A LOVER AND A SNOB
The two young men got into the cab and were soon being rapidly driven
along the Rue du Cherche-Midi in order to reach the Boulevard du
Montparnasse, and so follow, by way of the Invalides, the long line of
avenues that crosses the Seine by the Pont de l'Alma and leads almost
direct to the Arc de Triomphe. At first both remained perfectly silent,
René amusing himself by watching for the well-known landmarks of a
neighbourhood in which all the reminiscences of his childhood and youth
were centred. The pane of glass through which he gazed was clouded with
a thin vapour, a fitting symbol of the cloud that separated the world he
had just left from that which lay before him. There was not an angle in
the Rue du Cherche-Midi that was not as familiar to him as the walls of
his own room--from the tall dark building of the military prison to the
corner of the quiet Rue de Bagneux, where Rosalie dwelt. The remembrance
of the charming girl whom he had so unceremoniously quitted that evening
passed through his mind, but caused him no pain. The sensation he felt
was like dreaming with open eyes, so little did the individual who had
trodden these streets in his dreary and obscure youth resemble the rich
and celebrated writer now seated next to Claude Larcher. Celebrated--for
all Paris had flocked to see his piece; rich--for 'Le Sigisbée,' first
performed in September, had already brought him in twenty-five thousand
francs by February. Nor was this source of revenue likely to be soon
exhausted. 'Le Sigisbée' had been put into the same bill with 'Le
Jumeau,' a three-act comedy by a well-known author that would have a
long run. The play, too, was selling well in book form, and the rights
of translation and of representation in the provinces were being turned
to good account. But all this was only a beginning, for René had
several other works in reserve--a volume of philosophical poems entitled
'On the Heights,' a drama in verse dealing with the Renaissance, to be
called 'Savonarola,' and a half-finished story of deep passion for which
the writer had as yet found no title.
As the cab rolled along, the intoxication produced by thoughts of past
success, as well as by ambitious plans for the future, was intensified
by the excitement of his entering into Society. The feelings of this
grown-up child were similar to those of a girl going to her first ball.
He was a prey to a fit of nerves that almost made him feel beside
himself. This power of amplifying even to fanciful dimensions
impressions of utter mediocrity in themselves is both the misfortune and
happiness of poets. To that power is due those transitions, almost
startling in their suddenness, from the heights of optimism to the
depths of pessimism, from exultation to despair; these lend to the
imagination, and consequently to the disposition and feelings, a
continual pendulum-like motion--an instability of terrible portent to
the women who become attached to these vacillating souls. Amongst such
souls, however, there are some in whom this dangerous quality does not
exclude true affection. This was the case with René. The involuntary
comparison between the present and the past so suddenly provoked by the
familiar aspect of the streets brought his thoughts round to the more
experienced friend who had witnessed his rapid change of fortune. In
obedience to one of those simple impulses which form such a charming
trait in the young--affording as they do a beautiful but rare example of
the invincible bond between the inner and the outer man--he grasped the
hand of his silent companion, saying: 'How kind you have been to
me!'. . . And seeing Claude's eyes turned upon him in some astonishment,
he continued: 'If you had not been so encouraging when I made my first
attempts I should never have brought you "Le Sigisbée," and if you had
not recommended it to Mademoiselle Rigaud it would now be mouldering on
some manager's shelf. If you had not spoken to the Comtesse Komof my
piece would not be performed at her house, and I should not be going
there this evening. I am happy, very happy, and I owe it all to you! Ah!
_mon ami_, you may think me as silly as a schoolboy, but you cannot
imagine how often I have dreamt of that world into which you are now
taking me, where the mere dresses of the women are poems, and where joy
and grief are set in exquisite frames!'
'Would that these women had souls of the same stuff as their dresses!'
exclaimed Claude with a smile. 'But you surprise me,' he went on; 'do
you think that you will be in Society because you are received by Madame
Komof, a foreign countess who keeps open house, or by any of the
lion-hunters whom you will meet there, and who will tell you that they
are at home every afternoon? You will go out a good deal, if you like
that kind of thing, but you will be no more in Society than I or any
other artist or even genius, simply because you were not born in it, and
because your family is not in it. You will be received and made much of.
