A DAY OF SPLEEN
Five o'clock in the afternoon. Rain since morning and a gray sky lowenough to be reached with an umbrella; the close weather which sticks.Mess, mud, nothing but mud, in heavy puddles, in shining trails in thegutters, vainly chased by the street-scrapers and the scavengers, heavedinto enormous carts which carry it slowly towards Montreuil--promenadingit in triumph through the streets, always moving, and always springingup again, growing through the pavements, splashing the panels of thecarriages, the breasts of the horses, the clothes of the passers-by,spattering the windows, the door-steps, the shop-fronts, till one fearedthat the whole of Paris would sink and disappear under this sorrowful,miry soil where everything dissolves and is lost in mud. And it movesone to pity to see the invasion of this dirt on the whiteness of the newhouses, on the parapets of the quays, and on the colonnades of the stonebalconies. There is some one, however, who rejoices at the sight, apoor, sick, weary being, lying all her length on a silk-embroidereddivan, her chin on her clinched fists. She is looking out gladly throughthe dripping windows and delighting in all the ugliness.
"Look, my fairy! this is indeed the weather I wanted to-day. See themdraggling along! Aren't they hideous? Aren't they dirty? What mire! Itis everywhere--in the streets, on the quays, right down to the Seine,right up to the heavens. I tell you, mud is good when one is sad. Iwould like to play in it, to make sculpture with it--a statue a hundredfeet high, that should be called 'My weariness.'"
"But why are you so miserable, dearest?" said the old dancer gently,amiable and pink, and sitting straight in her seat for fear ofdisarranging her hair, which was even more carefully dressed than usual."Haven't you everything to make you happy?" And for the hundredth timeshe enumerated in her tranquil voice the reasons for her happiness: herglory, her genius, her beauty, all the men at her feet, the handsomest,the greatest--oh! yes, the very greatest, as this very day--But aterrible howl, like the heart-rending cry of the jackal exasperated bythe monotony of his desert, suddenly made all the studio windows shake,and frightened the old and startled little chrysalis back into hercocoon.
A week ago, Felicia's group was finished and sent to the exhibition,leaving her in a state of nervous prostration, moral sickness, anddistressful exasperation. It needs all the tireless patience of thefairy, all the magic of her memories constantly evoked, to make lifesupportable beside this restlessness, this wicked anger, which growlsbeneath the girl's long silences and suddenly bursts out in a bitterword or in an "Ugh!" of disgust at everything. All the critics areasses. The public? An immense goitre with three rows of chains. And yet,the other Sunday, when the Duc de Mora came with the superintendent ofthe art section to see her exhibits in the studio, she was so happy, soproud of the praise they gave her, so fully delighted with her own work,which she admired from the outside, as though the work of some one else,now that her tools no longer created between her and her work that bondwhich makes impartial judgment so hard for the artist.
But it is like this every year. The studio stripped of her recent work,her glorious name once again thrown to the unexpected caprice of thepublic, Felicia's thoughts, now without a visible object, stray in theemptiness of her heart and in the hollowness of her life--that of thewoman who leaves the quiet groove--until she be engrossed in some newwork. She shuts herself up and will see no one, as though she mistrustedherself. Jenkins is the only person who can help her during theseattacks. He seems even to court them, as though he expected somethingtherefrom. She is not pleasant with him, all the same, goodness knows.Yesterday, even, he stayed for hours beside this wearied beauty withouther speaking to him once. If that be the welcome she is keeping for thegreat personage who is doing them the honour of dining with them--Herethe good Crenmitz, who is quietly turning over all these thoughts as shegazes at the bows on the pointed toes of her slippers, remembers thatshe has promised to make a dish of Viennese cakes for the dinner of thepersonage in question, and goes out of the studio, silently, on the tipsof her little feet.
The rain falls, the mud deepens; the beautiful sphinx lies still, hereyes lost in the dull horizon. What is she thinking of? What does shesee coming there, over those filthy roads, in the falling night, thather lip should take that curve of disgust and her brow that frown? Isshe waiting for her fate? A sad fate, that sets forth in such weather,fearless of the darkness and the dirt.
Some one comes into the studio with a heavier tread than the mouse-likestep of Constance--the little servant, doubtless; and, without lookinground, Felicia says roughly, "Go away! I don't want any one in."
"I should have liked to speak to you very much, all the same," says afriendly voice.
She starts, sits up. Mollified and almost smiling at this unexpectedvisitor, she says:
"What--you, young Minerva! How did you get in?"
