FELICIA RUYS
"And your son, Jenkins. What are you doing with him? Why does one neversee him now at your house? He seemed a nice fellow."
As she spoke in that tone of disdainful bluntness which she almostalways used when speaking to the Irishman, Felicia was at work on thebust of the Nabob which she had just commenced, posing her model, layingdown and taking up the boasting-tool, quickly wiping her fingers withthe little sponge, while the light and peace of a fine Sunday afternoonfell on the top-light of the studio. Felicia "received" every Sunday,if to receive were to leave her door open to allow people to come in,go out, sit down for a moment, without stirring from her work or eveninterrupting the course of a discussion to welcome the new arrivals.They were artists, with refined heads and luxuriant beards; here andthere you might see among them white-haired friends of Ruys, her father;then there were society men, bankers, stock-brokers, and a few young menabout town, come to see the handsome girl rather than her sculpture, inorder to be able to say at the club in the evening, "I was at Felicia'sto-day." Among them was Paul de Gery, silent, absorbed in an admirationwhich each day sunk into his heart a little more deeply, trying tounderstand the beautiful sphinx draped in purple cashmere and ecru lace,who worked away bravely amid her clay, a burnisher's apron reachingnearly to her neck, allowing her small, proud head to emerge with thosetransparent tones, those gleams of veiled radiance of which the sense,the inspiration bring the blood to the cheek as they pass. Paul alwaysremembered what had been said of her in his presence, endeavoured toform an opinion for himself, doubted, worried himself, and was charmed,vowing to himself each time that he would come no more and never missinga Sunday. A little woman with gray, powdered hair was always there inthe same place, her pink face like a pastel somewhat worn by years, who,in the discrete light of a recess, smiled sweetly, with her hands lyingidly on her knees, motionless as a fakir. Jenkins, amiable, with hisopen face, his black eyes, and his apostolical manner, moved on from onegroup to another, liked and known by all. He did not miss, either, oneof Felicia's days; and, indeed, he showed his patience in this, all thesnubs of his hostess both as artist and pretty woman being reserved forhim alone. Without appearing to notice them, with ever the same smiling,indulgent serenity, he continued to pay his visits to the daughter ofhis old Ruys, of the man whom he had so loved and tended to his lastmoments.
This time, however, the question which Felicia had just addressed to himrespecting his son appeared extremely disagreeable to him, and it waswith a frown and a real expression of annoyance that he replied:"Ma foi! I know no more than yourself what he is doing. He has quitedeserted us. He was bored at home. He cares only for his Bohemia."
Felicia gave a jump that made them all start, and with flashing eyes andnostrils that quivered, said:
"That is too absurd. Ah, now, come, Jenkins. What do you mean byBohemia? A charming word, by-the-bye, and one that ought to recall longdays of wandering in the sun, halts in woody nooks, all the freshness offruits gathered by the open road. But since you have made a reproach ofthe name, to whom do you apply it? To a few poor devils with long hair,in love with liberty in rags, who starve to death in a fifth-floorgarret, or seek rhymes under tiles through which the rain filters;to those madmen, growing more and more rare, who, from horror of thecustomary, the traditional, the stupidity of life, have put their feettogether and made a jump into freedom? Come, that is too old a story.It is the Bohemia of Murger, with the workhouse at the end, terror ofchildren, boon of parents, Red Riding-Hood eaten by the wolf. It wasworn out a long time ago, that story. Nowadays, you know well thatartists are the most regular people in their habits on earth, that theyearn money, pay their debts, and contrive to look like the first man youmay meet on the street. The true Bohemians exist, however; they are thebackbone of our society; but it is in your own world especially thatthey are to be found. _Parbleu!_ They bear no external stamp andnobody distrusts them; but, so far as uncertainty, want of substantialfoundation in their lives is concerned, they have nothing to wish forfrom those whom they call so disdainfully 'irregulars.' Ah! if weknew how much turpitude, what fantastic or abominable stories, a blackevening-coat, the most correct of your hideous modern garments, canmask. Why, see, Jenkins, the other evening at your house I was amusingmyself by counting them--all these society adventurers--"
The little old lady, pink and powdered, put in gently from her place:
"Felicia, take care!"
