VI.
FELICIA RUYS.
"By the way, what have you done with your son, Jenkins? Why do we neversee him at your house now? He was an attractive boy."
As she said this in the tone of disdainful acerbity in which she alwaysaddressed the Irishman, Felicia was at work on the bust of the Nabobwhich she had just begun, adjusting her model, taking up and puttingdown the modelling tool, wiping her hands with a quick movement on thelittle sponge, while the light and peace of a lovely Sunday afternoonflooded the circular glass-walled studio. Felicia "received" everySunday, if receiving consisted in leaving her door open and allowingpeople to come and go and sit down a moment, without stirring from herwork for them, or even breaking off a discussion she might have begun,to welcome new arrivals. There were artists with shapely heads andbright red beards, and here and there the white poll of an old man,sentimental friends of the elder Ruys; then there were connoisseurs,men of the world, bankers, brokers, and some young swells who camerather to see the fair sculptress than her sculpture, so that theywould have the right to say that evening at the club: "I was atFelicia's to-day." Among them Paul de Gery, silent, engrossed by anadmiration which sank a little deeper in his heart day by day, stroveto comprehend the beautiful sphinx, arrayed in purple cashmere andunbleached lace, who worked bravely away in the midst of her clay, aburnisher's apron--reaching nearly to the neck--leaving naught visiblesave the proud little face with those transparent tones, those gleamsas of veiled rays with which intellect and inspiration give animationto the features. Paul never forgot what had been said of her in hispresence, he tried to form an opinion for himself, was beset by doubtand perplexity, yet fascinated; vowed every time that he would nevercome again, yet never missed a Sunday. There was another fixture,always in the same spot, a little woman with gray, powdered hair and alace handkerchief around her pink face; a pastel somewhat worn byyears, who smiled sweetly in the discreet light of a window recess, herhands lying idly upon her lap, in fakir-like immobility. Jenkins,always in good humor, with his beaming face, his black eyes, and hisapostolic air, went about from one to another, known and loved by all.He too never missed one of Felicia's days; and in very truth hedisplayed great patience, for all the sharp words of the artist and ofthe pretty woman as well were reserved for him alone. Without seemingto notice it, with the same smiling indulgent serenity, he continued tocourt the society of the daughter of his old friend Ruys, of whom hehad been so fond and whom he had attended until his last breath.
On this occasion, however, the question that Felicia propounded to himon the subject of his son seemed to him extremely disagreeable; andthere was a frown upon his face, a genuine expression of ill-humor, ashe replied:
"Faith, I know no more than you as to what has become of him. He hasturned his back upon us altogether. He was bored with us. He cares fornothing but his Bohemia--"
Felicia gave a bound which made them all start, and with flashing eyeand quivering nostril retorted:
"That is too much. Look you, Jenkins, what do you call Bohemia? Acharming word, by the way, which should evoke visions of long wanderingjaunts in the sunlight, halting in shady nooks, the first taste ofluscious fruits and sparkling fountains, taken at random on thehighroads. But since you have made of the word with all the charmattaching to it a stigma and an insult, to whom do you apply it? Tocertain poor long-haired devils, in love with freedom in rags andtatters, who starve to death on fifth floors, looking at the sky at tooclose quarters, or seeking rhymes under tiles through which the raindrips; to those idiots, fewer and fewer in number, who in their horrorof the conventional, the traditional, of the dense stupidity of life,have taken a standing jump over the edge. But that's the way it used tobe, I tell you. That's the Bohemia of Murger, with the hospital at theend, the terror of children, the comfort of kindred, Little Red RidingHood eaten by the wolf. That state of things came to an end a longwhile ago. To-day you know perfectly well that artists are the mostwell-behaved people on earth, that they earn money, pay their debts anddo their best to resemble the ordinary man. There is no lack of genuineBohemians, however; our society is made up of them, but they are foundmore particularly in your circle. _Parbleu!_ they are not labelledon the outside, and no one distrusts them; but so far as theuncertainty of existence and lack of order are concerned, they have noreason to envy those whom they so disdainfully call 'irregulars.' Ah!if one knew all the baseness, all the unheard-of, monstrous experiencesthat may be masked by a black coat, the most correct of your horriblemodern garments! Jenkins, at your house the other evening, I amusedmyself counting all those adventurers of high--"
The little old lady, pink-cheeked and powdered, said to her softly fromher seat:
"Felicia--take care--"
But she went on without listening to her:
"Who is this Monpavon, Doctor? And Bois-l'Hery? And Mora himself?And--"
She was on the point of saying, "And the Nabob?" but checked herself.
