Produced by Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
[Illustration: _The Duc, the Duchesse, and the Doctor._ ]
THE NABOB
BY
ALPHONSE DAUDET
TRANSLATED BY
GEORGE BURNHAM IVES
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
BRANDER MATTHEWS
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II.
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1902
_Copyright, 1898,_
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
_All rights reserved._
University Press:
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
XIII. A DAY OF SPLEEN 1
XIV. THE EXHIBITION 20
XV. MEMOIRS OF A CLERK.--IN THE RECEPTION-ROOM 42
XVI. A PUBLIC MAN 57
XVII. THE APPARITION 86
XVIII. THE JENKINS PEARLS 107
XIX. THE OBSEQUIES 135
XX. BARONESS HEMERLINGUE 163
XXI. THE SITTING 194
XXII. PARISIAN DRAMAS 230
XXIII. MEMOIRS OF A CLERK.--LAST SHEETS 255
XXIV. AT BORDIGHERA 267
XXV. THE FIRST NIGHT OF "REVOLTE" 287
ILLUSTRATIONS
The Duc, the Duchesse, and the Doctor _Frontispiece_
"'Don't be afraid. I have no evil designs on you'" _Page_ 153
The First Night of "Revolte" " 287
From drawings by Lucius Rossi.
THE NABOB.
XIII.
A DAY OF SPLEEN.
Five o'clock in the afternoon. Rain ever since the morning, a gray sky,
so low that one can touch it with one's umbrella, dirty weather,
puddles, mud, nothing but mud, in thick pools, in gleaming streaks along
the edge of the sidewalks, driven back in vain by automatic sweepers,
sweepers with handkerchiefs tied over their heads, and carted away on
enormous tumbrils which carry it slowly and in triumph through the
streets toward Montreuil; removed and ever reappearing, oozing between
the pavements, splashing carriage panels, horses' breasts, the clothing
of the passers-by, soiling windows, thresholds, shop-fronts, until one
would think that all Paris was about to plunge in and disappear beneath
that depressing expanse of miry earth in which all things are jumbled
together and lose their identity. And it is a pitiable thing to see how
that filth invades the spotless precincts of new houses, the copings of
the quays, the colonnades of stone balconies. There is some one,
however, whom this spectacle rejoices, a poor, ill, disheartened
creature, who, stretched out at full length on the embroidered silk
covering of a divan, her head resting on her clenched fists, gazes
gleefully out through the streaming window-panes and gloats over all
these ugly details:
"You see, my Fairy, this is just the kind of weather I wanted to-day.
See them splash along. Aren't they hideous, aren't they filthy? What
mud! It's everywhere, in the streets, on the quays, even in the Seine,
even in the sky. Ah! mud is a fine thing when you're downhearted. I
would like to dabble in it, to mould a statue with it, a statue one
hundred feet high, and call it, 'My Ennui.'"
"But why do you suffer from ennui, my darling?" mildly inquires the
ex-ballet-dancer, good-natured and rosy, from her armchair, in which she
sits very erect for fear of damage to her hair, which is even more
carefully arranged than usual. "Haven't you all that any one can need to
be happy?"
And she proceeds, in her placid voice, to enumerate for the hundredth
time her reasons for happiness, her renown, her genius, her beauty, all
men at her feet, the handsomest, the most powerful; oh! yes, the most
powerful, for that very day--But an ominous screech, a heart-rending
wail from the jackal, maddened by the monotony of her desert, suddenly
makes the studio windows rattle and sends the terrified old chrysalis
back into her cocoon.
The completion of her group and its departure for the Salon has left
Felicia for a week past in this state of prostration, of disgust, of
heart-rending, distressing irritation. It requires all of the old
fairy's unwearying patience, the magic of the memories she evokes every
moment in the day, to make life endurable to her beside that
restlessness, that wicked wrath which she can hear grumbling beneath the
girl's silences, and which suddenly bursts forth in a bitter word, in a
_pah_! of disgust _apropos_ of everything. Her group is hideous. No one
will speak of it. All the critics are donkeys. The public? an immense
_goitre_ with three stories of chin. And yet, a few Sundays ago, when
the Duc de Mora came with the superintendent of Fine Arts to see her
work at the studio, she was so happy, so proud of the praise bestowed on
her, so thoroughly delighted with her work, which she admired at a
distance as if it were by another hand, now that the modelling-tool had
ceased to form between her and her work the bond which tends to impair
the impartiality of the artist's judgment.
But it is so every year. When the studio is robbed of the latest work,
when her famous name is once more at the mercy of the public's
unforeseen caprice, Felicia's preoccupations--for she has then no
visible object in life--stray through the empty void of her heart, of
her existence as one who has turned aside from the peaceful furrow,
until she is once more intent upon another task. She shuts herself up,
she refuses to see anybody. One would say that she is distrustful of
herself. The good Jenkins is the only one who can endure her during
those crises. He even seems to take pleasure in them, as if he expected
something from them. And yet God knows she is not amiable to him. Only
yesterday he remained two hours with the beautiful ennui-ridden
creature, who did not so much as speak a single word to him. If that is
the sort of welcome she has in store for the great personage who does
them the honor to dine with them--At that point the gentle Crenmitz, who
has been placidly ruminating all these things and gazing at the slender
toe of her tufted shoes, suddenly remembers that she has promised to
make a dish of Viennese cakes for the dinner of the personage in
question, and quietly leaves the studio on the tips of her little toes.