But she continued, without listening:
"What do you call Monpavon, doctor? And Bois l'Hery? And de Morahimself? And--" She was going to say "and the Nabob?" but stoppedherself.
"And how many others! Oh, truly, you may well speak of Bohemia withcontempt. But your fashionable doctor's clientele, oh sublime Jenkins,consists of that very thing alone. The Bohemia of commerce, of finance,of politics; unclassed people, shady people of all castes, and thehigher one ascends the more you find of them, because rank givesimpunity and wealth can pay for rude silence."
She spoke with a hard tone, greatly excited, with lip curled by a savagedisdain. The doctor forced a laugh and assumed a light, condescendingtone, repeating: "Ah, feather-brain, feather-brain!" And his glance,anxious and beseeching, sought the Nabob, as though to demand his pardonfor all these paradoxical impertinences.
But Jansoulet, far from appearing vexed, was so proud of posing to thishandsome artist, so appreciative of the honour that was being done him,that he nodded his head approvingly.
"She is right, Jenkins," said he at last, "she is right. It is we whoare the true Bohemia. Take me, for example; take Hemerlingue, two of themen who handle the most money in Paris. When I think of the point fromwhich we started, of all the trades through which we have made our way.Hemerlingue, once keeper of a regimental canteen. I, who have carriedsacks of wheat in the docks of Marseilles for my living. And the strokesof luck by which our fortunes have been built up--as all fortunes,moreover, in these times are built up. Go to the Bourse between threeand five. But, pardon, mademoiselle, see, through my absurd habit ofgesticulating when I speak, I have lost the pose. Come, is this right?"
"It is useless," said Felicia. A true daughter of an artist, of a genialand dissolute artist, thoroughly in the romantic tradition, as wasSebastien Ruys. She had never known her mother. She was the fruit of oneof those transient loves which used to enter suddenly into the bachelorlife of the sculptor like swallows into a dovecote of which the door isalways open, and who leave it again because no nest can be built there.
This time, the lady, ere she flew away, had left to the great artist,then about forty years of age, a beautiful child whom he had broughtup, and who became the joy and the passion of his life. Until shewas thirteen, Felicia had lived in her father's house, introducing achildish and tender note into that studio full of idlers, models, andhuge greyhounds lying at full length on the couches. There was a cornerreserved for her, for her attempts at sculpture, a whole miniatureequipment, a tripod, wax, etc., and old Ruys would cry to those whoentered:
"Don't go there. Don't move anything. That is the little one's corner."
So it came about that at ten years old she scarcely knew how to read andcould handle the boasting-tool with marvellous skill. Ruys would haveliked to keep always with him this child whom he never felt to be in theway, a member of the great brotherhood from her earliest years. Butit was pitiful to see the little girl amid the free behaviour of thefrequenters of the house, the constant going and coming of the models,the discussions of an art, so to speak, entirely physical, and even atthe noisy Sunday dinner-parties, sitting among five or six women, to allof whom her father spoke familiarly. There were actresses, dancers orsingers, who, after dinner, would settle themselves down to smoke withtheir elbows on the table absorbed in the indecent stories so keenlyrelished by their host. Fortunately, childhood is protected by aresisting candour, by an enamel over which all impurities glide. Feliciabecame noisy, turbulent, ill-behaved, but without being touched by allthat passed over her little soul so near to
earth.
Every year, in the summer, she used to go to stay for a few days withher godmother, Constance Crenmitz, the elder Crenmitz, whom all Europehad called for so long "the famous dancer," and who lived in peacefulretirement at Fontainebleau.
The arrival of the "little demon" used to bring into the life of the olddancer an element of disturbance from which she had afterward all theyear to recover. The frights which the child caused her by her daringin climbing, in jumping, in riding, all the passionate transports ofher wild nature made this visit for her at once delicious and terrible;delicious for she adored Felicia, the one family tie that remained tothis poor old salamander in retirement after thirty years of flutteringin the glare of the footlights; terrible, for the demon used to upsetwithout pity the dancer's house, decorated, carefully ordered, perfumed,like her dressing-room at the opera, and adorned with a museum ofsouvenirs dated from every stage in the world.
