HAPPY DAYS
When Suzanne left the house in the Rue Coëtlogon her next meeting with
René was already arranged. After taking a few steps down the little
street she stopped and turned her head, although it would have been more
prudent to walk straight on, as she always did in the Rue du
Mont-Thabor. But so firm a hold had passion obtained upon this usually
cold-blooded woman that she smiled and waved her hand at the poet as he
stood watching her from the window of the room in which she had enjoyed
such a triumph--for all her calculations had turned out perfectly
correct. Getting into a cab at the corner of the Rue d'Assas, she drove
to the Bon Marché, where she had ordered her carriage to meet her; on
the way the details of the conversation she had had with René recurred
to her, and, going over them again, she congratulated herself upon the
manner in which she had acquitted herself. As soon as the first real
step has been taken in an intrigue of this kind the discussion of
further arrangements becomes as easy and as delightful as it was before
hateful and difficult.
Suzanne had been the first to attack this delicate question. 'I want you
to promise me something. If you do not wish me to reproach myself with
this love as with a crime, promise me that you won't go out into Society
at all. You are not accustomed to that kind of life, and you ought to be
at work. You would fritter away your magnificent talents and genius in
idle nonsense, and I should look upon myself as the cause. Promise me
that you won't go and see anyone'--and in a whisper--'any of those women
who flocked round you the other night.'
How tenderly René had kissed her for those words, in which the author
could read a tribute of devotion paid to his future work and the lover a
delicate expression of secret jealousy. He asked a little timidly,
'Mayn't I come even to your house?'
'To mine least of all,' she replied. 'I could not bear to see you touch
my husband's hand now. You know what I mean,' she added, passing her
fingers caressingly through his hair. He was sitting at her feet, while
she was still in the arm-chair. She bent forward and hid her face on
René's shoulder. 'Don't make me say any more,' she sighed; then, after
a few minutes, 'What I should like to be to you is the friend who only
enters into a man's life to bring him the sweet and noble gifts of joy
and courage, the friend who loves and is beloved in secret, away from
the mocking world that sneers at the purest feelings of the soul. I have
committed a great sin as it is'--here she hid her face in her pretty
hands--'do not let it grow into that series of base and sordid acts
which fills me with such horror in others. Spare me this, René, if you
love me as you say you do . . . But tell me, do you really love me so
much?'
In delivering herself of this pretty batch of lies she had seen in the
face of her simple and romantic victim the rapturous joy with which
these beautiful sentiments inspired him. The Madonna resumed the halo
which she had temporarily laid aside. Then, by a skilful combination of
ruse and affection, by giving to cool calculation an appearance of
tenderest susceptibility, she had led him to agree to the following
convention as being the only one befitting the poetry of her love. He
was to look out for a small suite of rooms somewhere not very far from
the Rue Murillo; he would engage them in an assumed name, and they could
meet there two, three, or four times a week. She had suggested
Batignolles, but it was so cleverly done that he almost imagined he had
hit upon it himself, as indeed upon the rest of _her_ ideas. He was to
start out the very next day, and then write to her, _poste restante_, in
certain initials, at a certain office. All these unnecessary precautions
gave René an idea of the state of slavery in which his poor angel
lived--if such an existence could be called living! 'Poor angel' he had
called her, as she gave utterance to a half-stifled complaint concerning
her husband's despotism and compared herself to a hunted animal, 'how
you must have suffered!' And she had lifted her eyes to the ceiling with
such a well-feigned expression of grief that, years afterwards, the man
for whose benefit all this was done still asked, 'Was she not sincere?'
There was, however, no need for so much theatrical display to make René
joyfully accede to the plan proposed by the clever pupil of Desforges.
Simply out of love for her he would have agreed with pleasure and
alacrity to any kind of scheme she put forward. But the programme laid
before him corresponded well with the romantic side of his nature. It
enchanted the poet to dwell upon the idea of carrying such a delightful
secret with him through life, whilst the phraseology in which Suzanne
had posed as the patron saint of his work had flattered his vanity,
dreaming as he did of reconciling art and love, of uniting indulgence of
the baser passions with that independence and solitude his work
required.