"And how many others! Oh! really, I advise you to speak contemptuouslyof Bohemia. Why, your clientage as a fashionable physician, O sublimeJenkins, is made up of nothing else. Bohemia of manufacturing, offinance, of politics; fallen stars, the tainted of all castes, and thehigher you go the more of them there are, because high rank givesimpunity and wealth closes many mouths."
She spoke with great animation, harshly, her lip curling in fiercedisdain. The other laughed a false laugh and assumed an airy,condescending tone. "Ah! madcap! madcap!" And his glance, anxious andimploring, rested upon the Nabob, as if to beseech his forgiveness forthat flood of impertinent paradoxes.
But Jansoulet, far from appearing to be vexed,--he who was so proud topose for that lovely artist, so puffed up by the honor conferred uponhim--nodded his head approvingly.
"She is right, Jenkins," he said, "she is right. We are the realBohemia. Look at me, for instance, and Hemerlingue, two of the greatesthandlers of money in Paris. When I think where we started from, all thetrades that we tried our hands at! Hemerlingue, an old regimentalsutler; and myself, who carried bags of grain on the wharves atMarseille for a living. And then the strokes of luck by which ourfortunes were made, as indeed all fortunes are made nowadays. Bless mysoul! Just look under the peristyle at the Bourse from three to five.But I beg your pardon, mademoiselle, with my mania for gesticulatingwhen I talk, I've spoiled my pose--let's see, will this do?"
"It's of no use," said Felicia, throwing down her modelling-tool withthe gesture of a spoiled child. "I can do nothing more to-day."
She was a strange girl, this Felicia. A true child of an artist, agenial and dissipated artist, according to the romantic tradition, suchas Sebastien Ruys was. She had never known her mother, being the fruitof one of those ephemeral passions which suddenly enter a sculptor'sbachelor life, as swallows enter a house of which the door is alwaysopen, and go out again at once, because they cannot build nests there.
On that occasion the lady, on taking flight, had left with the greatartist, then in the neighborhood of forty, a beautiful child whom hehad acknowledged and reared, and who became the joy and passion of hislife. Felicia had remained with her father until she was thirteen,importing a childish, refining element into that studio crowded withidlers, models, and huge greyhounds lying at full length on divans.There was a corner set aside for her, for her attempts at sculpture, acomplete equipment on a microscopic scale, a tripod and wax; and oldRuys would say to all who came in:
"Don't go over there. Don't disturb anything. That's the little one'scorner."
The result was that at ten years of age she hardly knew how to read andhandled the modelling-tool with marvellous skill. Ruys would have likedto keep the child, who never annoyed him in any way, with himpermanently, a tiny member of the great brotherhood. But it was apitiful thing to see the little maid exposed to the free and easymanners of the habitues of the house, the incessant going and coming ofmodels, the discussions concerning an art that is purely physical, soto speak; and at the uproarious Sunday dinner-table, too, sitting int
he midst of five or six women, with all of whom her father was on themost intimate terms, actresses, dancers, singers, who, when dinner wasat an end, smoked with the rest, their elbows on the table, revellingin the salacious anecdotes so relished by the master of the house.Luckily, childhood is protected by the resistant power of innocence, apolished surface over which all forms of pollution glide harmlessly.Felicia was noisy, uproarious, badly brought up, but was untainted byall that passed over her little mind because it was so near the ground.
Every summer she went to pass a few days with her godmother, ConstanceCrenmitz, the elder Crenmitz, who was for so long a time called by allEurope the "illustrious dancer," and who was living quietly inseclusion at Fontainebleau.