Constance Crenmitz was the one feminine element in Felicia's childhood.Futile, limited in mind, she had at least a coquettish taste, agilefingers that knew how to sew, to embroider, to arrange things, to leavein every corner of the room their dainty and individual trace. Shealone undertook to train up the wild young plant, and to awaken withdiscretion the woman in this strange being on whom cloaks, furs,everything elegant devised by fashion, seemed to take odd folds or lookcuriously awkward.
It was the dancer again--in what neglect must she not have lived, thislittle Ruys--who, triumphing over the paternal selfishness, insistedupon a necessary separation, when Felicia was twelve or thirteen yearsold; and she took also the responsibility of finding a suitable school,a school which she selected of deliberate purpose, very comfortable andvery respectable, right at the upper end of an airy road, occupying aroomy, old-world building surrounded by high walls, big trees, a sort ofconvent without its constraint and contempt of serious studies.
Much work, on the contrary, was done in Mme. Belin's institution,where the pupils went out only on the principal holidays and had nocommunication with outside except the visits of relatives on Thursdays,in a little garden planted with flowering shrubs or in the immenseparlour with carved and gilded work over its doors. The first entryof Felicia into this almost monastic house caused indeed a certainsensation; her dresses chosen by the Austrian dancer, her hair curlingto her waist, her gait free and easy like a boy's, aroused somehostility, but she was a Parisian and could adapt herself quickly toevery situation and to all surroundings. A few days later, she lookedbetter than any one in the little black apron, to which the morecoquettish were wont to hang their watches, the straight skirt--a severeand hard prescription at that period when fashion expanded women'sfigures with an infinity of flounces--the regulation coiffure, twoplaits tied rather low, at the neck, after the manner of the Romanpeasants.
Strange to say, the regularity of the classes, their calm exactitude,suited Felicia's nature, intelligent and quick, in which the tastefor study was relieved by a juvenile expansion at ease in the noisygood-humour of playtime. She was popular. Among those daughters ofwealthy businessmen, of Parisian lawyers or of gentlemen-farmers, arespectable and rather affectedly serious world, the well-known nameof old Ruys, the respect with which at Paris an artist's reputation issurrounded, created for Felicia a greatly envied position, rendered morebrilliant still by her successes in the school-work, a genuine talentfor drawing, and her beauty, that superiority which asserts itspower even among young girls. In the wholesale atmosphere of theboarding-school, she was conscious of an extreme pleasure as she grewfeminized, in resuming her sex, in learning to know order, regularity,otherwise than these were taught by that amiable dancer whose kissesseemed always to keep the taste of paint and her embraces somewhatartificial in the curving of her arms. Ruys, her father, was enrapturedeach time that he came to see his daughter, to find her more grown,womanly, knowing how to enter, to walk, and to leave a room with thatpretty courtesy which caused all Mme. Belin's pupils to long for thetrailing rustle of a long skirt.
At first he came often, then, as he had not time enough for all hiscommissions, accepted and undertaken, the advances on which went to payfor the scrapes, the pleasures of his existence, he was seen more seldomin the parlour. Finally, sickness intervened. Stricken by an incurableanaemia, he would remain for weeks without leaving his house, withoutdoing any work. Thereupon he wished to have his daughter with him again;and from the boarding-school, sheltered by so healthy a tranquility,Felicia returned once more to her father's studio, haunted still by thesame boon companions, the parasites which swarm around every celebrity,into the midst of which sickness had introduced a new personage, Dr.Jenkins.
His fine open countenance, the air of candour, of serenity that seemedto dwell about the person of this physician, already famous, who waswont to speak of his art so carelessly and yet seemed to work miraculouscures, the care with which he surrounded her father, these things madea great impression on the young girl. Jenkins became immediately herfriend, confidant, a vigilant and kind guardian. Occasionally, when,in the studio, somebody--her father most likely of all--uttered a riskyjest, the Irishman would contract his eyebrows, give a little click ofthe tongue, or perhaps distract Felicia's attention.