And now René, after so many days of torture, felt as though both his
mind and his heart had wings. So great was his happiness that he did not
even notice the look of pained surprise that his sister wore during the
evening that followed Suzanne's visit. What had Françoise heard? What
had she told Madame Fresneau? That the latter was deeply agitated was
very evident. The profound ignorance of certain women who are both
romantic and pure exposes them to these rude surprises. They interest
themselves in love affairs because they are women, and assist in the
establishment of relations which they believe to be as innocent as they
are themselves. Then, when they see the brutal consequences to which
these relations almost necessarily lead, their surprise is so great that
but for its cruelty it would be comical.
According to the description given her by the servant, Emilie had no
doubt as to the identity of the visitor, and the mere idea of what might
have taken place there in her house filled the staid and pious matron
with horror. Her mind involuntarily reverted to the bitter tears she had
seen on Rosalie's pale cheeks, and as she thought, first of the poor
girl, of whose sincerity she was convinced, and then of the unknown
Society lady for whom in her simplicity she had taken sides, she said to
herself, 'What if René should be mistaken in this woman?'
But she was a sister too--a sister indulgent to a fault, and, after a
feeling of uneasiness which his evident distress had caused her during
the past week, she had not the courage to trouble her brother with
reproaches on seeing him look so happy. This mixture of conflicting
sentiments prevented her from provoking any fresh confidences, and René
was become too discreet to make them. It was impossible for him to speak
of Suzanne now; what he felt for her could not be expressed in words. He
had found suitable apartments almost immediately in a quiet street in
the centre of the Batignolles quarter, just where Suzanne had wanted
them; and almost immediately, too, chance had so willed it that he was
free to devote himself to her entirely. A week had scarcely passed since
Suzanne's appearance in the Rue Coëtlogon when Claude Larcher, the only
one of the poet's friends whom he visited at all often, suddenly left
Paris. He called on René, who had neglected him a little of late, about
half-past six one evening, in travelling garb, his face pale and
agitated. The family were just sitting down to dinner.
'I have only come to bid you good-bye,' said Claude without taking a
seat; 'I am going by the nine o'clock Mont Cenis express, and I shall
have to dine at the station.'
'Shall you be away long?' asked Emilie.
'_Chi lo sa?_' replied Claude, 'as they say in that beautiful land where
I shall be to-morrow.'
'Lucky fellow!' cried Fresneau, 'to be able to go and read Virgil in his
own country instead of teaching donkeys to translate him!'
'Very lucky, indeed!' said the writer with a forced laugh; but when he
took leave of René at the gate, where his cab laden with luggage
awaited him, he burst into sobs. 'It's that beast of a Colette!' he
cried. 'You remember that day you saw her in my rooms? God! how sweet
she looked! And do you remember what she said, as I thought, in a joke?
I can't even repeat it. . . . Well, things have come to such a pass that
life for me here is unbearable, and I must be off for a time. I had no
money, so I was forced to go to a usurer who lent me some at sixty per
cent. Terrible, isn't it? What with the usurer, my old aunt in the
country, to whom I was bad enough to write, my publisher, and the editor
of the "Revue parisienne"--who, by the way, has got me to sign a
contract for copy--I have six thousand francs. As the train carries me
along every turn of the wheel will seem to go over my heart, but at any
rate I shall be getting away from her; and when she gets my letter,
written from Milan, what a grand revenge it will be!' He rubbed his
hands with joy, then, shaking his head, said, 'It has been like Heine's
ballad of Count Olaf all along. You know how he talks of love to his
betrothed while the headsman stands at the door--that headsman has
always been at the door of Colette's chamber. But when he assumed the
form of a Sappho I could bear it no longer. Good-bye, René, you will
not see me back till I am cured.' Since then there had been no news from
the unhappy fellow, of whom René generally thought when comparing the
noble woman he idolised with the savage and dangerous actress. Claude's
absence was the reason why René never put in an appearance now at the
green-room of the Théâtre Français. Why should he expose himself to
the rancour of Colette's tongue, which no doubt wagged loudly enough
when on the subject of her fugitive lover? Thanks to this absence, too,
all bonds between the poet and the world into which Larcher had
introduced him were severed.