Still the rain, still the mud, still the beautiful sphinx, crouching in
her seat, her eyes wandering aimlessly over the miry landscape. Of what
is she thinking? What is she watching on those muddy roads, growing dim
in the fading light, with that frown on her brow and that lip curled in
disgust? Is she awaiting her destiny? A melancholy destiny, to have gone
abroad in such weather, without fear of the darkness, of the mud.
Some one has entered the studio, a heavier step than Constance's
mouse-like trot. The little servant, doubtless. And Felicia says
roughly, without turning:
"Go to bed. I am not at home to any one."
"I should be very glad to speak with you if you were," a voice replied
good-naturedly.
She starts, rises, and says in a softer tone, almost laughing at sight
of that unexpected visitor:
"Ah! it's you, young Minerva! How did you get in?"
"Very easily. All the doors are open."
"I am not surprised. Constance has been like a madwoman ever since
morning, with her dinner."
"Yes, I saw. The reception room is full of flowers. You have--?"
"Oh! a stupid dinner, an official dinner. I don't know how I ever made
up my mind to it. Sit down here, beside me. I am glad to see you."
Paul sat down, a little perturbed in mind. She had never seemed so
lovely to him. In the half-light of the studio, amid the confusion of
objects of art, bronzes, tapestries, her pallor cast a soft light, her
eyes shone like jewels, and her long, close-fitting riding habit
outlined the negligent attitude of her goddess-like figure. Then her
tone was so affectionate, she seemed so pleased at his call. Why had he
stayed away so long? It was almost a month since she had seen him. Had
they ceased to be friends, pray? He excused himself as best he could.
Business, a journey. Moreover, although he had not been there, he had
often talked about her, oh! very often, almost every day.
"Really? With whom?"
"With--"
He was on the point of saying: "With Aline Joyeuse," but something
checked him, an indefinable sentiment, a sort of shame at uttering that
name in the studio which had heard so many other names. There are some
things which do not go together, although one cannot tell why. Paul
preferred to answer with a falsehood which led him straight to the
object of his call.
"With an excellent man upon whom you have unnecessarily inflicted great
pain. Tell me, why haven't you finished the poor Nabob's bust? It was a
source of great joy and great pride to him, the thought of that bust at
the Salon. He relied upon it."
At the name of the Nabob she was slightly embarrassed.
"It is true," she said, "I broke my word. What do you expect? I am the
slave of my whims. But it is my purpose to take it up again one of these
days. See, the cloth thrown over it is all damp, so that the clay won't
dry."
"And the accident? Ah! do you know, we hardly believed in that?"
"You were wrong. I never lie. A fall, a terrible crash. But the clay was
fresh, I easily repaired it. Look!"
She removed the cloth with a movement of her arm; the Nabob stood forth,
with his honest face beaming with joy at being reproduced, and so true,
so natural, that Paul uttered a cry of admiration.
"Isn't it good?" she asked ingenuously. "A few touches there and
there--" She had taken the tool and the little sponge and pushed the
stand into what little light there was. "It would be a matter of a few
hours; but it couldn't go to the Exhibition. This is the 22d; everything
had to be sent in long ago."
"Pshaw! With influence--"
She frowned, and the wicked, drooping expression played about her mouth.
"True. The Duc de Mora's _protegee_. Oh! you need not excuse yourself. I
know what people say of him, and I care as little for it as that!" She
threw a pellet of clay which flattened out against the wall. "Perhaps,
indeed, by dint of imagining what is not--But let us drop those vile
things," she said, with a toss of her little aristocratic head. "I am
anxious to give you pleasure, Minerva. Your friend shall go to the Salon
this year."
At that moment the odor of caramel, of hot pastry invaded the studio,
where the twilight was falling in fine, decolorized dust; and the Fairy
appeared, with a plate of fritters in her hand, a true fairy,
rejuvenated in gay attire, arrayed in a white tunic which afforded
glimpses, beneath the yellowed lace, of her lovely old woman's arms, the
charm that is the last to die.
"Look at my _kuchlen_, darling; see if they're not a success this time.
Oh! I beg your pardon; I didn't see that you had company. Ah! It's
Monsieur Paul? Are you pretty well, Monsieur Paul? Pray taste one of my
cakes."
And the amiable old lady, to whom her costume seemed to impart
extraordinary animation, came prancing forward, balancing her plate on
the ends of her doll-like fingers.
"Let him alone," said Felicia calmly. "You can offer him some at
dinner."
"At dinner!"
The dancer was so thunderstruck that she nearly overturned her pretty
cakes, which were as light and dainty and excellent as herself.
"Why, yes, I am keeping him to dinner with us. Oh! I beg you," she added
with peculiar earnestness, seeing that the young man made a gesture of
refusal, "I beg you, do not say no. You can do me a real service by
staying to-night. Come, I did not hesitate a moment ago, you know."
She had taken his hand; really there seemed to be a strange
disproportion between her request and the anxious, imploring tone in
which it was made. Paul still held back. He was not properly dressed.
How could she expect him to stay? A dinner-party at which she was to
have other guests.