But try to marry into one of these families and you will see what they
will tell you. And a good thing for you, too. Good heavens! if you only
knew these women whom you picture to yourself as being so refined, so
elegant, so aristocratic! Mere bundles of vanity, dressed by Worth or
Laferrière . . . Why, there are not ten in the whole of Paris capable
of true feeling. The most honest are those who take a lover because they
like him. Were you to dissect them, you would find in place of a heart a
dressmaker's bill, half-a-dozen prejudices which serve as principles,
and a mad desire to eclipse some other woman. What fools we are to be
here in this vehicle--two fairly sensible men with work to do at
home--you all of a tremble at the idea of mixing with so-called _grandes
dames_, and I . . .!'
'What has Colette been doing to-day?' asked René quietly, a little put
out by the asperity of his friend's words, though not laying much weight
upon arguments applied with such evident rancour. These furious
outbursts were nearly always caused, as he knew, by some coquetry on the
part of the actress with whom Claude was madly in love, and who
delighted in fooling him, though loving him in her way. It was one of
those attachments, based on hatred and sensuality, which both torture
and degrade the heart, and which transform their victim into a wild
beast, one of the features peculiar to this sort of passion being the
frequency with which it is liable to suffer crises as sharp and violent
as the physical ideas on which it feeds.
The image of his mistress had probably flashed across Claude's brain,
and the happy frame of mind called forth by his last visit had
immediately yielded to sudden rage--rage which he would have satisfied
at that moment by no matter what outrageous paradox. He fell headlong
into the trap laid for him by his friend, and, grasping the arm of the
latter tightly, he said with a sickly laugh: 'What has she been doing
to-day? . . . Are you anxious to know the depth of this keen analyst of
women's hearts, this subtle psychologist as the papers call me, this
unmitigated ass as I call myself? Alas! my wits have never served for
aught else than to convince me of my folly! . . . Have I told you,' he
added, dropping his voice, 'that I have grown to be jealous of
Salvaney? . . . I forgot, you don't know Salvaney--an up-to-date gallant
who goes about his love affairs cheque-book in hand! . . . With a nose like
a beetroot, a bald pate, eyes starting from their sockets, and a colour
like a drover! . . . But there you are--he is an _anglomane, anglomane_
to such an extent that the Prince of Wales is a Frenchman by the side of
him. . . . Last year he spent three months in Florence, and I myself
heard him boast that in those three months he had never worn a shirt
that had not been washed in London. You must take my word for it that in
Society, which has such a fascination for you, one fact like that gives
a man more prestige than if he had written the "Nabab" or "L'Assommoir."
Well! this individual pleases Colette. He is to be found in her
dressing-room as often as I am, and gazes at her with his
whisky-drinker's eyes. It was he who introduced the custom of going to a
bar filled with jockeys and bookmakers, in order to sip most abominable
spirits after the Opera; I will take you there some evening, and you
will see the beauty for yourself. . . . Colette lets him take her even
there, and goes about everywhere with him in a brougham. . . . "Get
out!" she says, "you are not going to be jealous of a man like that, are
you? He smells of gin, to begin with." . . . Such women will tell you
these things without any ado, and pull to pieces in the most shameless
manner their lovers of yesterday. . . . To cut a long story short, I was
at her house this morning. Yes, yes--I knew all about these things, but
I didn't believe them. A fellow like Salvaney! If you were to see him
you would understand how incredible it seems, and as for her--well, you
know her with that soft look in her eyes, with her mouth _à la
Botticelli_ and her exquisite grace. What a pity it seems! Well, I was
with her when the servant, a fresh importation, who didn't know her
business, brought a letter in, saying, "It's from Monsieur Salvaney--his
man is waiting for an answer." In one of her fits of affection Colette
had just sworn to me that nothing, absolutely nothing, not even the
shadow of a shade of a flirtation had ever passed between them. As she
held the letter in her hand I was foolish enough to think, "She is going
to show me the letter, and I shall have written proofs that she has not
told me a lie--and proof positive, for Salvaney could not have known
that I should see this letter." She held the letter in her hand, and,
looking at me, said to the girl, "Very well, I'll answer it at once. You
will excuse me, won't you?" she added, passing into the other room--with
her letter! I suppose you think I took my hat and stick and left the
house for good with an oath on my lips? No, I stayed, _mon cher ami_.