The arrival of the "little devil" introduced into the old lady's life,for a time, an element of excitement from which she had the whole yearto recover. The frights that the child caused her with her audaciousexploits in leaping and riding, the passionate outbreaks of thatuntamed nature, made the visit both a delight and a terrible trial toher,--a delight, because she worshipped Felicia, the only domestic tieleft the poor old salamander, retired after thirty years of _battus_ inthe glare of the footlights; a trial, because the demon pitilesslypillaged the ex-dancer's apartments, which were as dainty and neat andsweet-smelling as her dressing-room at the Opera, and embellished witha museum of souvenirs dated from all the theatres in the world.
Constance Crenmitz was the sole feminine element in Felicia'schildhood. Frivolous, shallow, having all her life kept her mindenveloped in pink swaddling-clothes, she had at all events a daintyknack at housekeeping, and agile fingers clever at sewing,embroidering, arranging furniture, and leaving the trace of their deft,painstaking touch in every corner of a room. She alone undertook totrain that wild young plant, and to awaken with care the womanlyinstincts in that strange creature, on whose figure cloaks and furs,all the elegant inventions of fashion, fell in folds too stiff, orperformed other strange antics.
It was the dancer again--surely the little Ruys must not beabandoned--who, triumphing over the paternal selfishness, compelled thesculptor to assent to a necessary separation, when Felicia was twelveor thirteen years old; furthermore, she assumed the responsibility offinding a suitable boarding school, and purposely selected a very richbut very bourgeois establishment, pleasantly situated in asparsely-settled faubourg, in a huge old-fashioned mansion, surroundedby high walls and tall trees,--a sort of convent, minus the restraintand contempt for serious studies.
Indeed, a great deal of hard work was done at Madame Belin'sestablishment, with no opportunities to go out except on greatfestivals, and no communication with the outside world except a visitfrom one's relatives on Thursday, in a little garden of floweringshrubs, or in the vast parlor with the carved and gilded panels abovethe doors. Felicia's first appearance in that almost monasticinstitution caused considerable commotion; her costume, selected by theAustrian ballet-dancer, her curly hair falling to the waist, herungainly, boyish bearing, gave rise to some ill-natured remarks; butshe was a Parisian and readily adapted herself to all situations, toall localities. In a few days she wore more gracefully than any of theothers the little black apron, to which the most coquettish attachedtheir watches, the straight skirt--a stern and cruel requirement atthat period, when the prevailing fashion enlarged the circumference ofwoman with an infinite number of ruffles and flounces--and theprescribed arrangement of the hair, in two braids fastened togetherwell down on the neck, after the fashion of Roman peasants.
Strangely enough, the assiduous work of the classes, their tranquilregularity, suited Felicia's nature, all intelligence and animation, inwhich a taste for study was enlivened by an overflow of childishspirits in the hours of recreation. Every one loved her. Among thosechildren of great manufacturers, Parisian notaries and gentleman-farmers,a substantial little world by themselves, somewhat inclined tostiffness and formality, the well-known name of old Ruys, and therespect which is universally manifested in Paris for a high reputationas an artist, gave to Felicia a position apart from the rest andgreatly envied; a position made even more brilliant by her success inher studies, by a genuine talent for drawing, and by her beauty, thatelement of superiority which produces its effect even upon very younggirls.
In the purer atmosphere of the boarding-school, she felt the keenestpleasure in making herself womanly, in resuming her true sex, inlearning order, regularity, in a different sense from that inculcatedby the amiable dancer, whose kisses always retained a taste of rouge,and whose embraces always left an impression of unnaturally round arms.Pere Ruys was enchanted, every time that he went to see his daughter,to find her more of a young lady, able to enter and walk about andleave a room with the pretty courtesy that made all of Madame Belin'sboarders long for the _frou-frou_ of a long train.
At first he came often, then, as he lacked time for all the commissionsaccepted and undertaken, the advances upon which helped to pay for thedisorder and heedlessness of his life, he was seen less frequently inthe parlor. At last disease took a hand. Brought to earth by hopelessanaemia, for weeks he did not leave the house, nor work. He insistedupon seeing his daughter; and from the peaceful, health-giving shadowof the boarding-school Felicia returned to her father's studio, stillhaunted by the same cronies, the parasites that cling to everycelebrity, among whom sickness had introduced a new figure in theperson of Dr. Jenkins.