"My dinner-party? Why, I will countermand the orders for it. That is the
way I feel. We three will dine alone, you and I and Constance."
"But, Felicia, my child, you can't think of doing such a thing. Upon my
word! What about the--the other who will soon be here?"
"_Parbleu!_ I will write to him to stay at home."
"Wretched girl, it is too late."
"Not at all, It's just striking six. The dinner was to be at half-past
seven. You must send him this at once."
She wrote a note, in haste, on a corner of the table.
"_Mon Dieu, mon Dieu!_ what a strange girl!" murmured the dancer, lost
in bewilderment, while Felicia, enchanted, transfigured, joyously sealed
her letter.
"There, my excuses are all made. The sick-headache wasn't invented for
Kadour. Oh! how glad I am!" she added, when the letter had gone; "what a
delightful evening we will have! Kiss me, Constance. This won't prevent
our doing honor to your _kuchlen_, and we shall enjoy seeing you in a
pretty gown that makes you look younger than I."
Less than that would have induced the dancer to forgive this latest whim
of her dear demon and the crime of _lese-majeste_ in which she had made
her an accomplice. The idea of treating such a personage so cavalierly!
No one else in the world would have done it, no one but her. As for Paul
de Gery, he made no further attempt at resistance, being caught once
more in the network from which he believed that he had set himself free
by absence, but which, as soon as he crossed the threshold of the
studio, suppressed his will and delivered him over, fast bound and
conquered, to the sentiment that he was firmly resolved to combat.
* * * * *
It was evident that the dinner, a veritable gourmand's dinner,
superintended by the Austrian even in its least important details, had
been prepared for a guest of first-rate consequence. From the high
Berber chandeliers of carved wood, with seven branches, which shed a
flood of light upon the richly embroidered cloth, to the long-necked
wine-jugs of curious and exquisite shape, the sumptuous table
appointments and the delicacy of the dishes, which were highly seasoned
to an unusual degree, everything disclosed the importance of the
expected guest and the pains that had been taken to please him. There
was no mistaking the fact that it was an artist's establishment. Little
silverware, but superb china, perfect harmony without the slightest
attempt at arrangement. Old Rouen, pink Sevres, Dutch glass mounted in
old finely-wrought pewter met on that table as on a stand of rare
objects collected by a connoisseur simply to gratify his taste. The
result was some slight confusion in the household, dependent as it was
upon the chance of a lucky find. The exquisite oil-cruet had no stopper.
The broken salt-cellar overflowed on the cloth, and every moment it was:
"What has become of the mustard-pot? What has happened to that fork?"
All of which troubled de Gery a little on account of the young mistress
of the house, who, for her part, was not in the least disturbed.
But something that made him even more ill at ease was his anxiety to
know who the privileged guest was whose place he had taken at that
table, whom they could entertain with such magnificence and at the same
time such utter lack of ceremony. In spite of everything he felt as if
that countermanded guest were present, a constant affront to his own
dignity. In vain did he try to forget him; everything reminded him of
him, even to the holiday attire of the kindly Fairy, who sat opposite
him and who still retained some of the grand manners which she had
assumed in anticipation of the solemn occasion. The thought disturbed
him, poisoned his joy in being there.
On the other hand, as is always the case in parties of two, where
harmony of mood is very rare, he had never seen Felicia so affectionate,
in such merry humor. She was in a state of effervescent, almost
childlike gayety, one of those fervent outbursts of emotion which one
experiences when some danger has passed, the reaction of a clear,
blazing fire after the excitement of a shipwreck. She laughed heartily,
teased Paul about his accent and what she called his bourgeois ideas.
"For you are shockingly bourgeois, you know. But that is just what I
like in you. It's on account of the contrast, I have no doubt, because I
was born under a bridge, in a gust of wind, that I have always been fond
of sedate, logical natures."
"Oh! my dear, what do you suppose Monsieur Paul will think, when you say
you were born under a bridge?" exclaimed the excellent Crenmitz, who
could not accustom herself to the exaggeration of metaphors, and always
took everything literally.
"Let him think what he pleases, my Fairy. We haven't our eye on him for
a husband. I am sure he would have none of that monster known as an
artist wife. He would think he had married the devil. You are quite
right, Minerva. Art is a despot. One must give oneself to it
unreservedly. You put into your work all the imagination, energy,
honesty, conscience that you possess, so that you have no more of any of
them as long as you live, and the completion of the work tosses you
adrift, helpless and without a compass, like a dismasted hulk, at the
mercy of every wave. Such a wife would be a melancholy acquisition."
"And yet," the young man ventured timidly to observe, "it seems to me
that art, however exacting it may be, cannot take entire possession of
the woman. What would she do with her affections, with the craving for
love, for self-sacrifice, which is in her, far more than in man, the
motive for every act?"
She mused a moment before replying.
"You may be right, O wise Minerva! It is the truth that there are days
when my life rings terribly hollow. I am conscious of holes in it,
unfathomable depths. Everything disappears that I throw in to fill them
up. My noblest artistic enthusiasms are swallowed up in them and die
every time in a sigh. At such times I think of marriage. A husband,
children, a lot of children, tumbling about the studio, all their nests
to look after, the satisfaction of the physical activity which is
lacking in our artistic lives, regular occupations, constant movement,
innocent fun, which would compel one to play instead of always thinking
in the dark and the great void, to laugh at a blow to one's self-esteem,
to be simply a happy mother on the day when the public casts one aside
as a used-up, played-out artist."