Under the influence of his growing passion for Suzanne, the author of
the 'Sigisbée' had ignored the most elementary rules of etiquette. Not
only had he neglected to call upon the different women who had so
graciously invited him, but he had not even paid Madame Komof his duty
visit. The Comtesse, who was large-minded enough to understand the
unconventional ways of genius, and kind enough to forgive such
irregularity, said to herself, 'He was probably bored here,' and, though
not angry with him, had not asked him again. She was busy, too, for the
moment in bringing out a Russian pianist who pretended that he was in
direct communication with the soul of Chopin. René, feeling safe in
that quarter, had heard with regret that Madame Offarel was greatly
offended that neither he nor Emilie had come to the famous dinner whose
ingredients it had taken her a week to collect from all parts of Paris.
Fresneau had gone all alone.
'A fine expedition you sent me on!' he said to his wife on his return.
'When I mentioned your headache the old woman gave a grunt that almost
knocked me down, and when I told her that René was gone to see a sick
friend--a very queer excuse, by the way, but let that pass--she said,
"In some palace, I suppose!" During dinner poor Claude was the only
topic of conversation. She pulled him to pieces till he hadn't a rag on
his back. "He is an egoist and an ill-mannered fellow, he is in bad
health and has no future!"--and goodness knows what she didn't say! If
it hadn't been for a game of piquet with Offarel--and even that the sly
old fox won. Oh!--Passart was there too. Remind me about recommending
him to the Abbé for the college. He's a nice young fellow. Between you
and me, I think Rosalie rather likes him.'
Emilie could not help smiling at her husband's marvellous perspicacity.
She had often heard Madame Offarel complain of the pressing attentions
of the young drawing-master, and she immediately understood that he had
been asked at the last minute to prove that, besides René, there were
other suitors on hand. Thereupon the Offarels, who had never allowed
four days to pass without coming in after dinner, had not set foot in
the Rue Coëtlogon for a fortnight. When they at last decided to resume
their visits, at their wonted hour, they were escorted by the
aforementioned Passart, a tall, fair, gawky lad in spectacles, with a
shy look on his freckled face. Emilie saw at once that their motive in
bringing him was to arouse her brother's jealousy, and the old lady was
not long in showing her hand.
'Monsieur Offarel is engaged this evening,' she said, 'so Monsieur
Passart was kind enough to bring us. Give Monsieur Jacques that seat
near you, Rosalie.'
Poor Rosalie had not seen René since receiving his cruel message
through Emilie. In passing from the Rue Bagneux to the Rue
Coëtlogon--in reality a short, but to her an interminable distance--she
had suffered agonies, and her heart beat fast as she entered the room.
She had, however, the courage to steal a glance at her old lover, as a
kind of protest that she was not responsible for her mother's mean
calculations, and the courage also to reply coldly, as she took a seat
in a corner and placed a chair before her, 'I want this chair to put my
wool on. I'm sure Monsieur Passart won't deprive me of it.'
'There's room here,' said Emilie, coming to the poor girl's aid, and
giving the young man a seat next to herself. Rosalie firmly refused to
play the _rôle_ marked out for her, although she well knew what a
terrible scene awaited her at home. And yet it would have been so
natural if spite had inspired her with that petty mode of revenge. But
women with truly delicate feeling, who know what real love is, are
strangers to such mean spite. To inspire a fickle lover with jealousy
would horrify them simply because it would mean flirting with another,
and such a proceeding is beneath them. Such scrupulous loyalty in spite
of all is a touching proof of love, and one which ensures a woman a
place in a man's regrets for ever.
For ever! But as far as regards the present hour and the immediate
result, these loyal hearts get left far behind, and the flirts win. When
the years have fled, and the lover, grown old, shall institute
comparisons, he will understand the unique position held by her who
would not cause him pain--even to win him back. Meanwhile he runs after
the jades who make him drink the bitter cup of that degrading but
intoxicating passion, jealousy. It is only fair to René to say that, in
sacrificing Rosalie for Suzanne, he believed that he was acting in the
interests of true love. When, next morning, his sister praised the
girl's noble behaviour, he was quite sincere too in his reply, smacking
as it did, though, of naïve self-conceit.
