along by the shops, he gazed atthe cashmeres, the laces, and the jewelled eardrops, imagining how theywould look draped around her figure, sewn in her corsage, or lighting upher dark hair. In the flower-girls' baskets the bouquets blossomed forher to choose one as she passed. In the shoemakers' show-windows thelittle satin slippers with swan's-down edges seemed to be waiting forher foot. Every street led towards her house; the hackney-coaches stoodin their places to carry her home the more quickly; Paris was associatedwith her person, and the great city, with all its noises, roared aroundher like an immense orchestra.
When he went into the Jardin des Plantes the sight of a palm-treecarried him off into distant countries. They were travelling together onthe backs of dromedaries, under the awnings of elephants, in the cabinof a yacht amongst the blue archipelagoes, or side by side on mules withlittle bells attached to them who went stumbling through the grassagainst broken columns. Sometimes he stopped in the Louvre before oldpictures; and, his love embracing her even in vanished centuries, hesubstituted her for the personages in the paintings. Wearing a hennin onher head, she was praying on bended knees before a stained-glass window.Lady Paramount of Castile or Flanders, she remained seated in a starchedruff and a body lined with whalebone with big puffs. Then he saw herdescending some wide porphyry staircase in the midst of senators under adais of ostriches' feathers in a robe of brocade. At another time hedreamed of her in yellow silk trousers on the cushions of a harem--andall that was beautiful, the scintillation of the stars, certain tunes inmusic, the turn of a phrase, the outlines of a face, led him to thinkabout her in an abrupt, unconscious fashion.
As for trying to make her his mistress, he was sure that any suchattempt would be futile.
One evening, Dittmer, on his arrival, kissed her on the forehead;Lovarias did the same, observing:
"You give me leave--don't you?--as it is a friend's privilege?"
Frederick stammered out:
"It seems to me that we are all friends."
"Not all old friends!" she returned.
This was repelling him beforehand indirectly.
Besides, what was he to do? To tell her that he loved her? No doubt, shewould decline to listen to him or else she would feel indignant and turnhim out of the house. But he preferred to submit to even the mostpainful ordeal rather than run the horrible risk of seeing her no more.He envied pianists for their talents and soldiers for their scars. Helonged for a dangerous attack of sickness, hoping in this way to makeher take an interest in him.
One thing caused astonishment to himself, that he felt in no way jealousof Arnoux; and he could not picture her in his imagination undressed, sonatural did her modesty appear, and so far did her sex recede into amysterious background.
Nevertheless, he dreamed of the happiness of living with her, of"theeing" and "thouing" her, of passing his hand lingeringly over herhead-bands, or remaining in a kneeling posture on the floor, with botharms clasped round her waist, so as to drink in her soul through hiseyes. To accomplish this it would be necessary to conquer Fate; and so,incapable of action, cursing God, and accusing himself of being acoward, he kept moving restlessly within the confines of his passionjust as a prisoner keeps moving about in his dungeon. The pangs which hewas perpetually enduring were choking him. For hours he would remainquite motionless, or else he would burst into tears; and one day when hehad not the strength to restrain his emotion, Deslauriers said to him:
"Why, goodness gracious! what's the matter with you?"
Frederick's nerves were unstrung. Deslauriers did not believe a word ofit. At the sight of so much mental anguish, he felt all his oldaffection reawakening, and he tried to cheer up his friend. A man likehim to let himself be depressed, what folly! It was all very well whileone was young; but, as one grows older, it is only loss of time.
"You are spoiling my Frederick for me! I want him whom I knew in bygonedays. The same boy as ever! I liked him! Come, smoke a pipe, old chap!Shake yourself up a little! You drive me mad!"
"It is true," said Frederick, "I am a fool!"
The clerk replied:
"Ah! old troubadour, I know well what's troubling you! A little affairof the heart? Confess it! Bah! One lost, four found instead! We consoleourselves for virtuous women with the other sort. Would you like me tointroduce you to some women? You have only to come to the Alhambra."
(This was a place for public balls recently opened at the top of theChamps-Elysees, which had gone down owing to a display of licentiousnesssomewhat ruder than is usual in establishments of the kind.)
"That's a place where there seems to be good fun. You can take yourfriends, if you like. I can even pass in Regimbart for you."
Frederick did not think fit to ask the Citizen to go. Deslauriersdeprived himself of the pleasure of Senecal's society. They took onlyHussonnet and Cisy along with Dussardier; and the same hackney-coach setthe group of five down at the entrance of the Alhambra.
Two Moorish galleries extended on the right and on the left, parallel toone another. The wall of a house opposite occupied the entire backguard;and the fourth side (that in which the restaurant was) represented aGothic cloister with stained-glass windows. A sort of Chinese roofscreened the platform reserved for the musicians. The ground was coveredall over with asphalt; the Venetian lanterns fastened to posts formed,at regular intervals, crowns of many-coloured flame above the heads ofthe dancers. A pedestal here and there supported a stone basin, fromwhich rose a thin streamlet of water. In the midst of the foliage couldbe seen plaster statues, and Hebes and Cupid, painted in oil, andpresenting a very sticky appearance; and the numerous walks, garnishedwith sand of a deep yellow, carefully raked, made the garden look muchlarger than it was in reality.
Students were walking their mistresses up and down; drapers' clerksstrutted about with canes in their hands; lads fresh from college weresmoking their regalias; old men had their dyed beards smoothed out withcombs. There were English, Russians, men from South America, and threeOrientals in tarbooshes. Lorettes, grisettes, and girls of the town hadcome there in the hope of finding a protector, a lover, a gold coin, orsimply for the pleasure of dancing; and their dresses, with tunics ofwater-green, cherry-red, or violet, swept along, fluttered between theebony-trees and the lilacs. Nearly all the men's clothes were of stripedmaterial; some of them had white trousers, in spite of the coolness ofthe evening. The gas was lighted.