He often used to take her to pass the day with Mme. Jenkins,endeavouring to prevent her from becoming again the wild young thing shewas before going to school, or even something worse, as she threatenedto do in the moral neglect, sadder than all other, in which she wasleft.
But the young girl had as a protection something even better than theirreproachable and worldly example of the handsome Mme. Jenkins: the artthat she adored, the enthusiasm which it implanted in her nature whollyoccupied with outside things, the sentiment of beauty, of truth, which,from her thoughtful brain, full of ideas, passed into her fingers witha little quivering of the nerves, a desire of the idea accomplished, ofthe realized image. All day long she would work at her sculpture, givingshape to her dreams with that happiness of instinctive youth whichlends so much charm to early work; this prevented her from any excessiveregret for the austerity of the Belin institution, sheltering and lightas the veil of a novice before her vows, and preserved her also fromdangerous conversations, unheard amid her unique preoccupation.
Ruys was proud of this talent growing up at his side. Growing every dayfeebler, already at that stage in which the artist regrets himself, hefound in following Felicia's progress a certain consolation for hisown ended career. He saw the boasting-tool, which trembled in his hand,taken up again under his eye with a virile firmness and assurance,tempered by all those delicacies of her being which a woman can apply tothe realization of an art. A strange sensation, this double paternity,this survival of genius as it abandons the man whose day is over to passinto him who is at his dawn, like those beautiful, familiar birds which,on the eve of a death, will desert the menaced roof to fly away to aless mournful lodging.
During the last period of her father's life, Felicia--a great artist andstill a mere child--used to execute half of his works; and nothing wasmore touching than this collaboration of father and daughter, in thesame studio, around the same group. The operation did not always proceedpeaceably; although her father's pupil, Felicia already felt herown personality rebel against any despotic direction. She had thoseaudacities of the beginner, those intuitions of the future which are theheritage of young talents, and, in opposition to the romantic traditionsof Sebastien Ruys, a tendency to modern realism, a need to plant thatglorious old flag upon some new monument.
These things were the occasion of terrible arguments, of discussionsfrom which the father came out beaten, conquered by his daughter'slogic, astonished at the progress made by the young, while the old, whohave opened the way for them, remain motionless at the point from whichthey started. When she was working for him, Felicia would yield moreeasily; but, where her own sculpture was concerned she was found tobe intractable. Thus the _Joueur de Boules_, her first exhibited work,which obtained so great a success at the Salon of 1862, was the subjectof v
iolent scenes between the two artists, of contradictions so strong,that Jenkins had to intervene and help to secure the safety of theplaster-cast which Ruys had threatened to destroy.
Apart from such little dramas, which in no way affected the tendernessof their hearts, these two beings adored each other with thepresentiment and, gradually, the cruel certitude of an approachingseparation, when suddenly there occurred in Felicia's life a horribleevent. One day, Jenkins had taken her to dine at his house, as oftenhappened. Mme. Jenkins was away on a couple of days' visit, as also herson; but the doctor's age, his semi-paternal intimacy, allowed him tohave with him, even in his wife's absence, this young girl whose fifteenyears, the fifteen years of an Eastern Jewess glorious in her precociousbeauty, left her still near childhood.
The dinner was very gay, and Jenkins pleasant and cordial as usual.Afterwards they went into the doctor's study, and suddenly, on thecouch, in the middle of an intimate and quite friendly conversationabout her father, his health, their work together, Felicia felt as itwere the chill of a gulf between herself and this man, then the brutalgrasp of a faun. She beheld an unknown Jenkins, wild-looking, stammeringwith a besotted laugh and outraging hands. In the surprise, theunexpectedness of this bestial attack, any other than Felicia--a childof her own age, really innocent, would have been lost. As for her, poorlittle thing! what saved her was her knowledge. She had heard so manystories of this kind of thing at her father's table! and then art,and the life of the studio--She was not an _ingenue_. In a moment sheunderstood the object of this grasp, struggled, sprang up, then, notbeing strong enough, cried out. He was afraid, released his hold, andsuddenly she found herself standing up, free, with the man on his kneesweeping and begging forgiveness. He had yielded to a fit of madness.She was so beautiful; he loved her so much. For months he had beenstruggling. But now it was over, never again, oh, never again! Noteven would he so much as touch the hem of her dress. She made no reply,trembled, put her hair and her clothes straight again with the fingersof a woman demented. To go home--she wished to go home instantly, quitealone. He sent a servant with her; and, quite low, as she was gettinginto the carriage, whispered:
"Above all, not a word. It would kill your father."