And in presence of that vision of domestic happiness the girl's lovely
features assumed an expression which Paul had never before seen upon
them, and which took entire possession of him, gave him a mad longing to
carry away in his arms that beautiful wild bird dreaming of the dovecot,
to protect her, to shelter her with the sure love of an honest man.
She continued, without looking at him:
"I am not so flighty as I seem to be, you know. Ask my dear godmother if
I didn't keep straight up to the mark when she put me at
boarding-school. But what a hurly-burly my life was after that! If you
knew what a youth I had, if you knew how premature experience withered
my mind, and what confusion there was, in my small girl's brain, between
what was and was not forbidden, between reason and folly. Only art,
which was constantly discussed and eulogized, stood erect in all that
ruin, and I took refuge in that. That, perhaps, is why I shall never be
anything but an artist, a woman apart from other women, a poor Amazon
with her heart held captive under her iron breastplate, rushing into
battle like a man, and condemned to live and die like a man."
Why did he not say to her then:
"Beautiful warrior, lay aside your weapons, don the floating robe and
the charms of the sex to which you belong. I love you, I entreat you to
marry me that you may be happy and may make me happy too."
Ah! this is why. He was afraid that the other, he who was to come to
dinner that night, you know, and who remained between them despite his
absence, would hear him speak in that strain and would have the right to
laugh at him or to pity him for such a fervent outburst.
"At all events, I promise you one thing," she continued, "and that is
that if I ever have a daughter, I will try to make a true woman of her
and not such a poor abandoned creature as I am. Oh! you know, my good
Fairy, I do not mean that for you. You have always been kind to your
demon, full of affection and care. Why just look at her, see how pretty
she is, how young she looks to-night."
Enlivened by the repast, the lights, and one of those white dresses
whose reflection causes wrinkles to disappear, La Crenmitz was leaning
back in her chair, holding on a level with her half-closed eyes a glass
of Chateau-Yquem from the cellar of their neighbor the Moulin-Rouge; and
her little pink face, her airy pastel-like costume reflected in the
golden wine, which loaned to it its sparkling warmth, recalled the
former heroine of the dainty suppers after the play, the Crenmitz of the
good old days, not an audacious hussy after the style of our modern
operatic stars, but entirely unaffected and nestling contentedly in her
splendor like a fine pearl in its mother-of-pearl shell. Felicia, who
was certainly determined to be agreeable to everybody that evening, led
her thoughts to the chapter of reminiscences, made her describe once
more her triumphs in _Giselle_ and in the _Peri_, and the ovations from
the audience, the visit of the princes to her dressing-room, and Queen
Amelie's gift, accompanied by such charming words. The evocation of
those glorious scenes intoxicated the poor Fairy, her eyes shone, they
could hear her little feet moving restlessly under the table as if
seized by a dancing frenzy. And, indeed, when the dinner was at an end
and they had returned to the studio, Constance began to pace back and
forth, to describe a dance-step or a pirouette, talking all the time,
interrupting herself to hum an air from some ballet to which she kept
time with her head, then suddenly gathered herself together and with one
leap was at the other end of the studio.
"Now she's off," whispered Felicia to de Gery. "Watch. It will be worth
your while, for you are about to see La Crenmitz dance."
It was a fascinating, fairy-like spectacle. Against the background of
the enormous room, drowned in shadow and hardly lighted save through the
round window from without, where the moon was climbing upward in a deep
blue sky, a typical operatic sky, the famous dancer's figure stood out
all white, a light, airy unsubstantial ghost, flying, rather than
springing, through the air; then, standing upon her slender toes, upheld
in the air by naught but her outstretched arms, her face raised in a
fleeting attitude in which nothing was visible but the smile, she came
quickly forward toward the light, or receded with little jerky steps, so
rapid that one constantly expected to hear the crash of glass and see
her glide backward up the slope of the broad moonbeam that shone aslant
into the studio. There was one fact that imparted a strange, poetic
charm to that fantastic ballet, and that was the absence of music, of
every other sound than that of the measured footfalls, whose effect was
heightened by the semi-darkness, of that quick, light patter no louder
than the fall of the petals from a dahlia, one by one. This lasted for
some minutes, then they could tell from the quickening of her breath
that she was becoming exhausted.
"Enough, enough! Sit down," said Felicia.
Thereupon the little white ghost lighted on the edge of an armchair and
sat there poised and ready to start anew, smiling and panting, until
sleep seized upon her, and began to sway and rock her softly to and fro
without disturbing her pretty attitude, like a dragon-fly on a willow
branch that drags in the water and moves with the current.
As they watched her nodding in the chair, Felicia said:
"Poor little Fairy! that is the best and most serious thing in the way
of friendship, protection and guardianship that I have had during my
life. That butterfly acted as my godmother. Do you wonder now at the
zigzags, the erratic flights of my mind? Lucky for me that I have clung
to her."