Hussonnet was acquainted with a number of the women through hisconnection with the fashion-journals and the smaller theatres. He sentthem kisses with the tips of his fingers, and from time to time hequitted his friends to go and chat with them.
Deslauriers felt jealous of these playful familiarities. He accosted ina cynical manner a tall, fair-haired girl, in a nankeen costume. Afterlooking at him with a certain air of sullenness, she said:
"No! I wouldn't trust you, my good fellow!" and turned on her heel.
His next attack was on a stout brunette, who apparently was a littlemad; for she gave a bounce at the very first word he spoke to her,threatening, if he went any further, to call the police. Deslauriersmade an effort to laugh; then, coming across a little woman sitting byherself under a gas-lamp, he asked her to be his partner in a quadrille.
The musicians, perched on the platform in the attitude of apes, keptscraping and blowing away with desperate energy. The conductor, standingup, kept beating time automatically. The dancers were much crowded andenjoyed themselves thoroughly. The bonnet-strings, getting loose,rub
bed against the cravats; the boots sank under the petticoats; and allthis bouncing went on to the accompaniment of the music. Deslauriershugged the little woman, and, seized with the delirium of the cancan,whirled about, like a big marionnette, in the midst of the dancers. Cisyand Deslauriers were still promenading up and down. The young aristocratkept ogling the girls, and, in spite of the clerk's exhortations, didnot venture to talk to them, having an idea in his head that in theresorts of these women there was always "a man hidden in the cupboardwith a pistol who would come out of it and force you to sign a bill ofexchange."
They came back and joined Frederick. Deslauriers had stopped dancing;and they were all asking themselves how they were to finish up theevening, when Hussonnet exclaimed:
"Look! Here's the Marquise d'Amaegui!"
The person referred to was a pale woman with a _retrousse_ nose, mittensup to her elbows, and big black earrings hanging down her cheeks, liketwo dog's ears. Hussonnet said to her:
"We ought to organise a little fete at your house--a sort of Orientalrout. Try to collect some of your friends here for these Frenchcavaliers. Well, what is annoying you? Are you going to wait for yourhidalgo?"
The Andalusian hung down her head: being well aware of the by no meanslavish habits of her friend, she was afraid of having to pay for anyrefreshments he ordered. When, at length, she let the word "money" slipfrom her, Cisy offered five napoleons--all he had in his purse; and soit was settled that the thing should come off.
But Frederick was absent. He fancied that he had recognised the voice ofArnoux, and got a glimpse of a woman's hat; and accordingly he hastenedtowards an arbour which was not far off.
Mademoiselle Vatnaz was alone there with Arnoux.
"Excuse me! I am in the way?"
"Not in the least!" returned the picture-merchant.
Frederick, from the closing words of their conversation, understood thatArnoux had come to the Alhambra to talk over a pressing matter ofbusiness with Mademoiselle Vatnaz; and it was evident that he was notcompletely reassured, for he said to her, with some uneasiness in hismanner:
"You are quite sure?"
"Perfectly certain! You are loved. Ah! what a man you are!"
And she assumed a pouting look, putting out her big lips, so red thatthey seemed tinged with blood. But she had wonderful eyes, of a tawnyhue, with specks of gold in the pupils, full of vivacity, amorousness,and sensuality. They illuminated, like lamps, the rather yellow tint ofher thin face. Arnoux seemed to enjoy her exhibition of pique. Hestooped over her, saying:
"You are nice--give me a kiss!"
She caught hold of his two ears, and pressed her lips against hisforehead.
At that moment the dancing stopped; and in the conductor's placeappeared a handsome young man, rather fat, with a waxen complexion. Hehad long black hair, which he wore in the same fashion as Christ, and ablue velvet waistcoat embroidered with large gold palm-branches. Helooked as proud as a peacock, and as stupid as a turkey-cock; and,having bowed to the audience, he began a ditty. A villager was supposedto be giving an account of his journey to the capital. The singer usedthe dialect of Lower Normandy, and played the part of a drunken man. Therefrain--
"Ah! I laughed at you there, I laughed at you there, In that rascally city of Paris!"[4]
was greeted with enthusiastic stampings of feet. Delmas, "a vocalist whosang with expression," was too shrewd to let the excitement of hislisteners cool. A guitar was quickly handed to him and he moaned forth aballad entitled "The Albanian Girl's Brother."
[Footnote 4: _Ah! j'ai l'y ri, j'ai l'y ri. Dans ce gueusard de Paris!_]
The words recalled to Frederick those which had been sung by the man inrags between the paddle-boxes of the steamboat. His eyes involuntarilyattached themselves to the hem of the dress spread out before him.
After each couplet there was a long pause, and the blowing of the windthrough the trees resembled the sound of the waves.
Mademoiselle Vatnaz blushed the moment she saw Dussardier. She soonrose, and stretching out her hand towards him:
"You do not remember me, Monsieur Auguste?"
"How do you know her?" asked Frederick.
"We have been in the same house," he replied.
Cisy pulled him by the sleeve; they went out; and, scarcely had theydisappeared, when Madame Vatnaz began to pronounce a eulogy on hischaracter. She even went so far as to add that he possessed "the geniusof the heart."
Then they chatted about Delmas, admitting that as a mimic he might be asuccess on the stage; and a discussion followed in which Shakespeare,the Censorship, Style, the People, the receipts of the PorteSaint-Martin, Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, and Dumersan were all mixedup together.
