AN ACTRESS IN REAL LIFE
Every morning a little before nine Paul Moraines entered his wife's
room. By that time she had had her bath and was employed in attending to
little trifles. Her small white feet, showing their blue veins, played
in and out of her slippers, her dressing gown of soft clinging material
was gathered round her slim waist by a silken cord, and her hair hung
down in a thick golden plait. The bedroom, in which the big bedstead
took up a good deal of space, was aired and perfumed, and to Paul the
three-quarters of an hour he spent in taking his morning cup of tea with
Suzanne at a little table near the window was the happiest part of the
day. He had to be at his office by ten, and was too busy to come home
for lunch. He was the kind of man who sits down in a first-class
restaurant about half-past twelve, orders the _plat du jour_, a small
bottle of wine, and a cup of coffee, and goes away after having spent
the smallest sum possible. It pleased him to rival his wife's economy in
this fashion. But his morning cup of tea was the reward he looked
forward to during the six or seven hours he devoted to the Company's
work.
'There are some days,' he would say in his simple way, 'when I should
see nothing of you if it were not for this thrice blessed cup of tea!'
It was he who served her; he buttered her toast with infinite care and
watched her dainty teeth attack the crisp morsels. He was uneasy when,
as on the morning after she had seen René at the Opera, her eyes were
not quite so bright as usual and a look of fatigue showed that she had
not had sufficient sleep. All night had she been tormented by thoughts
of the young poet, and by the stir he had made amongst the small bundle
of remnants she called her feelings. Her mind being before all else
clear and precise--the mind of a business man at the service of a pretty
woman's whims--she had reviewed the means at her disposal for gratifying
her passionate caprice. The first condition was that she should see
René again, and see him often; now, that was impossible at her own
house, as was proved by her husband's words that very morning. After a
few tender inquiries concerning her health, he asked, Did you have many
visitors yesterday?'
'None at all,' she replied; and it being her custom never to tell an
unnecessary fib, she added, 'only Desforges and that young fellow who
wrote the play performed at Madame Komof's the other night.'
'René Vincy,' remarked Moraines. 'I'm sorry I missed him--I like his
work very much. What is he like? Is he presentable?'
'He's nothing much,' answered Suzanne; 'quite insignificant.'
'Did Desforges see him?'
'Yes--why?'
'I'll ask the Baron about him. I dare say he took his measure at the
first glance. He has a rare knowledge of men.'
'That's just like him,' said Suzanne, when Moraines was gone, after
having devoured her with kisses; 'he tells the Baron everything.' She
foresaw that the first person to tell Desforges of René's frequent
visits to the Rue Murillo, if she got the poet to come, would be Paul
himself. 'He is really too silly,' she went on, getting out of patience
with him for his absolute confidence in the Baron, which she had herself
been most instrumental in inspiring. But now she was beginning to fret
under the first feelings of restraint.
Thoughts of René ran through her head all the morning, which was spent
in looking over accounts and in receiving the visit of Madame Leroux,
her manicure, a person of ripe age, extremely devout, with a
sanctimonious and discreet air, who waited on the most aristocratic
hands and feet in Paris. As a rule Suzanne, who, with perfect justice,
looked upon inferiors as the principal source of all Society scandal,
had a long talk with Madame Leroux, partly to procure her good-will,
partly to hear a good many details concerning those whom the artiste
deigned to honour with her services. Madame Leroux was therefore never
tired of singing the praises of that charming Madame Moraines, 'so
unaffected and so good. She absolutely worships her husband.' But that
day none of the manicure's flattery could draw a single word from her
fair client. The desire that had seized hold of the latter grew stronger
and stronger, whilst the obstacles that stood in the way of its
gratification assumed a clearer and more uncompromising shape. To gain a
man's love requires time and opportunities of meeting. René did not go
into Society, and if he had done so it would have been worse still, for
other women would have taken him from her. Here, in her home in the Rue
Murillo, she could have wormed her way into his virgin heart so
easily--and only the Baron's watchfulness prevented her.