That handsome, open face, the air of frankness and serenity diffusedover the whole person of that already well known physician, who talkedof his art so freely, yet performed miraculous cures, and his assiduousattentions to her father, made a deep impression on the girl. Jenkinssoon became the friend, the confidant, a vigilant and gentle guardian.Sometimes in the studio, when some one--the father himself mostfrequently--made a too equivocal remark or a ribald jest, the Irishmanwould frown and make a little noise with his lips, or else would divertFelicia's attention. He often took her to pass the day with MadameJenkins, exerting himself to prevent her from becoming once more thewild creature of the ante-boarding school days, or indeed the somethingworse than that which she threatened to become, in the moralabandonment, the saddest of all forms of abandonment, in which she wasleft.
But the girl had a more powerful protector than the irreproachable butworldly example of the fair Madame Jenkins: the art which she adored,the enthusiasm it aroused in her essentially open nature, the sentimentof beauty, of truth, which passed from her thoughtful brain, teemingwith ideas, into her fingers with a little quiver of the nerves, alonging to see the thing done, the image realized. All day she workedat her sculpture, gave shape to her reveries, with the happy tact ofinstinct-guided youth, which imparts so much charm to first works; thatprevented her from regretting too keenly the austere regime of theBelin institution, which was as perfect a safeguard and as light as theveil of a novice who has not taken her vows; and it also shielded herfrom perilous conversations to which in her one absorbing preoccupationshe paid no heed.
Ruys was proud of the talent springing up by his side. As he grewweaker from day to day, having already reached the stage at which theartist regrets his vanishing powers, he followed Felicia's progress asa consolation for the close of his own career. The modelling-tool,which trembled in his hand, was seized at his side with virile firmnessand self-assurance, tempered by all of the innate refinement of herbeing that a woman can apply to the realization of her ideal of an art.A curious sensation is that twofold paternity, that survival of genius,which abandons the one who is going away to pass into the one who iscoming, like the lovely domestic birds which, on the eve of a death,desert the threatened roof for a more cheerful dwelling.
In the last days of her father's life, Felicia--a great artist, andstill a child--did half of her father's work for him, and nothing couldbe more touching than that collaboration of the father and daughter, inthe same studio, sculptors of the same group. Things did not always runsmoothly. Although she was her father's pupil, Felicia's individualitywas already inclined to rebel against any arbit
rary guidance. She hadthe audacity of beginners, the presentiment of a great future felt onlyby youthful geniuses, and, in opposition to the romantic traditions ofSebastien Ruys, a tendency toward modern realism, a feeling that shemust plant that glorious old flag upon some new monument.
Then there would be terrible scenes, disputes from which the fatherwould come forth vanquished, annihilated by his daughter's logic,amazed at the rapid progress children make on the highroads, whiletheir elders, who have opened the gates for them, remain stationary atthe point of departure. When she was working for him Felicia yieldedmore readily; but concerning her own work she was intractable. Forinstance, the _Joueur de Boules_, her first exhibited work, whichmade such a tremendous hit at the Salon of 1862, was the occasion ofviolent disputes between the two artists, of such fierce controversythat Jenkins had to intervene and to superintend the removal of thefigure, which Ruys had threatened to break.
Aside from these little dramas, which had no effect upon the love oftheir hearts, those two worshipped each other, with the presentimentand, as the days passed, the cruel certainty of an impendingseparation; when suddenly there came a horrible episode in Felicia'slife. One day Jenkins took her home to dinner with him, as he oftendid. Madame Jenkins and her son were away for two days; but thedoctor's years, his semi-paternal intimacy, justified him in invitingto his house, even in his wife's absence, a girl whose fifteen years,the fifteen years of an Eastern Jewess resplendent with prematurebeauty, left her still almost a child.