Arnoux had known many celebrated actresses; the young men bent forwardtheir heads to hear what he had to say about these ladies. But his wordswere drowned in the noise of the music; and, as soon as the quadrille orthe polka was over, they all squatted round the tables, called thewaiter, and laughed. Bottles of beer and of effervescent lemonade wentoff with detonations amid the foliage; women clucked like hens; now andthen, two gentlemen tried to fight; and a thief was arrested. Thedancers, in the rush of a gallop, encroached on the walks. Panting, withflushed, smiling faces, they filed off in a whirlwind which lifted upthe gowns with the coat-tails. The trombones brayed more loudly; therhythmic movement became more rapid. Behind the mediaeval cloister couldbe heard crackling sounds; squibs went off; artificial suns beganturning round; the gleam of the Bengal fires, like emeralds in colour,lighted up for the space of a minute the entire garden; and, with thelast rocket, a great sigh escaped from the assembled throng.
It slowly died away. A cloud of gunpowder floated into the air.Frederick and Deslauriers were walking step by step through the midst ofthe crowd, when they happened to see something that made them suddenlystop: Martinon was in the act of paying some money at the place whereumbrellas were left; and he was accompanying a woman of fifty,plain-looking, magnificently dressed, and of problematic social rank.
"That sly dog," said Deslauriers, "is not so simple as we imagine. Butwhere in the world is Cisy?"
Dussardier pointed out to them the smoking-divan, where they perceivedthe knightly youth, with a bowl of punch before him, and a pink hat byhis side, to keep him company. Hussonnet, who had been away for the pastfew minutes, reappeared at the same moment.
A young girl was leaning on his arm, and addressing him in a loud voiceas "My little cat."
"Oh! no!" said he to her--"not in public! Call me rather 'Vicomte.' Thatgives you a cavalier style--Louis XIII. and dainty boots--the sort ofthing I like! Yes, my good friends, one of the old _regime_!--nice,isn't she?"--and he chucked her by the chin--"Salute these gentlemen!they are all the sons of peers of France. I keep company with them inorder that they may get an appointment for me as an ambassador."
"How insane you are!" sighed Mademoiselle Vatnaz. She asked Dussardierto see her as far as her own door.
Arnoux watched them going off; then, turning towards Frederick:
"Did you like the Vatnaz? At any rate, you're not quite frank aboutthese affairs. I believe you keep your amours hidden."
Frederick, turning pale, swore that he kept nothing hidden.
"Can it be possible you don't know what it is to have a mistress?" saidArnoux.
Frederick felt a longing to mention a woman's name at random. But thestory might be repeated to her. So he replied that as a matter of facthe had no mistress.
The picture-dealer reproached him for this.
"This evening you had a good opportunity! Why didn't you do like theothers, each of whom went off with a woman?"
"Well, and what about yourself?" said Frederick, provoked by hispersistency.
"Oh! myself--that's quite a different matter, my lad! I go home to myown one!"
Then he called a cab, and disappeared.
The two friends walked towards their own destination. An east wind wasblowing. They did not exchange a word. Deslauriers
was regretting thathe had not succeeded in making a _shine_ before a certainnewspaper-manager, and Frederick was lost once more in his melancholybroodings. At length, breaking silence, he said that this public-houseball appeared to him a stupid affair.
"Whose fault is it? If you had not left us, to join that Arnoux ofyours----"
"Bah! anything I could have done would have been utterly useless!"
But the clerk had theories of his own. All that was necessary in orderto get a thing was to desire it strongly.
"Nevertheless, you yourself, a little while ago----"
"I don't care a straw about that sort of thing!" returned Deslauriers,cutting short Frederick's allusion. "Am I going to get entangled withwomen?"
And he declaimed against their affectations, their silly ways--in short,he disliked them.
"Don't be acting, then!" said Frederick.
Deslauriers became silent. Then, all at once:
"Will you bet me a hundred francs that I won't _do_ the first woman thatpasses?"
"Yes--it's a bet!"
The first who passed was a hideous-looking beggar-woman, and they weregiving up all hope of a chance presenting itself when, in the middle ofthe Rue de Rivoli, they saw a tall girl with a little bandbox in herhand.
Deslauriers accosted her under the arcades. She turned up abruptly bythe Tuileries, and soon diverged into the Place du Carrousel. Sheglanced to the right and to the left. She ran after a hackney-coach;Deslauriers overtook her. He walked by her side, talking to her withexpressive gestures. At length, she accepted his arm, and they went ontogether along the quays. Then, when they reached the rising ground infront of the Chatelet, they kept tramping up and down for at leasttwenty minutes, like two sailors keeping watch. But, all of a sudden,they passed over the Pont-au-Change, through the Flower Market, andalong the Quai Napoleon. Frederick came up behind them. Deslauriers gavehim to understand that he would be in their way, and had only to followhis own example.
"How much have you got still?"
"Two hundred sous pieces."
"That's enough--good night to you!"
Frederick was seized with the astonishment one feels at seeing a pieceof foolery coming to a successful issue.
"He has the laugh at me," was his reflection. "Suppose I went backagain?"
Perhaps Deslauriers imagined that he was envious of this paltry love!"As if I had not one a hundred times more rare, more noble, moreabsorbing." He felt a sort of angry feeling impelling him onward. Hearrived in front of Madame Arnoux's door.
None of the outer windows belonged to her apartment. Nevertheless, heremained with his eyes pasted on the front of the house--as if hefancied he could, by his contemplation, break open the walls. No doubt,she was now sunk in repose, tranquil as a sleeping flower, with herbeautiful black hair resting on the lace of the pillow, her lipsslightly parted, and one arm under her head. Then Arnoux's head rosebefore him, and he rushed away to escape from this vision.
The advice which Deslauriers had given to him came back to his memory.It only filled him with horror. Then he walked about the streets in avagabond fashion.