She added abruptly, with joyful warmth:
"Ah! Minerva, Minerva, I am very glad that you came to-night. You
mustn't leave me alone so long again, you see. I need to have an upright
mind like yours by my side, to see one true face amid all the masks
that surround me. But you're fearfully bourgeois all the same," she
added laughingly, "and a provincial to boot. But never mind! you are the
man that I most enjoy looking at all the same. And I believe that my
liking for you is due mainly to one thing. You remind me of some one who
was the dearest friend of my youth, a serious, sensible little creature
like yourself, bound fast to the commonplace side of existence, but
mingling with it the element of idealism which we artists put aside for
the benefit of our work alone. Some things that you say seem to me to
come from her lips. You have a mouth built on the same antique model. Is
that what makes your words alike? I don't know about that, but you
certainly do resemble each other. I'll show you."
As she sat opposite him at the table laden with sketches and albums, she
began to draw as she talked, her face bending over the paper, her
unmanageable curls shading her shapely little head. She was no longer
the beautiful crouching monster, with the frowning anxious face,
lamenting her own destiny; but a woman, a true woman, who loves and
seeks to charm. Paul forgot all his suspicions then, in presence of such
sincerity and grace. He was on the point of speaking, of pleading with
her. It was the decisive moment. But the door opened and the little
servant appeared. Monsieur le Duc had sent to ask if Mademoiselle were
still suffering from her sick headache.
"Just as much as ever," she said testily.
When the servant had gone, there was a moment's silence between them, a
freezing pause. Paul had risen. She went on with her sketch, her head
still bent.
He walked away a few steps, then returned to the table and asked gently,
astonished to find that he was so calm:
"Was it the Duc de Mora who was to dine here?"
"Yes--I was bored--a day of spleen. Such days are very bad for me."
"Was the duchess to come?"
"The duchess? No. I don't know her."
"Well, if I were in your place, I would never receive in my house, at my
table, a married man whose wife I did not meet in society. You complain
of being abandoned; why do you abandon yourself? When one is without
reproach, one must keep oneself above suspicion. Do I offend you?"
"No, no, scold me, Minerva. I like your morality. It is frank and
straightforward; it doesn't squint like Jenkins'. As I told you, I need
some one to guide me."
She held before him the sketch she had just finished.
"See! there's the friend of whom I spoke to you. A deep, sure affection
which I was foolish enough to throw away, like the wasteful idiot I am.
I always used to invoke her memory in moments of perplexity, when there
was some question to be decided or some sacrifice to be made. I would
say to myself: 'What will she think about it?' as we pause in our work
to think of some great man, of one of our masters. You must fill that
place for me. Will you?"
Paul did not answer. He was looking at Aline's portrait. It was she, it
was she to the life, her regular profile, her kindly, laughing mouth,
and the long curl caressing the slender neck. Ah! all the Ducs de Mora
on earth might come now. Felicia no longer existed for him.
Poor Felicia, a creature endowed with superior powers, was much like
those sorceresses who weave and ravel the destinies of others without
the power to accomplish anything for their own happiness.
"Will you give me this sketch?" he said almost inaudibly, in a voice
that trembled with emotion.
"Very gladly; she is pretty, isn't she? Ah! if you should happen to meet
her, love her, marry her. She is worth more than all the rest. But,
failing her, failing her--"
And the beautiful tamed sphinx looked up at him with her great tearful,
laughing eyes, whose enigma was no longer insoluble.
XIV.
THE EXHIBITION.
"Superb!"
"A tremendous success. Barye never did anything as fine."
"And the bust of the Nabob! What a marvellous likeness! I tell you,
Constance Crenmitz is happy. See her trotting about."
"What! is that La Crenmitz, that little old woman in a fur cape? I
supposed she was dead twenty years ago."
Oh! no; on the contrary, she is very much alive. Enchanted, rejuvenated
by the triumph of her goddaughter, who is decidedly _the_ success of the
Exhibition, she glides through the crowd of artists and people of
fashion grouped around the two points where Felicia's contributions are
exhibited like two huge masses of black backs, variegated costumes,
jostling and squeezing in their struggles to look. Constance, usually so
retiring, makes her way into the front row, listens to the discussions,
catches on the wing snatches of sentences, technical phrases which she
remembers, nods her head approvingly, smiles, shrugs her shoulders when
she hears any slighting remark, longing to crush the first person who
should fail to admire.
Whether it be the excellent Crenmitz or another, you always see, at the
opening of the Salon, that shadow prowling furtively about where people
are conversing, with ears on the alert and an anxious expression;
sometimes it is an old father who thanks you with a glance for a kindly
word said in passing, or assumes a despairing expression at the epigram
which you hurl at a work of art and which strikes a heart behind you. A
face not to be omitted surely, if ever some painter in love with things
modern should conceive the idea of reproducing on canvas that perfectly
typical manifestation of Parisian life, the opening of the Salon in that
vast hothouse of statuary, with the yellow gravelled paths and the great
glass ceiling, beneath which, half-way from the floor, the galleries of
the first tier stand forth, lined with heads bending over to look, and
with extemporized waving draperies.