The dinner was very lively, Jenkins cordial and agreeable as always.Then they went into the doctor's office; and suddenly, as they sat onthe divan, talking in the most intimate and friendly way concerning herfather, his health and their joint work, Felicia had a feeling as ofthe cold blast from an abyss between herself and that man, followed bythe brutal embrace of a satyr's claw. She saw a Jenkins totally unknownto her, wild-eyed, stammering, with brutish laugh and insulting hands.In the surprise, the unexpectedness of that outbreak of the animalinstinct, any other than Felicia, any child of her years, but genuinelyinnocent, would have been lost. The thing that saved her, poor child,was her knowledge. She had heard so many stories at her father's table!And then her art, her life at the studio. She was no _ingenue_. She atonce understood what that embrace meant, she squirmed and struggled,then, finding that she was not strong enough, screamed. He wasfrightened, released her, and suddenly she found herself on her feet,free, with the man at her knees, weeping and imploring forgiveness. Hehad yielded to an attack of frenzy. She was so lovely, he loved her sodearly. He had struggled for months. But now it was all over--neveragain, oh! never again. He would not even touch the hem of her dress.She did not reply, but tremblingly rearranged her hair and her clotheswith frenzied fingers. Go, she must go at once, alone. He sent aservant with her, and whispered, as she entered the carriage: "Aboveall things, not a word of this at home. It would kill your father." Heknew her so well, he was so sure of closing her mouth by that thought,the villain, that he came the next day as if nothing had happened,effusive as always and with the same ingenuous face. She never didmention the incident to her father or to anybody else. But from thatday a change took place in her, as if the springs of her pride wererelaxed. She became capricious, had fits of lassitude, a curl ofdisgust in her smile, and sometimes she yielded to sudden outbursts ofwrath against her father, and cast scornful glances upon him, rebukinghim for his failure to watch over her.
"What is the matter with her?" Pere Ruys would ask; and Jenkins, withthe authority of a physician, would attribute it to her age and aphysical trouble. He himself avoided speaking to the girl, relying upontime to efface the sinister impression, and not despairing of obtainingwhat he desired, for he desired more eagerly than ever, being in thegrasp of the insane passion of a man of forty-seven, the incurablepassion of maturity; and that was the hypocrite's punishment. Hisdaughter's strange state caused the sculptor genuine distress; but itwas of brief duration. Ruys suddenly expired, fell to pieces all atonce, like all those whom Jenkins attended. His last words were:
"Jenkins, I place my daughter in your care."
The words were so ironical in all their mournfulness that Jenkins, whowas present at the last, could not avoid turning pale.
Felicia was even more stupefied than sorrowful. To the feeling ofamazement at death, which she had never seen before, and which appearedin a guise so dear to her, was added the feeling of a terribleloneliness surrounded by darkness and perils.
Several friends of the sculptor assembled in a family council todeliberate concerning the future of the unfortunate, penniless orphan.They had found fifty francs in the catch-all in which Sebastien kepthis money on a little commode in the studio, well known to his needyfriends, who had recourse to it without scruple. No other patrimony, incash at all events; only a most superb collection of artistic objectsand curios, a few valuable pictures and some scattered outstandingclaims hardly sufficient to cover his innumerable debts. They talked ofa sale at auction. Felicia, on being consulted, replied that it was amatter of indifference to her whether they sold all or none, but thatshe begged them, for God's sake, to leave her in peace.
The sale did not take place, however, thanks to the godmother, theexcellent Crenmitz, who suddenly made her appearance, as tranquil andgentle as always:
"Don't listen to them, my child, sell nothing. Your old Constance hasfifteen thousand francs a year which were intended for you. You shallhave the benefit of them now, that's all. We will live together here. Iwill not be in the way, you will see. You can work at your sculpture,while I keep the house. Does that suit you?"
It was said so affectionately, in the childish accent of foreignersexpressing themselves in French, that the girl was deeply moved. Herstony heart opened, a burning flood poured from her eyes and she threwherself, buried herself in the ex-dancer's arms: "Oh! godmother, howgood you are! Yes, yes; don't leave me again--stay with me always. Lifefrightens and disgusts me. I see so much hypocrisy and lying!" And whenthe old woman had made herself a silky, embroidered nest in the house,which resembled a traveller's camp filled with the treasures of alllands, those two widely different natures took up their life together.