He knew her so well, he was so sure of his power over her through thatsuggestion, the blackguard! that he returned on the morrow lookingbright as ever and with loyal face as though nothing had happened. Infact, she never spoke of the matter to her father, nor to any one. But,dating from that day, a change came over her, a sudden development, asit were, of her haughty ways. She was subject to caprices, wearinesses,a curl of disgust in her smile, and sometimes quick fits of angeragainst her father, a glance of contempt which reproached him for nothaving known how to watch over her.
"What is the matter with her?" Ruys, her father, used to say; andJenkins, with the authority of a doctor, would put it down to her ageand some physical disturbance. He avoided speaking to the girl herself,counting on time to efface the sinister impression, and not despairingof attaining his end, for he desired it still, more than ever, prey tothe exasperated love of a man of forty-seven to one of those incurablepassions of maturity; and that was this hypocrite's punishment. Thisunusual condition of his daughter was a real grief to the sculptor; butthis grief was of short duration. Without warning, Ruys flickered out oflife, fell to pieces in a moment, as was the way with all the Irishman'spatients. His last words were:
"Jenkins, I beg you to look after my daughter."
They were so ironically mournful that Jenkins could not prevent himselffrom turning pale.
Felicia was even more stupefied than grief-stricken. To the amazementcaused by death, which she had never seen and which now came before herwearing features so dear, there was joined the sense of a vast solitudesurrounded by darkness and perils.
A few of the sculptor's friends gathered together as a family councilto consider the future of this unfortunate child without relatives orfortune. Fifty francs had been discovered in the box where Sebastienused to put his money, on a piece of the studio furniture well known toits needy frequenters and visited by them without scruple. There wasno other inheritance, at least in cash; only a quantity of artisticand curious furniture of the most sumptuous description, a few valuablepictures, and a certain amount of money owing but scarcely sufficingto cover numberless debts. It was proposed to organize a sale. Felicia,when she was consulted, replied that she would not care if everythingwere sold, but, for God's sake, let them leave her in peace.
The sale did not take place, however, thanks to the godmother, theexcellent Crenmitz, who suddenly made her appearance, calm and gentle asusual.
"Don't listen to them, my child. Sell nothing. Your old Constance hasan income of fifteen thousand francs, which was destined to come to youlater on. You will take advantage of it at once, that is all. We willlive here together. You will see, I shall not be in the way. You willwork at your sculpture, I shall manage the house. Does that suit you?"
It was said so tenderly, with that childishness of accent whichforeigners have when expressing themselves in French, that the girlwas deeply moved. Her heart that had seemed turned to stone opened, aburning flood came pouring from her eyes, and she rushed, flung herselfinto the arms of the dancer. "Ah, godmother, how good you are to me!Yes, yes, don't leave me any more. Stay with me always. Life frightensand disgusts me. I see so much hypocrisy in it, so much falsehood." Andthe old woman arranged for herself a silken and embroidered nest in thishouse so like a traveller's camp laden with treasures from every land,and the suggested dual life began for these two different natures.