She came back, rang the bell, gave the servant a note, and then, coming
towards me, said, "Are you angry?" Silence on my part. "Did you want to
read that letter?" I was still silent. "No, you sha'n't read it," she
continued, with a pretty little frown; "I have burnt it. He only asked
for the pattern of some stuff for a fancy dress; but I want you to
believe me on my bare word." All this was said as coolly as possible; I
have never seen her act better. Don't ask me what I said in reply. I
treated her as the vilest thing on earth. I flung into her teeth all the
disgust, hatred, and contempt I felt for her; and then, as she sat there
sobbing, I took her in my arms, and on the very spot where she had lied
to me, and I had treated her like the common thing she was, we kissed
and made it up. Do you think I have fallen low enough?'
'But were your suspicions correct?' asked René.
'Were they correct?' re-echoed Claude, with that accent of cruel triumph
affected by jealous lovers when their mad desire to know all has ended
in proving their worst suspicions up to the hilt. 'Do you know what
Salvaney's note contained? An appointment--and Colette's reply confirmed
the appointment. I know this, for I had her followed. Yes, I stooped
even to that. He met her coming from rehearsal, and they were together
until eight o'clock.'
'And haven't you broken with her?' asked Vincy.
'It's all over,' replied Claude, 'and for good, I promise you. But I
must tell her what I think of her, just for the last time. The wretch!
You'll see how I'll treat her to-night.'
In telling his sad tale Claude had betrayed such intense grief that
René's former feelings of joy were quite disturbed. Pity for the man to
whom he was deeply attached by bonds of gratitude was mingled with
disgust for Colette's shameless duplicity. For a moment he felt, too,
some deep-lying remorse as he conjured up by way of contrast the pure
soul that shone in Rosalie's honest eyes. But it was only a passing
fancy, quickly dispelled by the sudden change in his companion. This
demon of a man, who was one bundle of nerves, possessed the gift of
changing his ideas and feelings with a rapidity that was perfectly
inexplicable. He had just been speaking in despairing accents and in a
voice broken with emotion, which his friend knew to be sincere. Snapping
his fingers as if to get rid of his trouble, he muttered, 'Come, come,'
and immediately brought the conversation round to literary topics, so
that the two writers were discussing the last novel when the sudden
stoppage of the vehicle as it fell in behind a long line of others told
them that they had arrived.
René's heart began to beat afresh with short, convulsive throbs. The
cab stopped before a doorway protected by an awning, and again the
dreamlike feeling came over the young man on finding himself in the
ante-room which he had already once passed through. There were several
liveried footmen in the room, which was filled with flowers and heated
by invisible pipes. The coats and cloaks arranged on long tables and the
hum of conversation that came from the _salons_ made it evident that
most of the guests had arrived. In the ante-room there was only one
lady, whom an attendant was just helping off with her fur-lined cloak,
from which she emerged in an elegantly fitting low-necked dress of red
material. She had a very distinguished face, a nose slightly tipped, and
lips that denoted spirituality. A few diamonds sparkled amidst the
tresses of her fair silken hair. René saw Claude bow to her, and he
felt himself grow pale as her eyes rested indifferently upon him--eyes
of light blue set off by that complexion, found in blondes, which, in
spite of the hackneyed metaphor, can only be described as that of a
blush rose, possessing as it does all the freshness and delicacy of the
latter.
'That's Madame Moraines,' said Claude, 'the daughter of Victor
Bois-Dauffin, a Minister during the Empire.'