It was no small sacrifice that Constance had made to the little demon,to leave her retreat at Fontainebleau for Paris, which she held inhorror. From the day when the ballet-dancer, once famous for herextravagant caprices, who squandered princely fortunes between her fiveparted fingers, had descended from the realm of apotheoses with a lastremnant of their dazzling glare still lingering in her eyes, and hadtried to resume the life of ordinary mortals, to administer her littleincome and her modest household, she had been subjected to a multitudeof unblushing attempts at extortion and schemes which were readilysuccessful in view of the ignorance of that poor butterfly, who wasafraid of reality and constantly coming in contact with all its unknowndifficulties. In Felicia's house the responsibility became far moreserious, because of the extravagant methods long ago inaugurated by thefather and continued by the daughter, both artists having the utmostcontempt for economy. She had other difficulties, too, to overcome. Shecould not endure the studio, with its permanent odor of tobacco smoke,with the cloud, impenetrable to her, in which artistic discussions andideas, expressed in their baldest form, were confounded in vague eddiesof glowing vapor which invariably gave her the sick headache. The_blague_ was especially terrifying to her. Being a foreigner, a formerdivinity of the ballet greenroom, fed upon superannuated compliments,gallantries _a la Dorat_ she was unable to understand it, and wasdismayed at the wild exaggerations, the paradoxes of those Parisianswhose wits were sharpened by the liberty of the studio.
She whose wit had consisted entirely in the agility of her feet wasawed by her new surroundings and relegated to the position of a simplecompanion; and to see that amiable old creature, silent and smiling,sitting in the bright light of the rounded window, her knitting on herknees, like one of Chardin's bourgeoises, or walking quickly up thelong Rue de Chaillot where the nearest market w
as situated, with hercook at her side, one would never have dreamed that the worthy womanhad once held kings, princes, all the susceptible portion of thenobility and the world of finance, subject to the whim of her toes andher gauze skirts.
Paris is full of these extinct stars which have fallen back into thecrowd.
Some of these celebrities, these conquerors of a former time, retain agnawing rage in their hearts; others, on the contrary, dwell blissfullyupon the past, ruminate in ineffable content all their glorious, bygonejoys, seeking only repose, silence and obscurity, wherein they mayremember and meditate, so that, when they die, we are amazed to learnthat they were still living.
Constance Crenmitz was one of those happy mortals. But what a strangeartists' household was that of those two women, equally childlike,contributing to the common stock inexperience and ambition, thetranquillity of an accomplished destiny and the feverish activity of alife in its prime, all the differences indeed that were indicated bythe contrast between that blonde, white as a withered rose, who seemedto be dressed, beneath her fair complexion, in a remnant of Bengalfire, and that brunette, with the regular features, who almostinvariably enveloped her beauty in dark stuffs, simply made, as if witha semblance of masculinity.
Unforeseen emergencies, caprice, ignorance of even the most trivialthings, led to extreme confusion in the management of the household,from which they were sometimes unable to extricate themselves except byenforced privations, by dismissing servants, by reforms laughable intheir exaggeration. During one of those crises Jenkins made delicate,carefully veiled offers of assistance which were repelled with scorn byFelicia.
"It isn't right," said Constance, "to be so rude to that poor doctor.After all, there was nothing insulting in what he said. An old friendof your father's."
"That man, anybody's friend! Oh! what a superb Tartuffe!"
And Felicia, hardly able to contain herself, twisted her wrath intoirony, mimicked Jenkins, the affected gestures, the hand on the heart;then, puffing out her cheeks, said in a hoarse, whistling voice, fullof false effusiveness:
"We must be kind, we must be humane. To do good without hope ofreward!--that is the secret."
Constance laughed, in spite of herself, till the tears ran down hercheeks, the resemblance was so perfect.
"Never mind, you were too harsh--you will end by driving him away."
"Oh! indeed!" said a shake of the girl's head.
In truth, he continued to come to the house, always affable and sweet,dissembling his passion, which was visible only when he became jealousof new-comers, overwhelming with attentions the ex-ballet-dancer, towhom his pleasant manners were gratifying in spite of everything, andwho recognized in him a man of her own time, of the time when men paidtheir respects to women by kissing their hand, with a complimentaryremark as to their appearance.
* * *
One morning, Jenkins, having looked in during his round of visits,found Constance alone and unoccupied in the reception room.
"I am mounting guard, Doctor, as you see," she said calmly.
"How does that happen?"
"Why, Felicia's at work. She doesn't want to be disturbed and theservants are so stupid. I am carrying out her orders myself."