It was the first time for some years that she felt herself fettered, and
a fit of anger against the man to whom she owed all she had came over
her. Filled with such thoughts as these she lunched as usual alone, and
in very frugal fashion. Even with the generous assistance of her
benefactor she could only make both ends meet by practising economy in
things that would not be noticed, such as the table. In her solitude she
felt so miserable and at the same time so utterly powerless that, as she
rose, the cry almost escaped her, 'What is the use of it, after all?'
What was the use of it all, indeed? She was a slave. Not only could she
not see René as she wished in her own house, but that very afternoon,
in spite of the new sentiments that were springing up within her, she
had to keep an appointment with Desforges.
'What is the use of it?' she repeated, as she got herself ready to go
out, putting on a pair of tiny shoes instead of boots, a plain dress
that fastened in front, a black bonnet, and in her pocket a thick veil.
She had ordered her carriage for two o'clock--a brougham and pair that
she hired by the month for the afternoon and evening. On getting into it
she was so crushed by the weight of her slavery that she could have
cried. What, then, were her feelings when, on turning the corner of the
street, she saw René standing there, evidently waiting to see her pass?
Their eyes met. He took his hat off with a blush, and she too could not
help blushing in the corner of her carriage, so great was the
pleasurable revulsion of feeling caused by this unexpected meeting, and
especially by the idea that he must be in love with her. She, the
creature of calculation and deceit, fell into one of those profound
reveries in which women, when in love, anticipate all the delights to
which the sentiment they experience and inspire can give birth. At such
a moment they will give themselves up in thoughts to the man they did
not know a week ago. If they dared, they would give themselves up too,
there and then, though this would not hinder them from persuading the
man who conquered them at the first glance that their subjugation was a
work of time and degrees. In this they are right, for man's stupid
vanity is gratified by the difficulties of the conquest, and few have
sense enough to understand the divine quality of love that is
spontaneous, natural, and irresistible.
Whilst the poet walked off, saying to himself, 'I am undone--she will
never forgive me for such folly,' Suzanne was in one of those transports
of delight before which prudence itself gives way, and, forgetting her
fears of the morning, she now saw her way to carrying out one of those
simple plans such as only the eminently realistic mind of a woman can
concoct. She had set herself the task of deceiving a very sharp man, and
one who was well acquainted with her disposition. The best thing to do,
therefore, was to act in a manner exactly contrary to what that man
would expect and foresee. Matters must be precipitated; René must be
brought to her feet after two or three visits, and she must surrender
before he had had time to woo her; Desforges would never suspect her of
such an escapade--he who knew her to be so circumspect, so cautious, and
so clever. But what if the poet despised her for her too easy surrender?
She shook her pretty head incredulously as this objection occurred to
her. That was a matter of tact and of woman's wit, and there she was
sure of her ground!
Her joy at having roughly worked out this problem and the joy of
deceiving the subtle Baron became so strangely mixed that she now looked
forward to her appointment not only without regret, but with malicious
delight. On reaching the colonnades in the Rue de Rivoli she got out as
usual and sent the carriage home. The house in which the Baron had taken
rooms for his meetings with Suzanne possessed two entrances, an
advantage so uncommon in Paris that buildings favoured in that way are
not only well-known, but much sought after by transgressors of the
Seventh Commandment. Frédéric was too intimately acquainted with this
phase of Parisian life to have fallen into the error of going to a place
whose reputation was already made. The house he had somewhat
accidentally hit upon must have escaped discovery by reason of its
sedate and dismal-looking frontage in the Rue du Mont-Thabor, where he
had taken the first floor, consisting of an ante-room and three other
apartments. The rooms were kept in order by his valet, a man on whom he
could thoroughly rely, thanks to the liberal wages he gave him.
Considerable regard had been paid to what must be called the comfort of
pleasure in furnishing this small suite, where the hangings and curtains
deadened the noises from without, where soft skins were thrown down here
and there for naked feet, where the countless mirrors reminded one of
similar but less decorous places, and where the low arm-chairs and
couches invited those long, familiar talks in which lovers delight. In a
word, the minute care bestowed upon this interior would alone have
betrayed the extent of the Baron's sensualism.