It was no small sacrifice that Constance had made for the dear demon inquitting her Fontainebleau retreat for Paris, which inspired her withterror. Ever since the day when this dancer, with her extravagantcaprices, who made princely fortunes flow and disappear through her fiveopen fingers, had descended from her triumphant position, a little ofits dazzling glitter still in her eyes, and had attempted to resumean ordinary existence, to manage her little income and her modesthousehold, she had been the object of a thousand impudent exploitations,of frauds that were easy in view of the ignorance of this poor butterflythat was frightened by reality and came into collision with all itsunknown difficulties. Living in Felicia's house, the responsibilitybecame still more serious by reason of the wastefulness introduced longago by the father and continued by the daughter, two artists knowingnothing of economy. She had, moreover, other difficulties to conquer.She found the studio insupportable with its permanent atmosphere oftobacco smoke, an impenetrable cloud for her, in which the discussionson art, the analysis of ideas, were lost and which infallibly gave her aheadache. "Chaff," above all, frightened her. As a foreigner, as atone time a divinity of the green-room, brought up on out-of-datecompliments, on gallantries _a la Dorat_, she did not understand it,and would feel terrified in the presence of the wild exaggerations, theparadoxes of these Parisians refined by the liberty of the studio.
That kind of thing was intimidating to her who had never possessed witsave in the vivacity of her feet, and reduced her simply to the rank ofa lady-companion; and, seeing this amiable old dame sitting, silent andsmiling, her knitting in her lap, like one of Chardin's _bourgeoises_,or hastening by the side of her cook up the long Rue de Chaillot, wherethe nearest market happened to be, one would never have guessed thatthat simple old body had ruled kings, princes, the whole classof amorous nobles and financiers, at the caprice of her step andpirouettings.
Paris is full of such fallen stars, extinguished by the crowd.
Some of these famous ones, these conquerors of a former day, cherish arage in their heart; others, on the contrary, enjoy the past blissfully,digest in an ineffable content all their glorious and ended joys, askingonly repose, silence, shadow, good enough for memory and contemplations,so that when they die people are quite astonished to learn that they hadbeen still living.
Constance Crenmitz was among these fortunate ones. The household ofthese two women was a curious one.
Both were childlike, placing side byside in a common domain, inexperience and ambition, the tranquility ofan accomplished destiny and the fever of a life plunged in struggle,all the different qualities manifest even in the serene style of dressaffected by this blonde who seemed all white like a faded rose,with something beneath her bright colours that vaguely suggested thefootlights, and that brunette with the regular features, who almostalways clothed her beauty in dark materials, simple in fold, asemblance, as it were, of virility.
Things unforeseen, caprices, ignorance of even the least importantdetails, led to an extreme disorder in the finances of the household,disorder which was only rectified by dint of privations, by thedismissal of servants, by reforms that were laughable in theirexaggeration. During one of these crises, Jenkins had made veileddelicate offers, which, however, were repulsed with contempt by Felicia.
"It is not nice of you," Constance would remark to her, "to be sohard on the poor doctor. After all, there was nothing offensive in hissuggestion. An old friend of your father."
"He, any one's friend! Ah, the hypocrite!"
And Felicia, hardly able to contain herself, would give an ironical turnto her wrath, imitating Jenkins with his oily manner and his hand on hisheart; then, puffing out her cheeks, she would say in a loud, deep voicefull of lying unction:
"Let us be humane, let us be kind. To do good without hope of reward!That is the whole point."
Constance used to laugh till the tears came, in spite of herself. Theresemblance was so perfect.
"All the same, you are too hard. You will end by driving him awayaltogether."
"Little fear of that," a shake of the girl's head would reply.
In effect he always came back, pleasant, amiable, dissimulating hispassion, which was visible only when it grew jealous of newcomers,paying assiduous attention to the old dancer, who, in spite ofeverything, found his good-nature pleasing and recognised in him a manof her own time, of the time when one accosted a woman with a kiss onher hand, with a compliment on her appearance.
One morning, Jenkins having called in the course of his round, foundConstance alone and doing nothing in the antechamber.
"You see, doctor, I am on guard," she remarked tranquilly.
"How is that?"
"Felicia is at work. She wishes not to be disturbed; and the servantsare so stupid, I am myself seeing that her orders are obeyed."
Then, seeing that the Irishman made a step towards the studio:
"No, no, don't go in. She told me very particularly not to let any onego in."
"But I?"
"I beg you not. You would get me a scolding."
Jenkins was about to take his leave when a burst of laughter fromFelicia, coming through the curtains, made him prick up his ears.
"She is not alone, then?"
"No, the Nabob is with her. They are having a sitting for the portrait."