Then, as she saw the Irishman walk toward the studio, she added:
"No, no, don't go there. She gave me strict orders not to let any onego in."
"Very good, but I--"
"I beg you not--you will get me a scolding."
Jenkins was about to withdraw, when a peal of laughter from Feliciareached their ears through the portiere and made him raise his head.
"So she isn't alone?"
"No. The Nabob is with her. They are having a sitting--for the bust."
"But why this mystery? It's very strange."
He strode back and forth, raging inwardly, but holding himself back.
At last he broke out.
It was improper beyond expression to allow a girl to be closeted inthat way with a man.
He was astonished that so serious-minded, so devout a person asConstance--What did it look like?
The old lady gazed at him in stupefaction. As if Felicia were likeother girls! And then, what danger could there be with the Nabob, sucha serious man and so ugly? Moreover, Jenkins ought to know well enoughthat Felicia never consulted anybody, that she did only what she chose.
"No, no, it's impossible; I cannot allow this," exclaimed the Irishman.
And, paying no further heed to the dancer, who threw up her arms tocall heaven to witness what was taking place, he walked toward thestudio; but, instead of entering at once, he opened the door gently andraised a corner of the hanging, so that a part of the room, just thatpart where the Nabob was posing, was visible to him, although at aconsiderable distance.
Jansoulet was seated, without a cravat, with his waistcoat thrown open,talking excitedly, in an undertone. Felicia answered in laughingwhispers. The sitting was very animated. Then there was a pause, arustling of skirts, and the artist, going up to her model, turned hislinen collar back all the way around, with a familiar gesture, lettingher hand run lightly over the tanned skin.
That Ethiopian face, in which the muscles quivered with theintoxication of supreme content, with its great eyelids lowered likethose of a sleeping beast being tickled with a straw, the bold outlineof the girl as she leaned over that outlandish face to verify itsproportions, and then a violent, irresistible gesture, seizing theslender hand as it passed and pressing it to two thick, tremblinglips,--Jenkins saw all this in a red glare.
The noise that he made in entering caused the two to resume theirrespective positions, and in the bright light which dazzled his prying,catlike eyes, he saw the girl standing before him, indignant,dumfounded: "What is this? Who has dared?" and the Nabob on hisplatform, with his collar turned back, petrified, monumental.
Jenkins, somewhat abashed, dismayed by his own audacity, stammered somewords of apology. He had something very urgent to say to M. Jansoulet,very important information which could not be delayed. He knew from areliable source that there would be a distribution of crosses on March16th. The Nabob's face, momentarily contracted, at once relaxed.
"Ah! really?"
He abandoned his pose. The matter was well worth considering, deucetake it! M. de La Perriere, one of the Empress's secretaries, had beendirected by her to visit the shelter of Bethlehem. Jenkins had come totake the Nabob to the secretary's office at the Tuileries and makeinquiries. That visit to Bethlehem meant a cross for him.
"Come, let us be off; I am with you, my dear doctor."
He bore Jenkins no ill-will for disturbing him, and he feverishly tiedhis cravat, forgetting under the stress of his new emotion theagitation of a moment before, for with him ambition took precedence ofeverything.
While the two men talked together in undertones, Felicia, standingbefore them, with quivering nostrils and lip curling in scorn, watchedthem as if to say: "Well! I am waiting."
Jansoulet apologized for being obliged to interrupt the sitting; but avisit of the utmost importance--She smiled pityingly.
"Go, go. At the point where we are now, I can work without you."
"Oh! yes," said the doctor, "the bust is almost finished. It's a finepiece of work," he added, with the air of a connoisseur.
And, relying on the compliment to cover his retreat, he was slinkingaway, crestfallen; but Felicia fiercely called him back:
"Stay, you. I have something to say to you."
He saw by her expression that he must comply, under pain of anoutbreak.
"With your permission, my friend? Mademoiselle has a word to say to me.My coupe is at the door. Get in, I will be with you in a moment."
When the studio door closed upon those heavy departing footsteps, theylooked each other in the face.
"You must be either drunk or mad to venture to do such a thing. What!you presume to enter my studio when I do not choose to receive? Whythis violence? By what right?"
> "By the right that desperate, unconquerable passion gives."