When a pedestrian approached, he tried to distinguish the face. Fromtime to time a ray of light passed between his legs, tracing a greatquarter of a circle on the pavement; and in the shadow a man appearedwith his dosser and his lantern. The wind, at certain points, made thesheet-iron flue of a chimney shake. Distant sounds reached his ears,mingling with the buzzing in his brain; and it seemed to him that he waslistening to the indistinct flourish of quadrille music. His movementsas he walked on kept up this illusion. He found himself on the Pont dela Concorde.
Then he recalled that evening in the previous winter, when, as he lefther house for the first time, he was forced to stand still, so rapidlydid his heart beat with the hopes that held it in their clasp. And nowthey had all withered!
Dark clouds were drifting across the face of the moon. He gazed at it,musing on the vastness of space, the wretchedness of life, thenothingness of everything. The day dawned; his teeth began to chatter,and, half-asleep, wet with the morning mist, and bathed in tears, heasked himself, Why should I not make an end of it? All that wasnecessary was a single movement. The weight of his forehead dragged himalong--he beheld his own dead body floating in the water. Frederickstooped down. The parapet was rather wide, and it was through pureweariness that he did not make the attempt to leap over it.
Then a feeling of dismay swept over him. He reached the boulevards oncemore, and sank down upon a seat. He was aroused by some police-officers,who were convinced that he had been indulging a little too freely.
He resumed his walk. But, as he was exceedingly hungry, and as all therestaurants were closed, he went to get a "snack" at a tavern by thefish-markets; after which, thinking it too soon to go in yet, he keptsauntering about the Hotel de Ville till a quarter past eight.
Deslauriers had long since got rid of his wench; and he was writing atthe table in the middle of his room. About four o'clock, M. de Cisy camein.
Thanks to Dussardier, he had enjoyed the society of a lady the nightbefore; and he had even accompanied her home in the carriage with herhusband to the very threshold of their house, where she had given him anassignation. He parted with her without even knowing her name.
"And what do you propose that I should do in that way?" said Frederick.
Thereupon the young gentleman began to cudgel his brains to think of asuitable woman; he mentioned Mademoiselle Vatnaz, the Andalusian, andall the rest. At length, with much circumlocution, he stated the objectof his visit. Relying on the discretion of his friend, he came to aidhim in taking an important step, after which he might definitely regardhimself as a man; and Frederick showed no reluctance. He told the storyto Deslauriers without relating the facts with reference to himselfpersonally.
The clerk was of opinion that he was now going on very well. Thisrespect for his advice increased his good humour. He owed to thatquality his success, on the very first night he met her, withMademoiselle Clemence Daviou, embroideress in gold for military outfits,the sweetest creature that ever lived, as slender as a reed, with largeblue eyes, perpetually staring with wonder. The clerk had takenadvantage of her credulity to such an extent as to make her believe thathe had been decorated. At their private conversations he had hisfrock-coat adorned with a red ribbon, but divested himself of it inpublic in order, as he put it, not to humiliate his master. However, hekept her at a distance, allowed himself to be fawned upon, like a pasha,and, in a laughing sort of way, called her "daughter of the people."Every time they met, she brought him little bunches of violets.Frederick would not have cared for a love affair of this sort.
Meanwhile, whenever they set forth arm-in-arm to visit Pinson's orBarillot's circulating library, he experienced a feeling of singulardepression. Frederick did not realise how much pain he had madeDeslauriers endure for the past year, while brushing his nails beforegoing out to dine in the Rue de Choiseul!
One evening, when from the commanding position in which his balconystood, he had just been watching them as they went out together, he sawHussonnet, some distance off, on the Pont d'Arcole. The Bohemian begancalling him by making signals towards him, and, when Frederick haddescended the five flights of stairs:
"Here is the thing--it is next Saturday, the 24th, Madame Arnoux'sfeast-day."
"How is that, when her name is Marie?"
"And Angele also--no matter! They will entertain their guests at theircountry-house at Saint-Cloud. I was told to give you due notice aboutit. You'll find a vehicle at the magazine-office at three o'clock. Sothat makes matters all right! Excuse me for having disturbed you! But Ihave such a number of calls to make!"
Frederick had scarcely turned round when his door-keeper placed a letterin his hand:
"Monsieur and Madame Dambreuse beg of Monsieur F. Moreau to do them thehonour to come and dine with them on Saturday the 24th inst.--R.S.V.P."
"Too late!" he said to himself. Nevertheless, he showed the letter toDeslau
riers, who exclaimed:
"Ha! at last! But you don't look as if you were satisfied. Why?"
After some little hesitation, Frederick said that he had anotherinvitation for the same day.
"Be kind enough to let me run across to the Rue de Choiseul. I'm notjoking! I'll answer this for you if it puts you about."
And the clerk wrote an acceptance of the invitation in the third person.
Having seen nothing of the world save through the fever of his desires,he pictured it to himself as an artificial creation discharging itsfunctions by virtue of mathematical laws. A dinner in the city, anaccidental meeting with a man in office, a smile from a pretty woman,might, by a series of actions deducing themselves from one another, havegigantic results. Certain Parisian drawing-rooms were like thosemachines which take a material in the rough and render it a hundredtimes more valuable. He believed in courtesans advising diplomatists, inwealthy marriages brought about by intrigues, in the cleverness ofconvicts, in the capacity of strong men for getting the better offortune. In short, he considered it so useful to visit the Dambreuses,and talked about it so plausibly, that Frederick was at a loss to knowwhat was the best course to take.
The least he ought to do, as it was Madame Arnoux's feast-day, was tomake her a present. He naturally thought of a parasol, in order to makereparation for his awkwardness. Now he came across a shot-silk parasolwith a little carved ivory handle, which had come all the way fromChina. But the price of it was a hundred and seventy-five francs, and hehad not a sou, having in fact to live on the credit of his nextquarter's allowance. However, he wished to get it; he was determined tohave it; and, in spite of his repugnance to doing so, he had recourse toDeslauriers.