"And why this mystery? It is a very singular thing." He commenced towalk backward and forward, evidently very angry, but containing hiswrath.
At last he burst forth.
It was an unheard-of impropriety to let a girl thus shut herself in witha man.
He was surprised that one so serious, so devoted as Constance--What didit look like?
The old lady looked at him with stupefaction. As though Felicia werelike other girls! And then what danger was there with the Nabob, sostaid a man and so ugly? Besides, Jenkins ought to know quite well thatFelicia never consulted anybody, that she always had her own way.
"No, no, it is impossible! I cannot tolerate this," exclaimed theIrishman.
And, without paying any further heed to the dancer, who raised her armsto heaven as a call upon it to witness what was about to happen, hemoved towards the studio; but, instead of entering immediately, hesoftly half-opened the door and raised a corner of the hangings, wherebythe portion of the room in which the Nabob was posing became visible tohim, although at a considerable distance.
Jansoulet, seated without cravat and with his waist-coat open, wastalking apparently in some agitation and in a low voice. Felicia wasreplying in a similar tone, in laughing whispers. The sitting was veryanimated. Then a silence, a silken rustle of skirts, and the artist,going up to her model, turned down his linen collar all round withfamiliar gesture, allowing her light hand to run over the sun-tannedskin.
That Ethiopian face on which the muscles stood out in the veryintoxication of health, with its long drooping eyelashes as of some deerbeing gently stroked in its sleep; the bold profile of the girl as sheleaned over those strange features in order to verify their proportions;then a violent, irresistible gesture, clutching the delicate hand as itpassed and pressing it to two thick, passionate lips. Jenkins saw allthat in one red flash.
The noise that he made in entering caused the two personages instantlyto resume their respective positions, and, in the strong light whichdazzled his prying eyes, he saw the young girl standing before him,indignant, stupefied.
"Who is that? Who has taken the liberty?" and the Nabob, on hisplatform, with his collar turned down, petrified, monumental.
Jenkins, a little abashed, frightened by his own audacity, murmured someexcuses. He had something very urgent to say to M. Jansoulet, a piece ofnews which was most important and would suffer no delay. "He knew uponthe best authority that certain decorations were to be bestowed on the16th of March."
Immediately the face of the Nabob, that for a moment had been frowning,relaxed.
"Ah! can it be true?"
He abandoned his pose. The thing was worth the trouble, _que diable!_M. de la Perriere, a secretary of the department involved had beencommissioned by the Empress to visit the Bethlehem Refuge. Jenkins hadcome in search of the Nabob to take him to see the secretary at theTuileries and to appoint a day. This visit to Bethlehem, it meant thecross for him.
"Quick, let us start, my dear doctor. I follow you."
He was no longer angry with Jenkins for having disturbed him, and heknotted his cravat feverishly, forgetting in his new emotions how he hadbeen upset a moment earlier, for ambition with him came before all else.
While the two men were talking in a half-whisper, Felicia, standingmotionless before them, with quivering nostrils and her lip curled incontempt, watched them with an air of saying, "Well, I am waiting."
Jansoulet apologized for being obliged to interrupt the sitting; but avisit of the most extreme importance--She smiled in pity.
"Don't mention it, don't mention it. At the point which we have reachedI can work without you."
"Oh, yes," said the doctor, "the work is almost completed."
He added with the air of a connoisseur:
"It is a fine piece of work."
And, counting upon covering his retreat with this compliment, he madefor the door with shoulders drooped; but Felicia detained him abruptly.
"Stay, you. I have something to say to you."
He saw clearly from her look that he would have to yield, on pain of anexplosion.
"You will excuse me, _cher ami_? Mademoiselle has a word for me. Mybrougham is at the door. Get in. I will be with you immediately."
As soon as the door of the studio had closed on that heavy, retreatingfoot, each of them looked at the other full in the face.
"You must be either drunk or mad to have allowed yourself to behave inthis way. What! you dare to enter my house when I am not at home? Whatdoes this violence mean? By what right--"
"By the right of a despairing and incurable passion."
