III
Stephen had meant to stop only one day in Paris, and travel at night toMarseilles, where he would have twelve or fifteen hours to wait beforethe sailing of the ship on which he had engaged a cabin. But glancingover a French paper while he breakfasted at the Westminster, he saw thata slight accident had happened to the boat during a storm on her returnvoyage from Algiers, and that she would be delayed three days forrepairs. This news made Stephen decide to remain in Paris for thosedays, rather than go on and wait at Marseilles, or take another ship. Hedid not want to see any one he knew, but he thought it would be pleasantto spend some hours picture-gazing at the Louvre, and doing a few otherthings which one ought to do in Paris, and seldom does.
That night he went to bed early and slept better than he had slept forweeks. The next day he almost enjoyed, and when evening came, feltdesultory, even light-hearted.
Dining at his hotel, he overheard the people at the next table say theywere going to the Folies Bergeres to see Victoria Ray dance, andsuddenly Stephen made up his mind that he would go there too: for iflife had been running its usual course with him, he would certainly havegone to see Victoria Ray in London. She had danced lately at the PalaceTheatre for a month or six weeks, and absorbed as he had been in his ownaffairs, he had heard enough talk about this new dancer to know that shehad made what is called a "sensation."
The people at the next table were telling each other that Victoria Ray'sParis engagement was only for three nights, something special, withhuge pay, and that there was a "regular scramble" for seats, as the girlhad been such a success in New York and London. The speakers, who wereEnglish and provincial, had already taken places, but there did notappear to be much hope that Stephen could get anything at the lastminute. The little spice of difficulty gave a fillip of interest,however; and he remembered how the charming child on the boat had saidthat she "liked doing difficult things." He wondered what she was doingnow; and as he thought of her, white and ethereal in the night and inthe dawn-light, she seemed to him like the foam-flowers that hadblossomed for an instant on the crests of dark waves, through whichtheir vessel forged. "For a moment white, then gone forever." The wordsglittered in his mind, and fascinated him, calling up the image of thegirl, pale against the night and rainy sea. "For a moment white, thengone forever," he repeated, and asked himself whence came the line. FromBurns, he fancied; and thought it quaintly appropriate to the fair childwhose clear whiteness had thrown a gleam into his life before shevanished.
All the seats for this second night of Victoria Ray's short engagementwere sold at the Folies Bergeres, he found, from the dearest to thecheapest: but there was standing room still when Stephen arrived, and hesqueezed himself in among a group of light-hearted, long-haired studentsfrom the Latin Quarter. He had an hour to wait before Victoria Ray woulddance, but there was some clever conjuring to be seen, a famous singerof _chansons_ to be heard, and other performances which made the timepass well enough. Then, at last, it was the new dancer's "turn."
The curtain remained down for several minutes, as some scenicpreparation was necessary before her first dance. Gay French music wasplaying, and people chattered through it, or laughed in high Parisianvoices. A blue haze of smoke hung suspended like a thin veil, and theair was close, scented with tobacco and perfume. Stephen looked at hisprogramme, beginning to feel bored. His elbows were pressed against hissides by the crowd. Miss Ray was down for two dances, the Dance of theStatue and the Dance of the Shadow. The atmosphere of the placedepressed him. He doubted after all, that he would care for the dancing.But as he began to wish he had not come the curtain went up, to show thestudio of a sculptor, empty save for the artist's marble masterpieces.Through a large skylight, and a high window at the back of the stage, ared glow of sunset streamed into the bare room. In the shadowy cornersmarble forms were grouped, but in the centre, directly under the fullflood of rose-coloured light, the just finished statue of a girl stoodon a raised platform. She was looking up, and held a cup in one liftedhand, as if to catch the red wine of sunset. Her draperies, confined bya Greek ceinture under the young bust, fell from shoulder to foot inlong clear lines that seemed cut in gleaming stone. The illusion wasperfect. Even in that ruddy blaze the delicate, draped form appeared tobe of carved marble. It was almost impossible to believe it that of aliving woman, and its grace of outline and pose was so perfect thatStephen, in his love of beauty, dreaded the first movement which mustchange, if not break, the tableau. He said to himself that there wassome faint resemblance between this chiselled loveliness and the vividcharm of the pretty child he had met on the boat. He could imagine thata statue for which she had stood as model might look like this, thoughthe features seemed to his eye more regular than those of the girl.