'What a pity that such fine feeling should be wasted!'
'Yes,' repeated Emilie with a sigh, 'what a pity!'
Had René had a thought for aught else than his love, the tone in which
his sister had uttered these words would no doubt have revealed to him
the change that her opinions had undergone with regard to Madame
Moraines. His love, however, entirely absorbed him. His days were now
parcelled out into two kinds--those on which he was to meet Suzanne and
those which he was to spend without seeing her. The latter, which were
by far the more numerous, were passed in the following manner. A great
part of the morning he spent in bed, dreaming, for he was already
beginning to feel a diminution of vital energy. Then he bestowed much
time upon his toilet, lavishing such attention on details as would
convince a woman of experience that a young man was beloved. His toilet
finished, he wrote to his Madonna. She had imposed upon him the sweet
task of sending her an account of all his thoughts day by day. As for
herself, he had not a line of her writing. She had said, 'I am so
watched, and never alone!' And he pitied her as he devoted himself to
compiling the detailed diary that she had demanded.
This pose of a sentimental Narcissus gazing incessantly upon himself and
his love was well in keeping with that deep-rooted vanity which he
possessed in common with nearly all writers. Suzanne had not
sufficiently reflected upon the anomalous nature of a man of letters to
have taken vanity into account. It pleased her to read René's words
when he was not there simply as a burning reminder of the kisses they
had exchanged. When the poet had paid his morning devotions to his
divinity in this fashion it was time for lunch. Immediately after that
he would go to the Bibliothèque in the Rue de Richelieu and work
unremittingly at the notes for his 'Savonarola,' which he had again
taken up, during the whole of the afternoon, and sometimes right on into
the evening. He worked now without ever having, as in writing the
'Sigisbée,' those flashes of talent which pass from the brain to the
pen, charging the memory with a flow of words and drawing the images
with such precision and life-like resemblance that the effort of
production becomes a strong but delightful intoxication that ends in a
state of agreeable exhaustion.
To build up the scenes of the drama he was now writing, René had to
keep his mind in a painful state of tension, and at a worse tension
still to turn his prose sketches into verse. His brain no longer served
him in making happy finds. For this there were several important and
distinct reasons. The first--a physical one--was the waste of vital
energy inseparable from all reciprocated passions; the second--a moral
one--the constant hold that Suzanne had upon his mind and the inability
to entirely forget her; the last--an intellectual and secret one, though
most powerful--was the deadening influence which success exercises upon
the greatest genius.
Whilst conceiving and writing he was beginning to think of the public.
He saw before him the house on the first night, the critics in their
stalls, the fashionable people scattered here and there, and, seated in
a box, Madame Moraines. He already heard the shouts of applause, as
demoralising for a dramatic author as the number of editions is for a
novelist. The desire to produce a certain effect took the place of that
disinterested, natural, and irresistible impulse which is a necessary
condition in true art. Still too young to possess the skill with which
literary veterans can write impassioned phrases in cold blood, and even
well enough to deceive the best critics, René sought in himself that
source of ideas which he no longer found. His play would not take shape
in his mind in a natural and easy way. The goat-like features of the
Florentine monk and the tragic figures of the terrible pontiff Alexander
VI., the violent Michael Angelo, the sour Machiavelli, and the
formidable Cæsar Borgia would not clothe themselves in flesh and blood
before his eyes, in spite of the heaps of notes and documents he had
collected and the pages erased again and again. Frequently he would lay
down his pen and gaze up at the blue sky through the lace curtains of
his window; he would listen to the noises in the house--the closing of a
door, Constant playing, Françoise grumbling, Emilie passing quietly,
Fresneau walking heavily--and then find himself counting how many hours
he had still to wait before seeing Suzanne.