These words, spoken as if in reply to a mute question, were to come back
to René more than once. More than once was he to ask himself what
strange fate had brought him face to face, almost on the threshold of
this house, with the one woman who, of all those assembled in these
_salons_, was to exercise most influence upon him. But at the moment
itself he felt none of those presentiments which sometimes seize us on
meeting a creature who is to bring us either good or evil. The vision of
this beautiful woman of thirty, who had already disappeared whilst
Claude and he were waiting for the numbers of their coats, became lost
in the confused impression created by the novelty of everything around
him. Though it was impossible for him to analyse his feelings, the
richness of the carpets, the splendidly decorated vestibule, the lofty
halls, the livery of the footmen, the reflection of the lights, all went
a long way towards making this impression a strange medley of painful
timidity and delightful sensuality.
On the occasion of his first visit he had already felt himself enveloped
by those thousand indescribable atoms that float in the atmosphere of
luxury. Persons born in opulence no more perceive these infinitely small
but subtle trifles than we perceive the weight of the air that surrounds
us. We cannot feel what we have always felt. Nor do _parvenus_ ever tell
us their impressions. Their instinct teaches them to swallow such
feelings and to keep them hidden in their hearts. Apart from all this,
René had no time to reflect upon the snobbishness of the feeling that
filled him. The doors were swung back, and he entered the first _salon_,
furnished in that sumptuous but stereotyped style peculiar to all the
big modern houses in Paris. Whoever has seen one has seen them all. A
novice like René, however, would discover signs of the purest
aristocracy in the smallest details of this furniture, in the antique
materials with which the arm-chairs were upholstered, and in the
tapestry that hung over the chimney-piece and represented a Triumph of
Bacchus. The first _salon_, of middling dimensions, communicated by
folding doors with another much larger, in which all the guests were
evidently assembled, judging by the hum of conversation. René's
perceptive faculties being in that state of intense excitement
frequently caused by extreme shyness, he was able to take in the whole
scene at a glance; he saw Madame Moraines in her red dress disappear
through the open folding doors, and the Comtesse Komof talking, with
violent and extravagant gesticulation, to a group of people before the
chimney-piece of the smaller _salon._ The Comtesse was a tall woman of
almost tragic appearance; she had shoulders too narrow for the rest of
her body, white hair, rather harsh features, and grey eyes of piercing
brilliancy. The sombre hue of her dress enhanced the magnificence of the
jewels with which she was covered, and her hands, as she waved them
about, displayed a wealth of enormous sapphires, emeralds, and diamonds.
Acknowledging with a smile the bow that Claude and René made her, she
continued her account of a _séance_ of spiritualism--a favourite hobby
of hers.
'The table went up, up, up,' she said, 'until our hands could scarcely
follow it. The candles were blown out by invisible lips, and in the
darkness I saw a hand pass up and down--an immense hand--it was that of
Peter the Great!'
The muscles of her face grew rigid as she spoke, and her eyes became
fixed as if on a terrible apparition. Traces of that brutish and almost
half-witted creature of instinct that lurks even in the most refined
Russian appeared for a few seconds upon the surface. Then the Society
woman suddenly remembered that she had to perform the honours of her
house, and the smile came back to her lips and the gleam in her eyes
grew softer. Was it that intuition peculiar to elderly women which gives
them such a soothing influence over men of irritable nerves that
revealed to her how solitary René felt in the midst of these crowded
_salons_, where he knew not a soul? As soon as her story was ended she
was good enough to turn to him with a smile and say: 'Do you believe in
spirits, Monsieur Vincy? Of course you do--you are a poet. But we'll
talk of that some other day. You must come with me now, in spite of the
fact that I'm neither young nor pretty, and be presented to some of my
friends, who are already passionate admirers of yours.'
She had taken the young man's arm, and, although he was above the middle
height, she was taller than he by half a head. Her tragic expression was
not deceptive. She had really lived through what the strange look in her
eyes and the determined set of her features led one to imagine. Her
husband had been murdered almost at her feet, and she herself had killed
the assassin. René had heard the story from Claude, and he could see
the scene before him--the Comte Komof, a distinguished diplomat, stabbed
to the heart by a Nihilist in his study; the Comtesse entering at the
moment and bringing down the murderer by a well-directed shot. While the
young man reflected that those tapering fingers, resplendent with rings
as they lay on his coat sleeve, had clutched the pistol, his partner had
already commenced some fresh story with that savage energy of expression
that in people of Slavonic race is not incompatible with the most
refined and elegant manners.