In a light that seems slightly cold and pale as it falls on the green
decorations of the walls, where the rays become rarefied, one would say,
in order to afford the spectators an opportunity for concentration and
accuracy of vision, the crowd moves slowly back and forth, pauses,
scatters over the benches, divided into groups, and yet mingling castes
more thoroughly than any other gathering, just as the fickle and
changing weather, at that time of year, brings together all sorts of
costumes, so that the black lace and superb train of the great lady who
has come to observe the effect of her own portrait rub against the
Siberian furs of the actress who has just returned from Russia and
proposes that everybody shall know it.
Here there are no boxes, no reserved seats, and that is what gives such
abiding interest and charm to this first view in broad daylight. The
real society women can pass judgment at close quarters on the painted
beauties that excite so much applause by artificial light; the tiny hat,
latest shape, of the Marquise de Bois-l'Hery and her like brushes
against the more than modest costume of some artist's wife or daughter,
while the model who has posed for that lovely Andromeda near the
entrance struts triumphantly by, dressed in a too short skirt, in
wretched clothes tossed upon her beauty with the utmost lack of taste.
They scrutinize one another, admire or disparage one another, exchange
contemptuous, disdainful or inquisitive glances, which suddenly become
fixed as some celebrity passes, the illustrious critic, for instance,
whom we seem to see at this moment, serene and majestic, his powerful
face framed in long hair, making the circuit of the exhibits of
sculpture, followed by half a score of young disciples who hang
breathlessly upon his kindly dicta. Although the sound of voices is lost
in that immense vessel, which is resonant only under the two arched
doorways of entrance and exit, faces assume extraordinary intensity
there, a character of energy and animation especially noticeable in the
vast, dark recess of the restaurant, overflowing with a gesticulating
multitude, the light hats of the women and the waiters' white aprons
standing out in bold relief against the background of dark clothing, and
in the broad aisle in the centre, where the swarm of promenaders _en
vignette_ forms a striking contrast to the immobility of the statues,
the unconscious palpitation with which their chalky whiteness and their
glorified attitudes are encompassed.
There are gigantic wings spread for flight, a sphere upheld by four
allegorical figures, whose attitude, as if they were twirling their
burden, suggests a vague waltz measure, a marvel of equilibrium which
perfectly produces the illusion of the earth's revolution; and there are
arms raised as a signal, bodies of heroic size, containing an allegory,
a symbol that brings death and immortality upon them, gives them to
history, to legend, to the ideal world of the museums which nations
visit from curiosity or admiration.
Although Felicia's bronze group had not the proportions of those
productions, its exceptional merit had procured for it the honor of a
position at one of the points of intersection of the aisles in the
centre, from which the public was standing respectfully aloof at that
moment, staring over the shoulders of the line of attendants and police
officers at the Bey of Tunis and his suite, a group of long burnous,
falling in sculptural folds, which made them seem like living statues
confronting the dead ones. The bey, who had been in Paris for a few
days, the lion of all the first nights, had expressed a desire to see
the opening of the Salon. He was "an enlightened prince, a friend of
the arts," who possessed a gallery of amazing Turkish pictures on the
Bardo, and chromo-lithographic reproductions of all the battles of the
First Empire. The great Arabian hound had caught his eye as soon as he
entered the hall of sculpture. It was the _slougui_ to the life, the
genuine slender, nervous _slougui_ of his country, the companion of all
his hunts. He laughed in his black beard, felt the animal's loins,
patted his muscles, seemed to be trying to rouse him, while, with
dilated nostrils, protruding teeth, every limb outstretched and
indefatigable in its strength and elasticity, the aristocratic beast,
the beast of prey, ardent in love and in the chase, drunk with his
twofold drunkenness, his eyes fixed on his victim, seemed to be already
tasting the delights of his victory, with the end of his tongue hanging
from his mouth, as he sharpened his teeth with a ferocious laugh. If you
looked only at him, you said to yourself: "He has him!" But a glance at
the fox reassured you at once. Under his lustrous, velvety coat,
catlike, with his body almost touching the ground, skimming along
without effort, you felt that he was in truth a wizard, and his fine
head with its pointed ears, which he turned toward the hound as he ran,
had an ironical expression of security which clearly indicated the gift
he had received from the gods.
While an inspector of the Beaux-Arts, who had hurried to the spot, with
his uniform all awry, and bald to the middle of his back, explained to
Mohammed the apologue of "The Dog and the Fox," as told in the
catalogue, with this moral: "Suppose that they meet," and the note: "The
property of the Duc de Mora," the bulky Hemerlingue, puffing and
perspiring beside his Highness, had great difficulty in persuading him
that that masterly production was the work of the lovely equestrian they
had met in the Bois the day before. How could a woman with a woman's
weak hands so soften the hard bronze and give it the appearance of
flesh? Of all the marvels of Paris that one caused the bey the most
profound amazement. So he asked the official if there was nothing else
of the same artist's to see.
"Yes, indeed, Monseigneur, another _chef-d'oeuvre_. If your Highness
will come this way I will take you to it."