Deslauriers answered Frederick's first question by saying that he had nomoney.
"I want some," said Frederick--"I want some very badly!"
As the other made the same excuse over again, he flew into a passion.
"You might find it to your advantage some time----"
"What do you mean by that?"
"Oh! nothing."
The clerk understood. He took the sum required out of his reserve-fund,and when he had counted out the money, coin by coin:
"I am not asking you for a receipt, as I see you have a lot of expense!"
Frederick threw himself on his friend's neck with a thousandaffectionate protestations. Deslauriers received this display of emotionfrigidly. Then, next morning, noticing the parasol on the top of thepiano:
"Ah! it was for that!"
"I will send it, perhaps," said Frederick, with an air of carelessness.
Good fortune was on his side, for that evening he got a note with ablack border from Madame Dambreuse announcing to him that she had lostan uncle, and excusing herself for having to defer till a later periodthe pleasure of making his acquaintance. At two o'clock, he reached theoffice of the art journal. Instead of waiting for him in order to drivehim in his carriage, Arnoux had left the city the night before, unableto resist his desire to get some fresh air.
Every year it was his custom, as soon as the leaves were budding forth,to start early in the morning and to remain away several days, makinglong journeys across the fields, drinking milk at the farm-houses,romping with the village girls, asking questions about the harvest, andcarrying back home with him stalks of salad in his pocket-handkerchief.At length, in order to realise a long-cherished dream of his, he hadbought a country-house.
While Frederick was talking to the picture-dealer's clerk, MademoiselleVatnaz suddenly made her appearance, and was disappointed at not seeingArnoux. He would, perhaps, be remaining away two days longer. The clerkadvised her "to go there"--she could not go there; to write aletter--she was afraid that the letter might get lost. Frederick offeredto be the bearer of it himself. She rapidly scribbled off a letter, andimplored of him to let nobody see him delivering it.
Forty minutes afterwards, he found himself at Saint-Cloud. The house,which was about a hundred paces farther away than the bridge, stoodhalf-way up the hill. The garden-walls were hidden by two rows oflinden-trees, and a wide lawn descended to the bank of the river. Therailed entrance before the door was open, and Frederick went in.
Arnoux, stretched on the grass, was playing with a litter of kittens.This amusement appeared to absorb him completely. Mademoiselle Vatnaz'sletter drew him out of his sleepy idleness.
"The deuce! the deuce!--this is a bore! She is right, though; I mustgo."
Then, having stuck the missive into his pocket, he showed the young manthrough the grounds with manifest delight. He pointed outeverything--the stable, the cart-house, the kitchen. The drawing-roomwas at the right, on the side facing Paris, and looked out on a flooredarbour, covered over with clematis. But presently a few harmonious notesburst forth above their heads: Madame Arnoux, fancying that there wasnobody near, was singing to amuse herself. She executed quavers,trills, arpeggios. There were long notes which seemed to remainsuspended in the air; others fell in a rushing shower like the spray ofa waterfall; and her voice passing out through the Venetian blind, cutits way through the deep silence and rose towards the blue sky. Sheceased all at once, when M. and Madame Oudry, two neighbours, presentedthemselves.
Then she appeared herself at the top of the steps in front of the house;and, as she descended, he caught a glimpse of her foot. She wore littleopen shoes of reddish-brown leather, with three straps crossing eachother so as to draw just above her stockings a wirework of gold.
Those who had been invited arrived. With the exception of MaitreLefaucheur, an advocate, they were the same guests who came to theThursday dinners. Each of them had brought some present--Dittmer aSyrian scarf, Rosenwald a scrap-book of ballads, Burieu a water-colourpainting, Sombary one of his own caricatures, and Pellerin acharcoal-drawing, representing a kind of dance of death, a hideousfantasy, the execution of which was rather poor. Hussonnet dispensedwith the formality of a present.
Frederick was waiting to offer his, after the others.
She thanked him very much for it. Thereupon, he said:
"Why, 'tis almost a debt. I have been so much annoyed----"
"At what, pray?" she returned. "I don't understand."
"Come! dinner is waiting!" said Arnoux, catching hold of his arm; thenin a whisper: "You are not very knowing, certainly!"
Nothing could well be prettier than the dining-room, painted inwater-green. At one end, a nymph of stone was dipping her toe in a basinformed like a shell. Through the open windows the entire garden could beseen with the long lawn flanked by an old Scotch fir, three-quartersstripped bare; groups of flowers swelled it out in unequal plots; and atthe other side of the river extended in a wide semi-circle the Bois deBoulogne, Neuilly, Sevres, and Meudon. Before the railed gate in front acanoe with sail outspread was tacking about.
They chatted first about the view in front of them, then about sceneryin general; and they were beginning to plunge into discussions whenArnoux, at half-past nine o'clock, ordered the horse to be put to thecarriage.
"Would you like me to go back with you?" said Madame Arnoux.
"Why, certainly!" and, making her a graceful bow: "You know well,madame, that it is impossible to live without you!"
Everyone congratulated her on having so good a husband.
"Ah! it is because I am not the only one," she replied quietly, pointingtowards her little daughter.
Then, the conversation having turned once more on painting, there wassome talk about a Ruysdael, for which Arnoux expected a big sum, andPellerin asked him if it were true that the celebrated Saul Mathias fromLondon had come over during the past month to make him an offer oftwenty-three thousand francs for it.
"'Tis a positive fact!" and turning towards Frederick: "That was thevery same gentleman I brought with me a few days ago to the Alhambra,much against my will, I assure you, for these English are by no meansamusing companions."
Frederick, who suspected that Mademoiselle Vatnaz's letter containedsome reference to an intrigue, was amazed at th
e facility with which mylord Arnoux found a way of passing it off as a perfectly honourabletransaction; but his new lie, which was quite needless, made the youngman open his eyes in speechless astonishment.