'It was on my arrival in Paris about eight years ago, just after the
war. I had not been here since the first Exhibition, in 1855. Ah! my
dear sir, the Paris of those days was really charming . . . and your
Emperor . . . _idéal!_ She had a way of dwelling on her last syllables
when she wished to express her enthusiasm. 'My daughter, the Princess
Roudine, was with me--I don't think you know her; she lives in Florence
all the year round. She was taken ill, but Doctor Louvet--you know, the
little man who looks like a miniature edition of Henri III.--got her
over it. I always call him Louvetsky, because he only attends Russians.
I could not think of taking her away from Paris, so this house being for
sale, ready furnished, I bought it. But I've turned everything upside
down. Look here, this used to be the garden,' she added, showing René
the larger _salon_, which they had just entered.
This _salon_ was a vast apartment, whose walls were hung with canvases
of all sizes and schools, picked up by the Comtesse in the course of her
European rambles. Though René had been strongly impressed from the
first by the general air of material well-being everywhere apparent,
this feeling was intensified by the spiritual luxury, if one may use
such a term, which such cosmopolitanism represents. The way in which the
Comtesse had mentioned Florence, as if it were a suburb of Paris, the
resources indicated by the improvements effected in the mansion, the
fluency with which this grand Russian lady spoke French--how could a
young man accustomed to the limited horizon of a struggling family of
modest _bourgeois_ fail to be struck with childlike wonder at the sight
of a world such as these details suggested? His eyes opened wide to take
in the whole of the charming scene before him. At the end of the _salon_
heavy, dark red curtains hung across the usual entrance to the
dining-room, which apartment, approached by three broad stairs, had been
turned for the nonce into a stage. In the centre of the hall stood a
marble column surmounted by a bust in bronze of the famous Nicolas
Komof, the friend of Peter the Great--this ancestral kind of monument
being surrounded by a group of gigantic palms in huge pots of Indian
brass ware, whilst lines of chairs were drawn up between the column and
the stage.
By this time nearly all the ladies were seated, and the lights shone
down upon a living sea of snowy arms and shoulders, some too robust,
others too lean, others again most exquisitely moulded; jewels sparkled
in tresses fair and dark, the flutter of fans tempered the glances that
shot from eloquent eyes, whilst words and laughter became blended in one
loud, harmonious murmur. In the ladies' dresses, too, lay a wonderful
play of colour, and one side of the _salon_ presented a striking
contrast to the other, where the men, in their swallow-tails, formed a
solid mass of black. A few women, however, had found their way amongst
the sterner sex, while here and there a dark patch amidst the seated
fair ones betrayed the presence of a male interloper. The whole of the
company, although somewhat mixed, was composed of people accustomed to
meet daily, and for years, in places that serve as common ground for
different sets of Society. There were blue-blooded duchesses from the
Faubourg Saint-Germain, whose sporting tastes and charity errands took
them to all kinds of places. There were also the wives of big financiers
and politicians, representing every degree of cosmopolitan elegance, and
there were even the wives of plain artists, following up their husbands'
successes through a string of fashionable dinners and receptions.
But to a new-comer like René Vincy the social distinctions that broke
up the _salon_ into a series of very dissimilar groups were utterly
imperceptible. The spectacle upon which he gazed surpassed, in outward
magnificence, his wildest dreams. Amidst a hum of voices he allowed
himself to be presented to some of the men as they passed, and to a few
of the women seated on the back row of chairs, bowing and stammering out
a few words in reply to the compliments with which the more amiable ones
favoured him. Madame Komof, perceiving his timidity, was kind enough not
to leave him, especially since Claude, a prey to some fresh fit of his
amorous passion, had disappeared. He had probably gone behind the
scenes, and when the signal for raising the curtain was given the poet
found himself seated beside the Comtesse in the shadow of the palms that
surrounded the ancestral bust, happy that he was in a place where he
could escape notice.