"Be quiet, Jenkins; those are words that I do not wish to hear. I letyou come here through pity, through habit, because my father was fondof you. But never speak to me again of your--love"--she said the wordvery low, as if it were a disgrace--"or you will see me no more, eventhough I should be driven to die in order to escape you for good andall."
A child taken in fault does not bend his head more humbly than Jenkinsas he replied:
"True--I was wrong. A moment of madness, of blindness. But why do youtake pleasure in tearing my heart as you do?"
"As if I were thinking of you!"
"Whether you are thinking of me or not, I am here, I see what is goingon, and your coquetry pains me terribly."
A slight flush rose in her cheeks at that reproach.
"I, a coquette! With whom?"
"With him," said the Irishman, pointing to the superb apelike bust.
She tried to laugh.
"The Nabob. What nonsense!"
"Do not lie. Do you think I am blind, that I don't understand all yourmanoeuvres? You stay alone with him a long while. I was at the doorjust now. I saw you." He lowered his voice as if his breath had failedhim. "What are you after, in heaven's name, you strange, heartlesschild? I have seen you repel the handsomest, the noblest, the greatest.That little de Gery devours you with his eyes, but you pay no heed tohim. Even the Duc de Mora has not succeeded in reaching your heart. Andthis man, a shocking, vulgar creature, who isn't thinking of you, whohas something very different from love in his head--you saw how he wentaway just now! What are you aiming at? What do you expect from him?"
"I intend--I intend that he shall marry me. There."
Coolly, in a softer tone, as if the confession had drawn her nearer tothe man she despised so bitterly, she set forth her reasons. She hadluxurious, extravagant tastes, unmethodical habits which nothing couldovercome and which would infallibly lead her to poverty anddestitution, and good Crenmitz too, who allowed herself to be ruinedwithout a word. In three years, four years at most, it would be allover. And then would come debts and desperate expedients, the raggedgowns and old shoes of poor artists' households. Or else the lover, thekeeper, that is to say slavery and degradation.
"Nonsense," said Jenkins. "What of me, am I not here?"
"Anything rather than you," she said, drawing herself up. "No, what Imust have, what I will have, is a husband to protect me from others andfrom myself, to keep me from a mass of black things of which I amafraid when life becomes a bore to me, from abysses into which I feelthat I may plunge,--some one who will love me while I work, and willrelieve my poor old exhausted fairy from doing sentry duty. That mansuits me and I have had my eye on him ever since I first saw him. He isugly to look at, but he seems kind; and then he is absurdly rich, andwealth, in that degree, must be amusing. Oh! I know all about it. Thereprobably is some black spot in his life which has brought him goodluck. All that gold can't have been honestly come by. But tell metruly, Jenkins, with your hand on that heart which you invoke so often,do you think that I am a very tempting wife for an honest man?Consider: of all these young men who ask as a favor to be allowed tocome here, what one has ever thought of asking for my hand? Never asingle one. De Gery no more than the rest. I charm, but I terrify. Thatis easily understood. What can anyone expect of a girl brought up as Iwas, with no mother or family, tossed in a heap with my father's modelsand mistresses? Such mistresses, great God! And Jenkins for my onlyprotector. Oh! when I think of it! When I think of it!"
And, with the memory of that already distant episode, thoughts came toher mind which inflamed her wrath. "Oh! yes, I am a child of chance,and this adventurer is just the husband for me."[2]
[2] Je suis une fille _d'aventure_, et cet _aventurier_ est bien le mari qu'il me faut.
"At least you will wait until he's a widower," retorted Jenkinstranquilly. "And in that case you may have to wait a long while, forhis Levantine looks to be in excellent health."
Felicia Ruys became livid.
"He is married?"
"Married, why, to be sure, and father of a lot of children. The wholeoutfit landed here two days ago."
She stood for a moment, speechless, her cheeks quivering.
In front of her the Nabob's broad visage, in shining clay, with itsflat nose, its sensual good-humored mouth, seemed to cry aloud in itsfidelity to life. She gazed at it a moment, then stepped toward it, andwith a gesture of disgust overturned the high, wooden stand and thegleaming, greasy block itself, which fell to the floor a shapeless massof mud.