The picture-dealer added, with an air of simplicity:
"What's the name, by-the-by, of that young fellow, your friend?"
"Deslauriers," said Frederick quickly.
And, in order to repair the injustice which he felt he had done to hiscomrade, he praised him as one who possessed remarkable ability.
"Ah! indeed? But he doesn't look such a fine fellow as the other--theclerk in the wagon-office."
Frederick bestowed a mental imprecation on Dussardier. She would now betaking it for granted that he associated with the common herd.
Then they began to talk about the ornamentation of the capital--the newdistricts of the city--and the worthy Oudry happened to refer to M.Dambreuse as one of the big speculators.
Frederick, taking advantage of the opportunity to make a good figure,said he was acquainted with that gentleman. But Pellerin launched into aharangue against shopkeepers--he saw no difference between them, whetherthey were sellers of candles or of money. Then Rosenwald and Burieutalked about old china; Arnoux chatted with Madame Oudry aboutgardening; Sombary, a comical character of the old school, amusedhimself by chaffing her husband, referring to him sometimes as "Odry,"as if he were the actor of that name, and remarking that he must bedescended from Oudry, the dog-painter, seeing that the bump of theanimals was visible on his forehead. He even wanted to feel M. Oudry'sskull; but the latter excused himself on account of his wig; and thedessert ended with loud bursts of laughter.
When they had taken their coffee, while they smoked, under thelinden-trees, and strolled about the garden for some time, they went outfor a walk along the river.
The party stopped in front of a fishmonger's shop, where a man waswashing eels. Mademoiselle Marthe wanted to look at them. He emptied thebox in which he had them out on the grass; and the little girl threwherself on her knees in order to catch them, laughed with delight, andthen began to scream with terror. They all got spoiled, and Arnoux paidfor them.
He next took it into his head to go out for a sail in the cutter.
One side of the horizon was beginning to assume a pale aspect, while onthe other side a wide strip of orange colour showed itself in the sky,deepening into purple at the summits of the hills, which were steeped inshadow. Madame Arnoux seated herself on a big stone with this glitteringsplendour at her back. The other ladies sauntered about here and there.Hussonnet, at the lower end of the river's bank, went making ducks anddrakes over the water.
Arnoux presently returned, followed by a weather-beaten long boat, intowhich, in spite of the most prudent remonstrances, he packed hisguests. The boat got upset, and they had to go ashore again.
By this time wax-tapers were burning in the drawing-room, all hung withchintz, and with branched candlesticks of crystal fixed close to thewalls. Mere Oudry was sleeping comfortably in an armchair, and theothers were listening to M. Lefaucheux expatiating on the glories of theBar. Madame Arnoux was sitting by herself near the window. Frederickcame over to her.
They chatted about the remarks which were being made in their vicinity.She admired oratory; he preferred the renown gained by authors. But, sheventured to suggest, it must give a man greater pleasure to move crowdsdirectly by addressing them in person, face to face, than it does toinfuse into their souls by his pen all the sentiments that animate hisown. Such triumphs as these did not tempt Frederick much, as he had noambition.
Then he broached the subject of sentimental adventures. She spokepityingly of the havoc wrought by passion, but expressed indignation athypocritical vileness, and this rectitude of spirit harmonised so wellwith the regular beauty of her face that it seemed indeed as if herphysical attractions were the outcome of her moral nature.
She smiled, every now and then, letting her eyes rest on him for aminute. Then he felt her glances penetrating his soul like those greatrays of sunlight which descend into the depths of the water. He lovedher without mental reservation, without any hope of his love beingreturned, unconditionally; and in those silent transports, which werelike outbursts of gratitude, he would fain have covered her foreheadwith a rain of kisses. However, an inspiration from within carried himbeyond himself--he felt moved by a longing for self-sacrifice, animperative impulse towards immediate self-devotion, and all the strongerfrom the fact that he could not gratify it.
He did not leave along with the rest. Neither did Hussonnet. They wereto go back in the carriage; and the vehicle was waiting just in front ofthe steps when Arnoux rushed down and hurried into the garden to gathersome flowers there. Then the bouquet having been tied round with athread, as the stems fell down unevenly, he searched in his pocket,which was full of papers, took out a piece at random, wrapped them up,completed his handiwork with the aid of a strong pin, and then offeredit to his wife with a certain amount of tenderness.
"Look here, my darling! Excuse me for having forgotten you!"
But she uttered a little scream: the pin, having been awkwardly fixed,had cut her, and she hastened up to her room. They waited nearly aquarter of an hour for her. At last, she reappeared, carried off Marthe,and threw herself into the carriage.
"And your bouquet?" said Arnoux.
"No! no--it is not worth while!" Frederick was running off to fetch itfor her; she called out to him:
"I don't want it!"
But he speedily brought it to her, saying that he had just put it intoan envelope again, as he had found the flowers lying on the floor. Shethrust them behind the leathern apron of the carriage close to the seat,and off they started.
Frederick, seated by her side, noticed that she was tremblingfrightfully. Then, when they had passed the bridge, as Arnoux wasturning to the left:
"Why, no! you are making a mistake!--that way, to the right!"
She seemed irritated; everything annoyed her. At length, Marthe havingclosed her eyes, Madame Arnoux drew forth the bouquet, and flung it outthrough the carriage-door, then caught Frederick's arm, making a sign tohim with the other hand to say nothing about it.
After this, she pressed her handkerchief against her lips, and sat quitemotionless.
The two others, on the dickey, kept talking about printing and aboutsubscribers. Arnoux, who was driving recklessly, lost his way in themiddle of the Bois de Boulogne. Then they plunged into narrow paths. Thehorse proceeded along at a walking pace; the branches of the treesgrazed the hood. Frederick could see nothing of Madame Arnoux save hertwo eyes in the shade. Marthe lay stretched across her lap while hesupported the child's head.