Suzanne had so often come to this house during the past few years, she
had so often tied on her thick veil in the doorway in the Rue de Rivoli,
so often hastened past the porter's lodge that she had come to perform
almost mechanically these rites of adultery which procure novices such
exquisite emotions. To-day, as she mounted the stairs, she could not
help thinking how differently she would feel if she were going to meet
René Vincy instead of the Baron in this quiet retreat She knew so well
exactly what would happen. Desforges would be there and have everything
prepared for her reception, from the flowers in the vases to the bread
and butter for tea; then, at a given moment, she would go into the
dressing-room and come out in a loose lace gown, her hair hanging about
her shoulders and her little feet encased in slippers similar to those
she wore in the morning. She took not the least pleasure in all this,
but the Baron had such a charming way of showing his gratitude for the
favours she granted him and displayed so much wit and affection during
their long talks together that it was frequently he who had to remind
his mistress that it was time to go.
To-day the state of her mind and feelings prompted Suzanne herself to
say, as soon as she had entered the room, 'I am very sorry, Frédéric
dear, but I shall have to leave you rather early.'
'Has it put you out to come?' asked the Baron as he helped her off with
her cloak. 'Why didn't you send me a line to countermand our
appointment?'
'He is really too kind,' thought Suzanne, feeling some slight remorse
for her unnecessary fib. Taking her hat off before the glass the flash
of her diamond earrings caught her eye, and suddenly reminded her of all
that she owed this man, who asked for so little in return.
False situations sometimes give rise to conscientious paradoxes, and it
was a feeling of honesty that impelled this woman to come and seat
herself on the arm of the Baron's easy chair and to sigh, 'I should have
been terribly disappointed myself. Will you never believe that I am
really glad to come here?--I owe him that at least,' she thought, and in
further obedience to her strange qualms of conscience she contrived to
be more than usually fascinating and docile during the whole of their
_tête-à-tête._
At the end of a couple of hours, whilst she was lying back half buried
in one of the great arm-chairs, enjoying a caviar sandwich and a
thimbleful of fine old sherry, Desforges, who was watching her dainty
movements as she ate, could not help exclaiming: 'Ah! Suzon! At my age,
too! What would Noirot say?'
This Noirot who had so suddenly troubled the Baron's mind was a doctor
who treated him to a course of massage every morning and watched over
his general health. Everything in the life of this systematic voluptuary
was carefully planned out, from the amount of exercise to be taken each
day to the attendance he should receive when in his dotage. He had taken
into his house a poor and pious female relative, to whose good works he
annually subscribed a pretty round sum. When complimented on his
generosity, he would reply in his own jocular and cynical way: 'What can
I do? I must have some one to look after me in my old age. My cousin
will be my nurse, and make the best one in Paris.'
Generally these outbursts of unblushing egotism amused Suzanne. She saw
in them a conception of life whose pronounced materialism was far from
displeasing her. But to-day she looked a little more closely at the
Baron as he uttered his doctor's name, and sitting there with the
lamp-light full upon his wrinkled face, his drooping moustache and his
swollen eyelids, he looked so broken down and so fully his age that the
hideousness of her own life suddenly burst upon her. It is a horrible
thing for a young and beautiful woman to endure the caresses of a man
she does not love, even when that man is young, full of passion and
ardour. But when he is bordering on old age, when he pays for the right
to pollute this fair woman whose love he cannot win, then it is
prostitution so terrible that disgust gives way to sorrow. For the first
time, perhaps, Desforges looked old in Suzanne's eyes, and by an
irresistible impulse of her whole soul she called to mind, as a
contrast, the fresh lips and fair young face of the man whose image had
haunted her for the past two days. She felt how foolishly she had
behaved in hesitating for an instant, and, being a person of
determination, she commenced to act at once.