'How I love her! How I love her!' he would exclaim, increasing his
passion by the fervour with which he uttered these words. Again, he
would delight in conjuring up a vision of the room in which these
meetings, awaited with such feverish impatience, took place. He had been
more lucky in finding a suitable place than his inexperience had led
Suzanne to expect, It was a small suite consisting of three rooms,
rather prettily furnished by Malvina Raulet, a brunette of about
thirty-five, whose sweet voice, demure looks, and general air of
propriety had at once enchanted René. This lady, whose attire was
almost severe in its simplicity, gave herself out as a widow. She lived
ostensibly on a small income left her by the late M. Raulet, an
imaginary individual whose profession she defined in a vague way by
saying that 'he was in business.' As a matter of fact, the shrewd and
cunning landlady had never been married. She was, for the moment, being
'protected' by a respectable physician--a well-known man and the father
of a family--whom she had so thoroughly taken in by her fine manners
that she managed to get five hundred francs a month out of him,
regularly paid on the first, like the salary of a Civil Servant.
Being before all else a thrifty soul, she had conceived the idea of
increasing her monthly income by letting out three of the rooms she did
not want, and as there were two doors to her flat she was able to give
this small suite a separate entrance. The almost elegant furniture it
contained had come to her as a weird inheritance. For ten years she had
been the mistress of a madman, whose family, desiring for some reason to
keep this insanity secret, had paid her well. Upon her unhappy lover's
death, Malvina had, according to promise, received twenty thousand
francs and the contents of the house in which she had played such a
strange part. This woman's dark and hideous past René was never to
know. In that gay city, where clandestine attachments abound, how many
of the thoughtless youths who hire such places know aught of the history
of those who pander to their wants? Nor could the poet think for one
moment that this woman with the irreproachable manners had seen right
through his demands at the first glance. He had told her that he lived
in Versailles, and that he was obliged to come to Paris two or three
times a week. The name he gave her was that of his favourite hero--the
paradoxical d'Albert in 'Mademoiselle de Maupin;' but as he wrote it at
the bottom of the agreement which the careful Madame Raulet got him to
sign, he placed his hat on the table, and there the crafty landlady
could plainly read the real initials of her new lodger.
'If you would like my servant to undertake the cleaning of the rooms,'
she said, 'it will be fifty francs a month extra.'
This exorbitant demand was made in such a cool tone, and Madame Raulet,
moreover, looked so thoroughly respectable, that René dared not discuss
the amount. He could, however, not help eyeing her somewhat
distrustfully. Her appearance, it was true, disarmed all suspicion. She
wore a dark dress, well but simply made. Round her neck hung one of
those long gold chains so much worn at one time by the French
_bourgeoisie_--a chain which had no doubt once belonged to her sainted
mother. She wore her watch in her belt; a brooch containing a lock of
white hair--that of a beloved father, most probably--fastened her neat
lace collar, and through the meshes of the silk mittens that covered her
long hands might be seen her wedding ring.
As René was leaving, this virtuous creature remarked, 'The house is a
very quiet one, sir. You are a young man,' she added with a smile, 'and
you will not be offended if I make so bold as to say that the least
noise on the stairs at night, or anything like that, would be sufficient
reason for my asking you to leave.'
René felt himself blush as she spoke. In his excessive simplicity he
feared lest the worthy widow might give him notice after his first
meeting there with Suzanne. This ridiculous fear impelled him to visit
his landlady immediately Madame Moraines had gone under pretence of
speaking to her about some trifling matter he wanted done. She received
him with the polite air of a woman who knows nothing, understands
nothing, and has seen nothing, although she had been watching Suzanne's
departure from her window, and had, with the practised eye of a
Parisian, taken that lady's measure at a glance. Malvina now saw through
it all--her lodger's visitor was a woman in the first ranks of Society,
but he himself, although well dressed, showed by the cut of his beard,
his hair, his walk and his whole appearance that he belonged to a lower
station in life. The landlady thought that most probably the rent would
be paid by the mistress, and not by the lover, and she regretted not
having asked more than five hundred francs a month besides the fifty for
attendance. The whole of the flat cost her fourteen hundred francs a
year, and she paid her maid-of-all-work forty-five francs! No matter,
she would make up for it in the extras--in the firing, the washing, and
especially in the meals, if ever the young man asked her to provide
lunch, as she had offered to do.