"She is tiring you!" said her mother.
He replied:
"No! Oh, no!"
Whirlwinds of dust rose up slowly. They passed through Auteuil. All thehouses were closed up; a gas-lamp here and there lighted up the angle ofa wall; then once more they were surrounded by darkness. At one time henoticed that she was shedding tears.
Was this remorse or passion? What in the world was it? This grief, ofwhose exact nature he was ignorant, interested him like a personalmatter. There was now a new bond between them, as if, in a sense, theywere accomplices; and he said to her in the most caressing voice hecould assume:
"You are ill?"
"Yes, a little," she returned.
The carriage rolled on, and the honeysuckles and the syringas trailedover the garden fences, sending forth puffs of enervating odour into thenight air. Her gown fell around her feet in numerous folds. It seemed tohim as if he were in communication with her entire person through themedium of this child's body which lay stretched between them. He stoopedover the little girl, and spreading out her pretty brown tresses, kissedher softly on the forehead.
"You are good!" said Madame Arnoux.
"Why?"
"Because you are fond of children."
"Not all!"
He said no more, but he let his left hand hang down her side wide op
en,fancying that she would follow his example perhaps, and that he wouldfind her palm touching his. Then he felt ashamed and withdrew it. Theysoon reached the paved street. The carriage went on more quickly; thenumber of gas-lights vastly increased--it was Paris. Hussonnet, in frontof the lumber-room, jumped down from his seat. Frederick waited tillthey were in the courtyard before alighting; then he lay in ambush atthe corner of the Rue de Choiseul, and saw Arnoux slowly making his wayback to the boulevards.
Next morning he began working as hard as ever he could.
He saw himself in an Assize Court, on a winter's evening, at the closeof the advocates' speeches, when the jurymen are looking pale, and whenthe panting audience make the partitions of the praetorium creak; andafter having being four hours speaking, he was recapitulating all hisproofs, feeling with every phrase, with every word, with every gesture,the chopper of the guillotine, which was suspended behind him, risingup; then in the tribune of the Chamber, an orator who bears on his lipsthe safety of an entire people, drowning his opponents under his figuresof rhetoric, crushing them under a repartee, with thunders and musicalintonations in his voice, ironical, pathetic, fiery, sublime. She wouldbe there somewhere in the midst of the others, hiding beneath her veilher enthusiastic tears. After that they would meet again, and he wouldbe unaffected by discouragements, calumnies, and insults, if she wouldonly say, "Ah, that is beautiful!" while drawing her light hand acrosshis brow.
These images flashed, like beacon-lights, on the horizon of his life.His intellect, thereby excited, became more active and more vigorous. Heburied himself in study till the month of August, and was successful athis final examination.
Deslauriers, who had found it so troublesome to coach him once more forthe second examination at the close of December, and for the third inFebruary, was astonished at his ardour. Then the great expectations offormer days returned. In ten years it was probable that Frederick wouldbe deputy; in fifteen a minister. Why not? With his patrimony, whichwould soon come into his hands, he might, at first, start a newspaper;this would be the opening step in his career; after that they would seewhat the future would bring. As for himself, he was still ambitious ofobtaining a chair in the Law School; and he sustained his thesis forthe degree of Doctor in such a remarkable fashion that it won for himthe compliments of the professors.
Three days afterwards, Frederick took his own degree. Before leaving forhis holidays, he conceived the idea of getting up a picnic to bring to aclose their Saturday reunions.
He displayed the utmost gaiety on the occasion. Madame Arnoux was nowwith her mother at Chartres. But he would soon come across her again,and would end by being her lover.
Deslauriers, admitted the same day to the young advocates' pleadingrehearsals at Orsay, had made a speech which was greatly applauded.Although he was sober, he drank a little more wine than was good forhim, and said to Dussardier at dessert:
"You are an honest fellow!--and, when I'm a rich man, I'll make you mymanager."
All were in a state of delight. Cisy was not going to finish hislaw-course. Martinon intended to remain during the period before hisadmission to the Bar in the provinces, where he would be nominated adeputy-magistrate. Pellerin was devoting himself to the production of alarge picture representing "The Genius of the Revolution." Hussonnetwas, in the following week, about to read for the Director of PublicAmusements the scheme of a play, and had no doubt as to its success:
"As for the framework of the drama, they may leave that to me! As forthe passions, I have knocked about enough to understand them thoroughly;and as for witticisms, they're entirely in my line!"
He gave a spring, fell on his two hands, and thus moved for some timearound the table with his legs in the air. This performance, worthy ofa street-urchin, did not get rid of Senecal's frowns. He had just beendismissed from the boarding-school, in which he had been a teacher, forhaving given a whipping to an aristocrat's son. His straitenedcircumstances had got worse in consequence: he laid the blame of this onthe inequalities of society, and cursed the wealthy. He poured out hisgrievances into the sympathetic ears of Regimbart, who had become everyday more and more disillusioned, saddened, and disgusted. The Citizenhad now turned his attention towards questions arising out of theBudget, and blamed the Court party for the loss of millions in Algeria.
As he could not sleep without having paid a visit to the Alexandresmoking-divan, he disappeared at eleven o'clock. The rest went away sometime afterwards; and Frederick, as he was parting with Hussonnet,learned that Madame Arnoux was to have come back the night before.
He accordingly went to the coach-office to change his time for startingto the next day; and, at about six o'clock in the evening, presentedhimself at her house. Her return, the door keeper said, had been put offfor a week. Frederick dined alone, and then lounged about theboulevards.