"Very easily. All the doors are open."
"I am not surprised. Constance is crazy, since this morning, over herdinner."
"Yes, I saw. The anteroom is full of flowers. Who is coming?"
"Oh! a stupid dinner--an official dinner. I don't know how I could--Sitdown here, near me. I am so glad to see you."
Paul sat down, a little disturbed. She had never seemed to him sobeautiful. In the dusk of the studio, amid the shadowy brilliance of theworks of art, bronzes, and tapestries, her pallor was like a soft light,her eyes shone like precious stones, and her long, close-fitting gownrevealed the unrestraint of her goddess-like body. Then, she spoke soaffectionately, she seemed so happy because he had come. Why had hestayed away so long? It was almost a month since they had seen him. Werethey no longer friends? He excused himself as best he could--business,a journey. Besides, if he hadn't been there, he had often spoken ofher--oh, very often, almost every day.
"Really? And with whom?"
"With----"
He was going to say "With Aline Joyeuse," but a feeling of restraintstopped him, an undefinable sentiment, a sense of shame at pronouncingher name in the studio which had heard so many others. There are thingsthat do not go together, one scarcely knows why. Paul preferred to replywith a falsehood, which brought him at once to the object of his visit.
"With an excellent fellow to whom you have given very unnecessary pain.Come, why have you not finished the poor Nabob's bust? It was a greatjoy to him, such a very proud thing for him, to have that bust in theexhibition. He counted upon it."
At the Nabob's name she was slightly troubled.
"It is true," she said, "I broke my word. But what do you expect? I ammade of caprice. See, the cover is over it; all wet, so that the claydoes not harden."
"And the accident? You know, we didn't believe in it."
"Then you were wrong. I never lie. It had a fall, a most awful upset;only the clay was fresh, and I easily repaired it. Look!"
With a sweeping gesture she lifted the cover. The Nabob suddenlyappeared before them, his jolly face beaming with the pleasure of beingportrayed; so like, so tremendously himself, that Paul gave a cry ofadmiration.
"Isn't it good?" she said artlessly. "Still a few touches here andthere--" She had taken the chisel and the little sponge and pushed thestand into what remained of the daylight. "It could be done in a fewhours. But it couldn't go to the exhibition. To-day is the 22nd; all theexhibits have been in a long time."
"Bah! With influence----"
She frowned, and her bad expression came back, her mouth turning down.
"That's true. The _protege_ of the Duc de Mora. Oh! you have no need toapologize. I know what people say, and I don't care _that_--" and shethrew a little ball of clay at the wall, where it stuck, flat. "Perhapsmen, by dint of supposing the thing which is not--But let us leave theseinfamies alone," she said, holding up her aristocratic head. "I reallywant to please you, Minerva. Your friend shall go to the _Salon_ thisyear."
Just then a smell of caramel and warm pastry filled the studio, wherethe shadows were falling like a fine gray dust, and the fairy appeared,a dish of sweetmeats in her hand. She looked more fairy-like than ever,bed
ecked and rejuvenated; dressed in a white gown which showed herbeautiful arms through sleeves of old lace; they were beautiful still,for the arm is the beauty that fades last.
"Look at my _kuchen_, dearie; they are such a success this time. Oh! Ibeg your pardon. I did not see you had friends. And it is M. Paul! Howare you M. Paul? Taste one of my cakes."
And the charming old lady, whose dress seemed to lend her anextraordinary vivacity, came towards him, balancing the plate on thetips of her tiny fingers.
"Don't bother him. You can give him some at dinner," said Feliciaquietly.
"At dinner?"
The dancer was so astonished that she almost upset her pretty pastries,which looked as light and airy and delicious as herself.
"Yes, he is staying to dine with us. Oh! I beg it of you," she added,with a particular insistence as she saw he was going to refuse, "I begyou to stay. Don't say no. You will be rendering me a real service bystaying to-night. Come--I didn't hesitate a few minutes ago."
She had taken his hand; and in truth might have been struck by a strangedisproportion between her request and the supplicating, anxious tone inwhich it was made. Paul still attempted to excuse himself. He was notdressed. How could she propose it!--a dinner at which she would haveother guests.
"My dinner? But I will countermand it! That is the kind of person I am.We shall be alone, just the three of us, with Constance."
"But, Felicia, my child, you can't really think of such a thing. Ah,well! And the--the other who will be coming directly.
"I am going to write to him to stay at home, _parbleu_!"
"You unlucky being, it is too late."
"Not at all. It is striking six o'clock. The dinner was for half pastseven. You must have this sent to him quickly."