She was now dressed, and having put on her bonnet and buttoned her
gloves, she said to Desforges before tying on her veil, 'When are you
coming to lunch with me? Once upon a time you often used to come without
being asked--it was so nice of you.'
'To-morrow I can't,' he replied, 'nor the next day either, but the day
after that----'
'Tuesday, then? That's an understood thing. And to-night I shall see you
at Madame de Sermoises', sha'n't I?'
'Charming woman!' thought the Baron, as he was left alone. 'She might
have so many adventures, and her only thought is of pleasing me.'
'The day after to-morrow, then, I am sure of being alone,' said Suzanne
to herself as she swept along the pavement of the Rue du Mont-Thabor,
casting cautious glances to the right and left, but with such art that
her eyes scarcely seemed to move. 'But what excuse can I give
René'--she already called him by that name in her thoughts--'to make
him come? I know--I'll ask him to write a few lines on a copy of the
"Sigisbée" that I'm going to send to a friend.'
She had to pass a bookseller's in the Rue Castiglione, and went in to
buy the book, being in that state of mind when the execution of an idea
follows almost automatically upon its conception. 'I hope he'll not do
anything foolish before then. And I hope he won't hear anything about me
that will dampen his ardour.' Claude Larcher once more came into her
mind. 'Yes--he's certainly dangerous,' she thought, and saw at once the
means of avoiding the danger provided René came to her before speaking
to Claude. Then it suddenly struck her that she did not know the poet's
address, but that difficulty could be got over by calling on Madame
Komof. 'It is past six now, and she is sure to be at home.' Hailing a
cab, she drove to the Rue du Bel-Respiro, and was lucky enough to find
the Comtesse alone, from whom it was easy to obtain the information she
wanted.
The worthy lady, whose _soirée_ had been a success, was loud in her
praise of the poet. '_Idéal!_' she exclaimed, with one of her wild
gesticulations, 'charming! And so modest! He will be your modern
Poushkin.'
'Do you know where he lives?' inquired Suzanne. 'He called on me and
only left his name.'
No sooner had her note been written and sent than she became a prey to
that uncertainty upon which newborn love thrives so well that in those
days when the strange but not unintellectual vice of seduction was still
fashionable the professors of the art used to dwell upon the importance
of invoking the aid of this feverish condition. Would René come or not?
If he came, what would he look like?
She would be able to see at once by his face if anything had happened to
impair the impression she was sure she had made upon him the other day.
The hour that she had fixed in her note at length arrived, and when the
poet was announced Suzanne's heart beat faster than did that of her
simple lover. She looked at him and read to the bottom of his soul. Yes,
she was still to him the Madonna she had pretended to be from the first
with that facility of metamorphosis peculiar to these Protei in
petticoats. In his soft dark blue eyes she perceived both joy and
fear--joy at seeing her again so soon, and in her own home; fear at
appearing before this angel of purity after having dared to look for her
at the Opera and to wait for her at the corner of the street.
This time the charming actress had devised a new background for her
beauty. She was seated near the window, and with some bundles of silk
thread and the aid of a few pins was working a pattern upon a drum of
green cloth. Behind her the lace curtains were drawn back in their
bands, and the visitor's gaze could rest upon the landscape of the Parc
Monceau, upon the pale blue sky, the bare trees, the yellow grass, and
the dark ivy that grew about the ruins. A February sun lit up this
wintry prospect, and its rays fell caressingly upon Suzanne's hair with
its soft golden sheen. A white dress, made in fanciful style, with long,
wide sleeves and trimmings of violets, gave her the appearance of a lady
of the Middle Ages. Her feet, encased in silk stockings of the same
shade as the trimming of her dress, were modestly crossed upon a low
footstool. Had she been told that less than forty-eight hours ago these
same modest feet had wandered across the carpets of what was almost a
house of ill-fame, that this hair had been handled by an aged lover who
paid her, that she was in fact kept by Desforges, she would probably
have denied the statement in perfect sincerity, so closely did her
desire to please René make her identify herself with the _rôle_ she
was playing.