As he gazed, the music, which had been rich and colourful, fell intosofter notes; and the rose-sunset faded to an opal twilight, purple toblue, blue to the silver of moonlight, the music changing as the lightchanged, until at last it was low and slumberous as the drip-drip of aplashing fountain. Then, into the dream of the music broke a sound likethe distant striking of a clock. It was midnight, and all the statuesin the sculptor's bare, white studio began to wake at the magic strokewhich granted them a few hours of life.
There was just a shimmer of movement in the dim corners. Marble limbsstirred, marble face turned slowly to gaze at marble face; yet, as ifthey could be only half awakened in the shadows where the life-givingdraught of moonlight might not flow, there was but the faintest flickerof white forms and draperies. It was the just finished statue of thegirl which felt the full thrill of moonshine and midnight. She wokerapturously, and drained the silver moon-wine in her cup (the music toldthe story of her first thought and living heart-beat): then down shestepped from the platform where the sculptor's tools still lay, andbegan to dance for the other statues who watched in the dusk, hushedback into stillness under the new spell of her enchantments.
Stephen had never seen anything like that dance. Many pretty _premieresdanseuses_ he had admired and applauded, charming and clever young womenof France, of Russia, of Italy, and Spain: and they had roused him andall London to enthusiasm over dances eccentric, original, exquisite, orwild. But never had there been anything like this. Stephen had not knownthat a dance could move him as this did. He was roused, even thrilled byits poetry, and the perfect beauty of its poses, its poises. It must, hesupposed, have been practised patiently, perhaps for years, yet itproduced the effect of being entirely unstudied. At all events, therewas nothing in the ordinary sense "professional" about it. One wouldsay--not knowing the supreme art of supreme grace--that a joyous child,born to the heritage of natural grace, might dance thus by sheerinspiration, in ecstasy of life and worship of the newly felt beauty ofearth. Stephen did know something of art, and the need of devotion toits study; yet he found it hard to realize that this awakened marbleloveliness had gone through the same performance week after week, monthafter month, in America and England. He preferred rather to let himselffancy that he was dreaming the whole thing; and he would gladly havedreamed on indefinitely, forgetting the smoky atmosphere, forgetting thelong-haired students and all the incongruous surroundings. The graciousdream gave him peace and pleasure such as he had not known since thebeginning of the Northmorland case.
Through the house there was a hush, unusual at the Folies Bergeres.People hardly knew what to make of the dances, so different from anyever seen in a theatre of Paris. Stephen was not alone in feeling thecurious dream-spell woven by music and perfection of beauty. But thelight changed. The moonlight slowly faded. Dancer and music faltered, inthe falling of the dark hour before dawn. The charm was waning. Softnotes died, and quavered in apprehension. The magic charm of the moonwas breaking, had broken: a crash of cymbals and the studio was dark.Then light began to glimmer once more, but it was the chill light ofdawn, and growing from purple to blue, from blue to rosy day, it showedthe marble statues fast locked in marble sleep again. On the platformstood the girl with uplifted arm, holding her cup, no
w, to catch thewine of sunrise; and on the delicately chiselled face was a faint smilewhich seemed to hide a secret. When the first ray of yellow sunshinegilded the big skylight, a door up-stage opened and the sculptor camein, wearing his workman's blouse. He regarded his handiwork, as thecurtain came down.
When the music of the dream had ceased and suddenly becameostentatiously puerile, the audience broke into a tumult of applause.Women clapped their hands furiously and many men shouted "brava, brava,"hoping that the curtain might rise once more on the picture; but it didnot rise, and Stephen was glad. The dream would have been vulgarized byrepetition.
For fully five minutes the orchestra played some gay tune which everyone there had heard a hundred times; but abruptly it stopped, as if ona signal. For an instant there was a silence of waiting and suspense,which roused interest and piqued curiosity. Then there began a delicatesymphony which could mean nothing but spring in a forest, and on thatthe curtain went up. The prophecy of the music was fulfilled, for thescene was a woodland in April, with young leaves a-flicker and blossomsin birth, the light song of the flutes and violins being the song ofbirds in love. All the trees were brocaded with dainty, gold-green lace,and daffodils sprouted from the moss at their feet.
The birds sang more gaily, and out from behind a silver-trunked beechtree danced a figure in spring green. Her arms were full of flowers,which she scattered as she danced, curtseying, mocking, beckoning theshadow that followed her along the daisied grass. Her little feet werebare, and flitted through the green folding of her draperies like whitenight-moths fluttering among rose leaves. Her hair fell over hershoulders, and curled below her waist. It was red hair that glitteredand waved, and she looked a radiant child of sixteen. Victoria Ray thedancer, and the girl on the Channel boat were one.