She was writing hastily at a corner of the table.
"What a strange girl, _mon Dieu! mon Dieu!_" murmured the dancer inbewilderment, while Felicia, delighted, transfigured, was joyouslysealing her letter.
"There! my excuse is made. Headaches have not been invented for Kadour."
Then, the letter having been despatched:
"Oh, how pleased I am! What a jolly evening we shall have! Do kiss me,Constance! It will not prevent us from doing honour to your _kuchen_,and we shall have the pleasure of seeing you in a pretty toilette whichmakes you look younger than I do."
This was more than was required to cause the dancer to forgive this newcaprice of her dear demon, and the crime of _lese-majeste_ in which shehad just been involved against her will. To treat so great a personageso cavalierly! There was no one like her in the world--there was no onelike her. As for Paul de Gery, he no longer tried to resist, under thespell once more of that attraction from which he had been able to fancyhimself released by absence, but which, from the moment he crossed thethreshold of the studio, had put chains on his will, delivered him over,bound and vanquished, to the sentiment which he was quite resolved tocombat.
Evidently the dinner--a repast for a veritable _gourmet_, superintendedby the Austrian lady in its least details--had been prepared for a guestof great mark. From the lofty Kabyle chandelier with its seven branchesof carved wood, which cast its light over the table-cloth covered withembroidery, to the long-necked decanters holding the wines within theirstrange and exquisite form, the sumptuous magnificence of the service,the delicacy of the meats, to which edge was given by a certainunusualness in their selection, revealed the importance of the expectedvisitor, the anxiety which there had been to please him. The table wascertainly that of an artist. Little silver, but superb china, much unityof effect, without the least attempt at matching. The old Rouen, thepink Sevres, the Dutch glass mounted in old filigree pewter met on thistable as on a sideboard devoted to the display of rare curios collectedby a connoisseur exclusively for the satisfaction of his taste. A littledisorder naturally, in this household equipped at hazard, as choicethings could be picked up. The wonderful cruet-stand had lost itsstoppers. The chipped salt-cellar allowed its contents to escape on thetable-cloth, and at every moment you would hear, "Why! what is become ofthe mustard-pot?" "What has happened to this fork?" This embarrassed deGery a little on account of the young mistress of the house, who for herpart took no notice of it.
But something made Paul feel still more ill at ease--his anxiety,namely, to know who the privileged guest might be whom he was replacingat this table, who could be treated at once with so much magnificenceand so complete an informality. In spite of everything, he felthim present, an offence to his personal dignity, that visitor whoseinvitation had been cancelled. It was in vain that he tried to forgethim; everything brought him back to his mind, even the fine dress of thegood fairy sitting opposite him, who still maintained some of the grandairs with which she had equipped herself in advance for the solemnoccasion. This thought troubled him, spoiled for him the pleasure ofbeing there.
On the other hand, by contrast, as it happens in all friendshipsbetween two people who meet very rarely, never had he seen Felicia soaffectionate, in such happy temper. It was an overflowing gaiety thatwas almost childish, one of those warm expansions of feeling that areexperienced when a danger has been passed, the reaction of a brightroaring fire after the emotion of a shipwreck. She laughed heartily,teased Paul about his accent and what she called his _bourgeois_ ideas."For you are a terrible _bourgeois_, you know. But it is that that Ilike in you. It is an effect of contraries, doubtless; it is because Imyself was born under a bridge, in a gust of wind, that I have alwaysliked sedate, reasonable natures."
"Oh, my child, what are you going to have M. Paul think, that you wereborn under a bridge?" said the good Crenmitz, who could not accustomherself to the exaggeration of certain metaphors, and always tookeverything literally.
"Let him think what he likes, my fairy. We are not trying to catch himfor a husband. I am sure he would not want one of those monsters who areknown as female artists. He would think he was marrying the devil. Youare quite right, Minerva. Art is a despot. One has to give one's selfentirely up to him. To toil in his service, one devotes all the ideal,all the energy, honesty, conscience, that one possesses, so that youhave none of these things left for real life, and the completed labourthrows you down, strengthless and without a compass, like a dismantledhulk at the mercy of every wave. A sorry acquisition, such a wife!"
"And yet," the young man hazarded timidly, "it seems to me that art,however exigent it be, cannot for all that entirely absorb a woman.What would she do with her affections, of that need to love, to devoteherself, which in her, much more than in us, is the spring of all heractions?"
She mused a moment before replying.