The poet could not be aware of this. He had spent three days in one
continual state of exaltation, feeling his desire increase hourly, and
very glad to feel it. The beginning of a passion is as alluring at
twenty-five as at thirty-five it is terrifying. Suzanne's note had given
him unmistakable proofs that the trifling imprudences which he himself
looked upon as a crime had not given great displeasure, but in matters
that concern us very closely we always find fresh motives for doubt, and
this grown-up child had been silly enough to fear the reception that
awaited him. How delighted he was, therefore, to be met with the simple
familiarity, the beaming eyes, and the sweet smile of this woman whom,
seated in the foreground of the wintry landscape, he immediately
compared to those saints whom the early masters set in the midst of
green fields and placid lakes. But this was a saint whose gown had been
made by the first tailor in Paris, a saint from whom there emanated that
odour of heliotrope which had already played such havoc with the poet's
senses, and through the opening of whose long, wide sleeves two golden
bands were seen clasping an arm as white as snow.
What René had so much feared did not take place. Madame Moraines did
not make the slightest allusion either to the Opera or to their meeting
at the corner of the street. For some time she continued her work,
having quite naturally brought the conversation round from Madame
Komof's enthusiasm to the poet's plans for the future. She, who could
not have distinguished Béranger from Victor Hugo, or Voltaire from
Lamartine, spoke like one entirely devoted to literature. She had met
Théophile Gautier two or three times under the Empire, and though she
had scarcely looked at him on account of his complete lack of British
elegance, this did not prevent her from giving the enthusiastic René a
minute description of the great writer. He had interested her to such a
degree--she thought she must still have some of his letters.
'I must find them for you,' she said. Then, reminded by this lie, she
added, 'I am sorry to have put you to all this inconvenience for your
autograph, but my friend leaves for Russia to-morrow.'
'What shall I write?' asked René.
'Whatever you please,' she said, rising to get the book, and placing it
on her ivy-mantled desk. She got everything ready for him to make his
task easier--opened the ink-pot with its silver top and put a fresh pen
in the ivory and gold penholder; in doing this she contrived to touch
René lightly in passing to and fro, enveloping him with her sweet
perfume and causing his hand to tremble as he copied on the fly-sheet of
the book the two verses which kind Madame Ethorel had called a sonnet:
The phantom of a day long dead
Appeared, with hand stretched out to show
A fair white rose whose bloom was fled,
And in my ear it whispered low,
'Where is thy heart of long ago?
Where is that hope thy fond heart chose
So like this rose in days of yore?
Dear was the hope and dear the rose:
How sweet their perfume heretofore
When once they bloomed! They bloom no more.
When he had finished writing Madame Moraines took the book from his
hands, and, standing behind him, recited the verses in a low, almost
inaudible, voice, as if to herself. She added no word of praise or
criticism, but, after having read out the lines with a sigh, remained
standing there as though their music lent an infinitely tender tone to
her reverie.
René gazed at her almost wild with emotion. How could he have resisted
such sweet and supreme flattery as that which she had just employed to
captivate him, appealing, as it did, both to his vanity as an artist and
to his highest conceptions of beauty? And, indeed, she had managed to
fall into a splendid _pose_ whilst reading. She knew how charming she
looked with half-averted face and eyes cast down. But suddenly she
turned these glorious eyes, now eloquent with the feelings inspired by
his lines, full upon the poet, and almost asked pardon for her temporary
abstraction.
She seemed to step out of her poetic visions as though she were afraid
of profaning them, and with a curiosity this time as real as her
artificial emotion was apparent, she said: 'I am sure you did not write
these lines for your play?'
'That is true,' replied René, with another blush. He had scruples about
lying to this woman, even to please her. But how could he tell her the
sad and wretched story which, with a poet's touch, he had transformed
into a romantic idyll?
'Ah! you men!' she went on, without waiting for further reply--'how full
your life is, and how free! But you must not think I am complaining. We
Christian wives know our duty, and a beautiful one it is--obedience.'