The bey moved on with his suite. They were all fine specimens of their
race, beautifully chiselled features and pure profiles, complexions of a
warm pallor of which the snowy whiteness of the haik absorbed even the
reflection. Magnificently draped, they contrasted strangely with the
busts which were ranged on both sides of the aisle they had taken, and
which, perched on their high pedestals, exiled from their familiar
surroundings, from the environment in which they would doubtless have
recalled some engrossing toil, some deep affection, a busy and
courageous life, seemed very forlorn in the empty air about them and
presented the distressing aspect of people who had gone astray and were
very much ashamed to find themselves there. Aside from two or three
female figures, well-rounded shoulders enveloped in petrified lace, hair
reproduced in marble with the soft touch that gives the impression of a
powdered head-dress, and a few profiles of children with simple lines,
in which the polish of the stone seems like the moisture of life, there
were nothing but wrinkles, furrows, contortions and grimaces, our excess
of toil and activity, our nervous paroxysms and our fevers contrasted
with that art of repose and noble serenity.
The Nabob's ugliness, at all events, had in its favor its energy, the
peculiar characteristics of the adventurer and the _proletaire_, and
that kindly expression so well rendered by the artist, who had taken
pains to mix a supply of ochre with her plaster, thereby giving it
almost the swarthy, sun-burned tone of the model. The Arabs, on seeing
it, uttered a stifled exclamation: "Bon-Said!" (the father of
good-luck). It was the Nabob's sobriquet at Tunis, the label of his
fortune, so to speak. The bey, for his part, thinking that someone
intended to make sport of him by bringing him thus face to face with the
detested _mercanti_, glanced suspiciously at the inspector.
"Jansoulet?" he said in his guttural voice.
"Yes, your Highness, Bernard Jansoulet, the new Deputy for Corsica."
At that the bey turned to Hemerlingue, with a frown on his face.
"Deputy?"
"Yes, Monseigneur, the news came this morning; but nothing is settled
yet."
And the banker, ill at ease and lowering his voice, added: "No French
Chamber would ever admit that adventurer."
No matter! the blow had been dealt at the bey's blind confidence in his
baron-financier. Hemerlingue had declared so positively that the other
would never be chosen, that they could act freely and without fear so
far as he was concerned. And lo! instead of the crushed, discredited
man, a representative of the nation towered before him, a deputy whose
figure in stone Parisians thronged to admire; for, from the Oriental
sovereign's standpoint, as that public exhibition necessarily involved
the idea of conferring honor upon the subject, that bust had all the
prestige of a statue overlooking a public square. Hemerlingue, even
yellower than usual, inwardly accused himself of bungling and
imprudence. But how could he have suspected such a thing? He had been
assured that the bust was not finished. And, indeed, it had arrived that
very morning, and seemed overjoyed to be there, quivering with gratified
pride, expressing contempt for its enemies with the good-natured smile
of its curling lip. A veritable silent revenge for the disaster at
Saint-Romans.
For several minutes the bey, as cold and impassive as the carved image,
stared at it without speaking, his forehead divided by a straight fold
wherein his courtiers alone could read his wrath; then, after a few
words spoken rapidly in Arabic, to order his carriages and collect his
scattered suite, he strode gravely toward the exit, without deigning to
look at anything else. Who can say what takes place in those august
brains, surfeited with power? Even our western monarchs have
incomprehensible whims; but they are as nothing beside Oriental
caprices. Monsieur l'Inspecteur des Beaux-Arts, who had confidently
expected to show his Highness all over the Exhibition, and to earn
thereby the pretty little red and green ribbon of the Order of
Nicham-Iftikhar, never knew the secret of that sudden flight.
Just as the white haiks disappeared under the porch, and just in time to
catch a glimpse of the fluttering of their last folds, the Nabob entered
through the centre door. That morning he had received the news: "Elected
by an overwhelming majority;" and, after a sumptuous breakfast, at which
many a toast had been drunk to the new Deputy for Corsica, he had come
with some of his guests, to show himself, to see himself as well, and to
enjoy his new glory to the full.
The first person he saw when he arrived was Felicia Ruys, leaning
against the pedestal of a statue, receiving compliments and homage with
which he hastened to mingle his own. She was dressed simply, in a black
embroidered gown trimmed with jet, tempering the severe simplicity of
her costume by its scintillating reflections and by the brilliancy of a
fascinating little hat adorned with the feathers of the _lophophore_,
whose changing colors her hair, tightly curled over the forehead and
parted at the neck in broad waves, seemed to prolong and to soften.
A crowd of artists, of society folk hastened to pay their respects to so
great genius allied to so great beauty; and Jenkins, bareheaded,
swelling with effusive warmth, went about from one to another, extorting
enthusiasm, but broadening the circle about that youthful renown, posing
as both guardian and fugleman. Meanwhile, his wife was talking with the
young woman. Poor Madame Jenkins! He had said to her in that brutal
voice which she alone knew: "You must go and speak to Felicia." And she
had obeyed, restraining her emotion; for she knew now what lay hidden
beneath that fatherly affection, although she avoided any explanation
with the doctor as if she were apprehensive of the result.
After Madame Jenkins, the Nabob rushed to the artist's side, and taking
her slender, neatly gloved hands in his two great paws expressed his
gratitude with a warmth that brought the tears to his own eyes.
"You have done me a very great honor, Mademoiselle, to associate my name
with yours, my humble self with your triumph, and to prove to all these
vermin who are digging their claws into me that you don't believe in all
the slanderous reports that are current about me. Really, it is
something I can never forget. I might cover this magnificent bust with
gold and diamonds and I should still be in your debt."