"Perhaps you are right, wise Minerva. It is true that there are dayswhen my life rings terribly hollow. I am conscious of abysses, profoundchasms in it. Everything that I throw in to fill it up disappears. Myfinest enthusiasms of the artist are engulfed there and die each timein a sigh. And then I think of marriage. A husband; children--a swarm ofchildren, who would roll about the studio; a nest to look after for themall; the satisfaction of that physical activity which is lacking inour existences of artists; regular occupations; high spirits, songs,innocent gaieties, which would oblige you to play instead of thinking inthe air, in the dark--to laugh at a wound to one's self-love, to beonly a contented mother on the day when the public should see you as aworn-out, exhausted artist."
And before this tender vision the girl's beauty took on an expressionwhich Paul had never seen in it before, an expression which gripped hiswhole being, and gave him a mad longing to carry off in his arms thatbeautiful wild bird, dreaming of the home-cote, to protect and shelterit in the sure love of an honest man.
She, without looking at him, continued:
"I am not so erratic as I appear; don't think it. Ask my good godmotherif, when she sent me to boarding-school, I did not observe the rules.But what a muddle in my life afterward. If you knew what sort of anearly youth I had; how precocious an experience tarnished my mind, inthe head of the little girl I was, what a confusion
of the permitted andthe forbidden, of reason and folly! Art alone, extolled and discussed,stood out boldly from among it all, and I took refuge in it. That isperhaps why I shall never be anything but an artist, a woman apartfrom others, a poor Amazon with heart imprisoned in her iron cuirass,launched into the conflict like a man, and as a man condemned to liveand die."
Why did he not say to her, at this:
"Beauteous lady-warrior, lay down your arms, resume the flowing robe andthe graces of the woman's sphere. I love you! Marry me, I implore you,and win happiness both for yourself and for me."
Ah, there it is! He was afraid lest the other--you know him, the man whowas to have come to dinner that evening and who remained between themdespite his absence--should hear him speak thus and be in a position tojest at or to pity him for that fine outburst.
"In any case, I firmly swear one thing," she resumed, "and it is that ifever I have a daughter, I will try to make a true woman of her, and nota poor lonely creature like myself. Oh! you know, my fairy, it is notfor you that I say that. You have always been kind to your demon, fullof attentions and tenderness. But just see how pretty she is, how youngshe looks this evening."
Animated by the meal, the bright lights, one of those white dresses thereflection from which effaces wrinkles, the Crenmitz, leaning backin her chair, held up on a level with her half-closed eyes a glass ofChateau-Yquem, come from the cellar of the neighbouring Moulin-Rouge;and her dainty little rosy face, her flowing garments, like those youmight see in some pastel, reflected in the golden wine, which lent tothem its own piquant fervour, recalled to mind the quondam heroine ofgay little suppers after the theatre, the Crenmitz of the brave olddays--not an audacious creature after the manner of the stars of ourmodern opera, but unconscious, and wrapped in her luxury like a finepearl in the delicate whiteness of its shell. Felicia, who decidedlythat evening was anxious to please everybody, turned her mind gentlyto the chapter of recollections; got her to recount once more her greattriumphs in _Gisella_, in the _Peri_, and the ovations of the public;the visit of the princes to her dressing-room; the present of QueenAmelia, accompanied by such a charming little speech. The recalling ofthese glories intoxicated the poor fairy; her eyes shone; they heardher little feet moving impatiently under the table as though seized bya dancing frenzy. And in effect, dinner over, when they had returned tothe studio, Constance began to walk backward and forward, now andthen half executing a step, a pirouette, while continuing to talk,interrupting herself to hum some ballad air of which she would keepthe rhythm with a movement of the head; then suddenly she bent herselfdouble, and with a bound was at the other end of the studio.
"Now she is off!" said Felicia in a low voice to de Gery. "Watch! It isworth your while; you are going to see the Crenmitz dance."
It was charming and fairy-like. Against the background of the immenseroom lost in shadow and receiving almost no light save through thearched glass roof over which the moon was climbing in a pale sky ofnight blue, a veritable sky of the opera, the silhouette of the famousdancer stood out all white, like a droll little shadow, light andimponderable, which seemed rather to be flying in the air than springingover the floor; then, erect upon the tips of her toes, supported in theair only by her extended arms, her face lifted in an elusive pose, whichleft nothing visible but the smile, she advanced quickly towards thelight or fled away with little rushes so rapid that you were constantlyexpecting to hear a slight shivering of glass and to see her thus mountbackward the slope of the great moonbeam that lay aslant the studio.That which added a charm, a singular poetry, to this fantastic balletwas the absence of music, the sound alone of the rhythmical beat theforce of which was accentuated by the semi-darkness, of that quick andlight tapping not heavier on the parquet floor than the fall, petal bypetal, of a dahlia going out of bloom.