Rosy clouds, scarf-like in form, stretched beyond the roofs; theshop-tents were beginning to be taken away; water-carts were letting ashower of spray fall over the dusty pavement; and an unexpected coolnesswas mingled with emanations from cafes, as one got a glimpse throughtheir open doors, between some silver plate and gilt ware, of flowers insheaves, which were reflected in the large sheets of glass. The crowdmoved on at a leisurely pace. Groups of men were chatting in the middleof the footpath; and women passed along with an indolent expression intheir eyes and that camelia tint in their complexions which intense heatimparts to feminine flesh. Something immeasurable in its vastness seemedto pour itself out and enclose the houses. Never had Paris looked sobeautiful. He saw nothing before him in the future but an interminableseries of years all full of love.
He stopped in front of the theatre of the Porte Saint-Martin to look atthe bill; and, for want of something to occupy him, paid for a seat andwent in.
An old-fashioned dramatic version of a fairy-tale was the piece on thestage. There was a very small audience; and through the skylights of thetop gallery the vault of heaven seemed cut up into little blue squares,whilst the stage lamps above the orchestra formed a single line ofyellow illuminations. The scene represented a slave-market at Pekin,with hand-bells, tomtoms, sweeping robes, sharp-pointed caps, andclownish jokes. Then, as soon as the curtain fell, he wandered into thefoyer all alone and gazed out with admiration at a large green landauwhich stood on the boulevard outside, before the front steps of thetheatre, yoked to two white horses, while a coachman with short breechesheld the reins.
He had just got back to his seat when, in the balcony, a lady and agentleman entered the first box in front of the stage. The husband had apale face with a narrow strip of grey beard round it, the rosette of aGovernment official, and that frigid look which is supposed tocharacterise diplomatists.
His wife, who was at least twenty years younger, and who was neithertall nor under-sized, neither ugly nor pretty, wore her fair hair incorkscrew curls in the English fashion, and displayed a long-bodiceddress and a large black lace fan. To make people so fashionable as thesecome to the theatre at such a season one would imagine either that therewas some accidental cause, or that they had got tired of spending theevening in one another's society. The lady kept nibbling at her fan,while the gentleman yawned. Frederick could not recall to mind where hehad seen that face.
In the next interval between the acts, while passing through one of thelobbies, he came face to face with both of them. As he bowed in anundecided manner, M. Dambreuse, at once recognising him, came up andapologised for having treated him with unpardonable neglect. It was anallusion to the numerous visiting-cards he had sent in accordance withthe clerk's advice. However, he confused the periods, supposing thatFrederick was in the second year of his law-course. Then he said heenvied the young man for the opportunity of going into the country. Hesadly needed a little rest himself, but business kept him in Paris.
Madame Dambreuse, leaning on his arm, nodded her head slightly, and theagreeable sprightliness of her face contrasted with its gloomyexpression a short time before.
"One finds charming diversion
s in it, nevertheless," she said, after herhusband's last remark. "What a stupid play that was--was it not,Monsieur?" And all three of them remained there chatting about theatresand new pieces.
Frederick, accustomed to the grimaces of provincial dames, had not seenin any woman such ease of manner combined with that simplicity which isthe essence of refinement, and in which ingenuous souls trace theexpression of instantaneous sympathy.
They would expect to see him as soon as he returned. M. Dambreuse toldhim to give his kind remembrances to Pere Roque.
Frederick, when he reached his lodgings, did not fail to informDeslauriers of their hospitable invitation.
"Grand!" was the clerk's reply; "and don't let your mamma get round you!Come back without delay!"
On the day after his arrival, as soon as they had finished breakfast,Madame Moreau brought her son out into the garden.
She said she was happy to see him in a profession, for they were not asrich as people imagined. The land brought in little; the people whofarmed it paid badly. She had even been compelled to sell her carriage.Finally, she placed their situation in its true colours before him.
During the first embarrassments which followed the death of her latehusband, M. Roque, a man of great cunning, had made her loans of moneywhich had been renewed, and left long unpaid, in spite of her desire toclear them off. He had suddenly made a demand for immediate payment, andshe had gone beyond the strict terms of the agreement by giving up tohim, at a contemptible figure, the farm of Presles. Ten years later, hercapital disappeared through the failure of a banker at Melun. Through ahorror which she had of mortgages, and to keep up appearances, whichmight be necessary in view of her son's future, she had, when Pere Roquepresented himself again, listened to him once more. But now she was freefrom debt. In short, there was left them an income of about ten thousandfrancs, of which two thousand three hundred belonged to him--his entirepatrimony.
"It isn't possible!" exclaimed Frederick.
She nodded her head, as if to declare that it was perfectly possible.
But his uncle would leave him something?
That was by no means certain!
And they took a turn around the garden without exchanging a word. Atlast she pressed him to her heart, and in a voice choked with risingtears:
"Ah! my poor boy! I have had to give up my dreams!"
He seated himself on a bench in the shadow of the large acacia.
Her advice was that he should become a clerk to M. Prouharam, solicitor,who would assign over his office to him; if he increased its value, hemight sell it again and find a good practice.
Frederick was no longer listening to her. He was gazing automaticallyacross the hedge into the other garden opposite.
A little girl of about twelve with red hair happened to be there allalone. She had made earrings for herself with the berries of theservice-tree. Her bodice, made of grey linen-cloth, allowed hershoulders, slightly gilded by the sun, to be seen. Her short whitepetticoat was spotted with the stains made by sweets; and there was, soto speak, the grace of a young wild animal about her entire person, atthe same time, nervous and thin. Apparently, the presence of a strangerastonished her, for she had stopped abruptly with her watering-pot inher hand darting glances at him with her large bright eyes, which wereof a limpid greenish-blue colour.
"That is M. Roque's daughter," said Madame Moreau. "He has just marriedhis servant and legitimised the child that he had by her."