'She is an excellent woman, and very attentive,' said René, when
Suzanne questioned him about Madame Raulet. Was the poet wrong in being
so trustful? Of what use would it have been to indulge, as Claude would
have done, in a pessimistic analysis of this woman's character, except
to conjure up thoughts of blackmail and other dangers, all entirely
imaginary, as it happened? For although Malvina was far from being a
saint, she was at the same time a _bourgeoise_ who had a sincere
hankering after respectability, and who proposed, as soon as she had
made her little pile, to return to her native town of Tournon, and lead
a life of absolute purity. The fear of seeing her name figure in the
report of some evil-smelling case was sufficient to deter her from
practising any pronounced form of imposition. So far did her love of
respectability carry her that she wove a complicated web of falsehoods
to the _concierge_ about her new lodger. She made out that Suzanne and
René were a happy couple who lived in the country all the year round,
and that they were distantly related to the late M. Raulet. Then, in
order that he should have nothing whatever to do with the said
_concierge_, she herself handed René two keys even before he had asked
for them.
What cared the poet for the real cause of her attentiveness? The young
have sense enough not to go into facts which lend themselves to the
gratification of their desires. This system sometimes leads them along
perilous paths, but they cull many a flower by the wayside and enjoy its
fragrance, nevertheless. When the poet walked across half Paris to reach
his little suite in the Rue des Dames there was a music in his heart
that shut out all dissonant voices of suspicion. His meetings with
Suzanne were generally in the morning. René had never asked himself why
that time of the day was most convenient to his beloved. As a matter of
fact it was the hour when she was most certain of escaping the
watchfulness of Desforges. In the forenoon the hygienic Baron devoted
himself to what was dearest to him on earth--his health. First he had a
bout of fencing, which he called his 'dose of exercise'; then he
galloped through the Bois, which was his 'air cure'; lastly he 'burnt
his acid,' a formula he owed to Doctor Noirot.
The double Madonna, who had studied her man thoroughly, knew that he was
as much a slave to these rules of health as Paul was to those of his
office. She therefore felt a secret pleasure in thinking of her husband
seated at his desk, of her 'excellent friend' bestriding an English
mare, and of her René entering a florist's to buy some flowers
wherewith to adorn the chapel of their love. Roses were his usual
choice, roses red as his darling's lips, roses fair as her blushing
cheeks, fresh and living blooms that filled the air with their sweet and
penetrating perfume. As she was borne towards the harbour of their love
she knew that René would be standing at the window listening to the
rattle of the cabs as they passed. How delighted he would be when hers
stopped before the house! She would ascend the stairs, and there he
would be waiting for her, having softly opened the door so as not to
lose one second of her sweet presence. Then he would hold her in his
arms devouring her with silent kisses that pierced the black lace veil
as they sought her fresh and mobile lips.
Suzanne's great triumph consisted in her ability to preserve her
innocent Madonna-like expression amidst all the madness of their love;
and, by a singular dispensation of nature, too, this strange creature
was entirely devoid of all sense of remorse. She belonged, no doubt by
heredity, being the daughter of a statesman, to the great race of active
beings whose dominant trait is a faculty for distributing their
energies. These beings have the power to make the most of the present
without allowing themselves to be troubled either by the past or the
future. In modern slang we find a pretty phrase to express this power of
temporary oblivion--it is called 'cutting the cord.' Suzanne had
parcelled out her life into three parts--one belonging to Paul, one to
Desforges, and one to René. During the time she devoted to each there
was such absolute suspension of the rest of her existence that she would
have had some difficulty in realising the extent of her duplicity had
she cared to probe her conscience--a proceeding she never dreamt of
whilst the opium of pleasure coursed through her brain. She generally
remained with René till about twelve o'clock, and when she was gone
Madame Raulet would send up his lunch; and he would stay in the rooms
for the rest of the day, ostensibly to work, for he had some of his
papers there, but really to gloat over the reminiscences that floated in
the very air he breathed. When night was beginning to fall he would wend
his way homewards, under the twinkling gas lamps that illumined his
route, possessed by a divine languor that seemed to combine and blend
into one harmonious whole all the delights of the day.