Thus it went on for some minutes, at the end of which they knew, byhearing her shorter breathing, that she was becoming fatigued.
"Enough! enough! Sit down now," said Felicia. Thereupon the little whiteshadow halted beside an easy chair, and there remained posed, readyto start off again, smiling and breathless, until sleep overcame her,rocking and balancing her gently without disturbing her pretty pose,as of a dragon-fly on the branch of a willow dipping in the water andswayed by the current.
While they watched her, dozing on her easy chair:
"Poor little fairy!" said Felicia, "hers is what I have had best andmost serious in my life in the way of friendship, protection, andguardianship. Can you wonder now at the zig-zags, the erratic nature ofmy mind? Fortunate at that, to have gone no further."
And suddenly, with a joyous effusion of feeling:
"Ah, Minerva, Minerva, I am very glad that you came this evening! Butyou must not leave me to myself for so long again, mind. I need to havenear me an honest mind like yours, to see a true face among the masksthat surround me. A fearful _bourgeois_, all the same," she added,laughing, "and a provincial into the bargain. But no matter! It is you,for all that, whom it gives me the most pleasure to see. And I believethat my liking for you is due especially to one thing: you remind me ofsome one who was the great affection of my youth, a sedate and sensiblelittle being she also, chained to the matter-of-fact side of existence,but tempering it with that ideal element which we artists set asideexclusively for the profit of our work. Certain things which you sayseem to me as though they had come from her. You have the same mouth,like an antique model's. Is it that that gives this resemblance to yourwords? I have no idea, but most certainly you are like each other. Youshall see."
On the table laden with sketches and albums, at which she was sittingfacing him, she drew, as she talked, with brow inclined and her ratherwild curly hair shading her graceful little head. She was no longer thebeautiful couchant monster, with the anxious and gloomy countenance,condemning her own destiny, but a woman, a true woman, in love, andeager to beguile. This time Paul forgot all his mistrusts in presenceof so much sincerity and such passing grace. He was about to speak, topersuade. The minute was decisive. But the door opened and the littlepage appeared. M. le Duc had sent to inquire whether mademoiselle wasstill suffering from her headache of earlier in the evening.
"Still just as much," she said with irritation.
When the servant had gone out, a moment of silence fell between them,a glacial coldness. Paul had risen. She continued her sketch, with herhead still bowed.
He took a few paces in the studio; then, having come back to the table,he asked quietly, astonished to feel himself so calm:
"It was the Duc de Mora who was to have dined here?"
"Yes. I was bored--a day of spleen. Days of that kind are bad for me."
"Was the duchess to have come?"
"The duchess? No. I don't know her."
"Well, in your place I would never receive in my house, at my table, amarried man whose wife I did not meet. You complain of being deserted;why desert yourself? When one is without reproach, one should avoid thevery suspicion of it. Do I vex you?"
"No, no, scold me, Minerva. I have no objection to your ethics. Theyare honest and frank, yours; they do not blink uncertain, like those ofJenkins. I told you, I need some one to guide me."
And tossing over to him the sketch which she had just finished:
"See, that is the friend of whom I was speaking to you. A profound andsure affection, which I was foolish enough to allow to be lost to me,like the bungler I am. She it was to whom I appealed in moments ofdifficulty, when a decision required to be taken, some sacrifice made. Iused to say to myself, 'What will she think of this?' just as we artistsmay stop in the midst of a piece of work to refer it mentally to somegreat man, one of our masters. I must have you take her place for me.Will you?"
Paul did not answer. He was looking at the portrait of Aline. It wasshe, herself to the letter; her pure profile, her mocking and kindlymouth, and the long curl like a caress on the delicate neck. Felicia hadceased to exist for him.
Poor Felicia, endowed with superior talents, she was indee
d like thosemagicians who knot and unknot the destinies of men, without possessingany power over their own happiness.
"Will you give me this sketch?" he said in a low, quivering voice.
"Most willingly. She is nice--isn't she? Ah! her indeed, if you shouldmeet, love her, marry her. She is worth more than all the rest ofwomankind together. And yet, failing her--failing her----"
And the beautiful sphinx, tamed, raised to him, moist and laughing, hergreat eyes, in which an enigma had ceased to be indecipherable.