"Be silent, Jenkins, you are saying words that I will not hear. I allowyou to come here out of pity, from habit, because my father was fond ofyou. But never speak to me again of your--love"--she uttered the word ina very low voice, as though it were shameful--"or you shall never see meagain, even though I should have to kill myself in order to escape youonce and for all."
A child caught in mischief could not bend its head more humbly than didJenkins, as he replied:
"It is true. I was in the wrong. A moment
of madness, of blindness--Butwhy do you amuse yourself by torturing my heart as you do?"
"I think of you often, however."
"Whether you think of me or not, I am there, I see what goes on, andyour coquetry hurts me terribly."
A touch of red mounted to her cheeks at this reproach.
"A coquette, I? And with whom?"
"With that," said the Irishman, indicating the ape-like and powerfulbust.
She tried to laugh.
"The Nabob? What folly!"
"Don't tell an untruth about it now. Do you think I am blind, that Ido not notice all your little manoeuvres? You remain alone with him forvery long at a time. Just now, I was there. I saw you." He dropped hisvoice as though breath had failed him. "What do you want, strange andcruel child? I have seen you repulse the most handsome, the most noble,the greatest. That little de Gery devours you with his eyes; you take nonotice. The Duc de Mora himself has not been able to reach your heart.And it is that man there who is ugly, vulgar, who had no thought of you,whose head is full of quite other matters than love. You saw how he wentoff just now. What can you mean? What do you expect from him?"
"I want--I want him to marry me. There!"
Coldly, in a softened tone, as though this avowal had brought hernearer the level of the man whom she so much despised, she explained hermotives. The life which she led was pushing her into a situation fromwhich there was no way out. She had luxurious and expensive tastes,habits of disorder which nothing could conquer and which would bring herinevitably to poverty, both her and that good Crenmitz, who was allowingherself to be ruined without saying a word. In three years, four yearsat the outside, all would be over with them. And then the wretchedexpedients, the debts, the tatters and old shoes of poor artists'households. Or, indeed, the lover, the man who keeps a mistress--that isto say, slavery and infamy.
"Come, come," said Jenkins. "And what of me, am I not here?"
"Anything rather than you," she exclaimed, stiffening. "No, what Irequire, what I want, is a husband who will protect me from others andfrom myself, who will save me from many terrible things of which I amafraid in my moments of ennui, from the gulfs in which I feel that I mayperish, some one who will love me while I am at work and relieve my poorold wearied fairy of her sentry duty. This man here suits my purpose,and I thought of him from the first time I met him. He is ugly, but hehas a kind manner; then, too, he is ridiculously rich, and wealth, uponthat scale, must be amusing. Oh, I know well enough. No doubt thereis in his life some blemish that has brought him luck. All that moneycannot be made honestly. But come, truly now, Jenkins, with your handon that heart you so often invoke, do you think me a wife who should bevery attractive to an honest man? See: among all these young men who askpermission as a favour to be allowed to come here, which one has dreamedof offering me marriage? Never a single one. De Gery no more than therest. I am attractive, but I make men afraid. It is intelligible enough.What can one imagine of a girl brought up as I have been, without amother, among my father's models and mistresses? What mistresses, _monDieu_! And Jenkins for sole guardian. Oh, when I think, when I think!"
And from that far-off memory things surged up that stirred her to adeeper wrath.
"Ah, yes, _parbleu_! I am a daughter of adventure, and this adventureris, of a truth, the fit husband for me."
"You must wait at least till he is a widower," replied Jenkins calmly."And, in that case, you run the risk of having a long time to wait, forhis Levantine seems to enjoy excellent health."
Felicia Ruys turned pale.
"He is married?"
"Married? certainly, and father of a bevy of children. The whole camp ofthem landed a couple of days ago."
For a minute she remained overwhelmed, looking into space, her cheeksquivering. Opposite her, the Nabob's large face, with its flattenednose, its sensual and weak mouth, spoke insistently of life and realityin the gloss of its clay. She looked at it for an instant, then made astep forward and, with a gesture of disgust, overturned, with the highwooden stool on which it stood, the glistening and greasy block, whichfell on the floor shattered to a heap of mud.