Luckily for the good Nabob, who was more susceptible to emotion than
eloquent, he was obliged to make room for all those who were attracted
by the refulgent talent, the artistic personality before their eyes:
frantic enthusiasm which, for lack of words in which to express itself,
disappears as it came; worldly admiration, inspired by kindly feeling,
by an earnest desire to please, but whose every word is like a cold
shower-bath; and then the hearty hand-clasps of rivals, of comrades,
some very frank and cordial, others which communicate to you the
inertness of their pressure; the tall, conceited zany whose absurd
praise ought to delight you beyond measure, and who, in order not to
spoil you utterly, accompanies it with "a few trifling reservations;"
and the man who, while overwhelming you with compliments, proves to you
that you do not know the first word of the trade; and the other good
fellow, full of business, who stops just long enough to whisper in your
ear that "So-and-so, the famous critic, doesn't seem to be satisfied."
Felicia listened to it all with the utmost tranquillity, being raised by
her triumph above the petty slurs of envy, and glowed with pride when a
renowned veteran, some old associate of her father's, tossed her a "Well
done, little one!" which carried her back to the past, to the little
corner that was always reserved for her in the paternal studio in the
days when she was beginning to carve out a little glory for herself in
the renown of the great Ruys. But as a whole the congratulations left
her quite unmoved, because she missed one which was more desirable in
her eyes than all the rest, and which she was surprised that she had not
yet received. Clearly she thought of him more than she had ever thought
of any man before. Was this love at last, the great love that is so rare
in the heart of an artist, who is incapable of abandoning herself
unreservedly to a sentiment, or was it simply a dream of an honest,
bourgeois life, well protected against ennui, that vile ennui, the
precursor of storms, which she had so much reason to dread? In any
event, she suffered herself to be deceived and had been living for
several days in a state of delicious unrest, for love is so strong, so
beautiful, that its semblance, its mirage, takes us captive and may move
us as deeply as love itself.
Has it ever happened to you, as you walked along the street, thinking
intently of some absent person very dear to your heart, to be warned of
his approach by meeting one or more persons who bear a vague resemblance
to him, preparatory images, outline sketches of the face that is soon to
rise before you, which come forth from the crowd like successive appeals
to your overstrained attention? These are magnetic, nervous phenomena at
which we must not smile too broadly, because they constitute a
susceptibility to suffering. Several times Felicia had fancied that she
recognized Paul de Gery's curly head in the ever-moving, ever-changing
flow of visitors, when suddenly she uttered a cry of pleasure. It was
not he, however, but some one who much resembled him, whose regular,
tranquil face was always blended now in her thoughts with that of her
friend Paul, as the result of a resemblance rather moral than physical,
and of the mild influence they both exerted over her mind.
"Aline!"
"Felicia!"
Although nothing is more difficult of comprehension than the friendship
of two of society's queens, dividing salon royalty among themselves and
lavishing flattering epithets, the petty graces of feminine
effusiveness, upon each other, the friendships of childhood retain in
the woman a frankness of demeanor which distinguishes them and makes
them recognizable among all other friendships; bonds woven in innocence
and woven firmly, like the pieces of needlework made by little girls,
whereon an inexperienced hand has lavished thread and great knots;
plants that have grown in virgin soil, past their bloom but
deeply-rooted and full of life and vigor. And what joy to turn back a
few steps, hand in hand,--boarding-school Arguses, where are you?--with
equal knowledge of the road and of its slightest windings, and with the
same wistful laugh. Standing a little apart, the two girls, who needed
only to stand face to face to forget five years of separation, talked
rapidly, recalling bygone days, while little Pere Joyeuse, his ruddy
face set off by a new cravat, drew himself up to his full height, proud
beyond words that his daughter should be so warmly greeted by a
celebrity. Proud he certainly had reason to be, for that little
Parisian, even beside her resplendent friend, retained her full value
for charm and youth and luminous innocence, beneath her twenty years,
her rich, golden girlhood, which the joy of meeting caused to put forth
fresh flowers.
"How happy you must be! I haven't seen anything; but I hear everybody
say that it is so beautiful."
"Happy above all things to find you again, little Aline. It is such a
long time--"
"I should say as much, you bad girl. Whose fault is it?"
In the saddest recess of her memory Felicia found the date of the
rupture between them, coincident in her mind with another date when her
youth died in a never-to-be-forgotten scene.
"What have you been doing all this time, my love?"
"Oh! always the same thing--nothing worth talking about."
"Yes, yes, we know what you call doing nothing, little brave heart. It
is giving your life to others, is it not?"
But Aline was no longer listening. She was smiling affectionately at a
point straight before her, and Felicia, turning to see to whom that
smile was addressed, saw Paul de Gery replying to Mademoiselle Joyeuse's
shy and blushing salutation.
"Do you know each other, pray?"
"Do I know Monsieur Paul! I should think so. We talk of you often
enough. Has he never told you?"
"Never. He is terribly sly--"
She stopped abruptly as a light flashed through her mind; and, paying no
heed to de Gery, who came forward to do homage to her triumph, she
leaned hastily toward Aline and whispered to her. The other blushed,
protested with smiles, with inaudible words: "How can you imagine such a
thing? At my age. A grandmamma!" And at last she grasped her father's
arm to escape that friendly raillery.