After a moment's silence she added: 'Alas! we do not always choose our
master,' and then, in a tone of mingled resignation and pride that both
suggested and forbade further speculation, 'I am sorry I have not been
able to introduce you to Monsieur Moraines yet I hope you will like him.
He is not much interested in art, but he is a very clever man in
business. Unfortunately we live in an age when one must be born in
Israel to get on well.'
As may be imagined, there was not the slightest anti-Semitic feeling in
Suzanne, who was always very glad to receive invitations to dine at two
or three Jewish houses of princely hospitality, but it had struck her
that these words would intensify the halo of piety with which she had
endeavoured to invest herself in the poet's eyes. 'You will find my
husband somewhat reserved at first,' she continued; 'it was my ambition
to make my drawing-room a rendez-vous of writers and artists, but you
know that business men are a little jealous of you all, and then
Monsieur Moraines doesn't care for society much. He was not at Madame
Komof's the other night; he likes to move just in a small circle, and
have only well-known faces about him.'
She spoke with an air of constraint, as if she meant to say, 'You must
excuse me if I cannot ask you to come and see me here as I should like.'
This constrained air also meant that this lovely woman must have been
sacrificed (not that she was ever heard to complain) to cold social
considerations which take no account whatever of sentiment. Already, in
René's imagination, Paul Moraines, that amiable and jovial fellow, had
become a crotchety and bad-tempered husband, to whom this creature of a
superior race was bound by the terrible chains of duty. In addition to
the passion that animated him, he felt for her that pity which the less
a woman deserves it the more she loves to inspire.
Tempering the pointedness of his reply by the generality in which he
clothed it, he made bold to say, 'I wish I could tell you how often,
when I have wandered as far as the Champs-Elysées, I have longed to
know the secret of the sadness I imagined I saw on certain faces. It has
always seemed to me that the troubles of the wealthy are the worst, and
that mental anguish in the midst of material well-being is most to be
pitied.'
She looked at him as if his words surprised her. In her eyes was that
look of rapt and involuntary astonishment worn by a woman when she
suddenly discovers in a man a shade of sentimentalism which she believed
to be restricted to her own sex.
'I think we shall soon become friends,' she said, 'for there is much in
our hearts that is similar. Are you like me? I believe in sympathy and
antipathy by sheer instinct, and I think I can also feel when people
don't like me. Now--perhaps I am wrong in telling you this, but I speak
to you in confidence, as if I had known you a long time--there is your
friend Monsieur Larcher; I am sure that he doesn't like me.'
She was really agitated as she said this, for she was now about to learn
for certain, not whether Claude had been speaking ill of her--she knew
he had not by René's face--but whether the poet could hold his tongue.
She was well aware that in a love affair the dangerous time for
imprudent confidences lies at the beginning and the end. Your only sure
men are those who can keep their peace when their hearts are overflowing
with hope or bitterness. By René's reply she would be able to judge an
important trait in his character, and one that was a principal factor in
the plan that she had madly and rapidly evolved. It was only natural
that he should have confided his passion to Claude on the very day of
its birth--and he would have done so, too, had it not been for Colette's
presence. This detail was, of course, unknown to Suzanne, and René's
silence was a promise of prudence that set her heart beating.
'We have never mentioned your name,' said the poet; 'but, as you
remarked only too justly the other evening, he has always been
particularly unfortunate in his love affairs, and he cannot shake his
troubles off. If you could but see how he carries on with the woman he
is miserably in love with at the present moment!'
'That is no reason,' said Suzanne, 'why he should revenge himself by
forcing his attentions upon any woman chance throws in his way. I got
quite angry one day when he was seated next to me at table. I heard,
too, that he had been speaking ill of me, but I have forgiven him.'
'And now Claude may say what he likes,' she thought when René had gone
after promising to come again in three days' time and to bring his
collection of unpublished poems. Then she looked at herself in the glass
with unfeigned satisfaction. The interview had been a success; she had
made the poet understand that she could not receive him in the ordinary
way; she had put him on his guard against his best friend, and she had
completed her capture of his heart.
'He is mine,' she cried, and this time her joy was sincere and deep.