Now Amedee had no family. The day after his father’s death he had a
violent rupture with M. Isidore Gaufre. Under the pretext that a suicide
horrified him, he allowed his niece’s husband to be carried to the
cemetery in a sixth-class hearse, and did not honor with his presence
the funeral, which was even prohibited from using the parish road. But
the saintly man was not deterred from swallowing for his dinner that
same day, while thundering against the progress of materialism, tripe
cooked after the Caen fashion, one of Berenice’s weekly works of art.
Amedee had now no family, and his friends were dispersed. As a reward
for passing his examinations in law, Madame Roger took her son with her
on a trip to Italy, and they had just left France together.
As to the poor Gerards, just one month after M. Violette’s death, the
old engraver died suddenly, of apoplexy, at his work; and on that day
there were not fifty francs in the house. Around the open grave where
they lowered the obscure and honest artist, there was only a group of
three women, in black, who were weeping, and Amedee in mourning for his
father, with a dozen of Gerard’s old comrades, whose romantic heads had
become gray. The family was obliged to sell at once, in order to get
a little money, what remained of proof-sheets in the boxes, some small
paintings, old presents from artist friends who had become celebrated,
and the last of the ruined knickknacks--indeed, all that constituted the
charm of the house. Then, in order that her eldest daughter might not
be so far from the boarding-school where she was employed as teacher of
music, Madame Gerard went to live in the Rue St.-Pierre, in Montmartre,
where they found a little cheap, first-floor apartment, with a garden as
large as one’s hand.
Now that he was reduced to his one hundred and twenty-five francs,
Amedee was obliged to leave his too expensive apartment in the Rue
Notre-Dame-des-Champs, and to sell the greater part of his family
furniture. He kept only his books and enough to furnish his little room,
perched under the roof of an old house in the Faubourg St.-Jacques.
It was far from Montmartre, so he could not see his friends as often as
he would have liked, those friends whom grief in common had made dearer
than ever to him. One single consolation remained for him--literary
work. He threw himself into it blindly, deadening his sorrow with the
fruitful and wonderful opiate of poetry and dreams. However, he had now
begun to make headway, feeling that he had some thing new to say. He
had long ago thrown into the fire his first poems, awkward imitations of
favorite authors, also his drama after the style of 1830, where the two
lovers sang a duet at the foot of the scaffold. He returned to truth
and simplicity by the longest way, the schoolboy’s road. Taste and
inclination both induced him to express simply and honestly what he saw
before him; to express, so far as he could, the humble ideal of the poor
people with whom he had lived in the melancholy Parisian suburbs where
his infancy was passed; in a word, to paint from nature. He tried,
feeling that he could succeed; and in those days lived the most
beautiful and perfect hours of his life--those in which the artist,
already master of his instrument, having still the abundance and
vivacity of youthful sensations, writes the first words that he knows
to be good, and writes them with entire disinterestedness, not even
thinking that others will see them; working for himself alone and for
the sole joy of putting in visible form and spreading abroad his ideas,
his thoughts-all his heart. Those moments of pure enthusiasm and perfect
happiness he never could know again, even after he had nibbled at the
savory food of success and had experienced the feverish desire for
glory. Delicious hours they were, and sacred, too, such as can only be
compared to the divine intoxication of first love.
Amedee worked courageously during the winter months that followed his
father’s death. He arose at six o’clock in the morning, lighted his lamp
and the little stove which heated his room, and, walking up and down,
leaning over his page, the poet would vigorously begin his struggle with
fancies, ideas, and words. At nine o’clock he would go out and breakfast
at a neighboring creamery; after which he would go to his office. There,
his tiresome papers once written, he had two or three hours of leisure,
which he employed in reading and taking notes from the volumes borrowed
by him every morning at a reading-room on the Rue Rorer-Collard; for he
had already learned that one leaves college almost ignorant, having,
at best, only learned how to study. He left the office at nightfall and
reached his room through the Boulevard des Invalides, and Montparnasse,
which at this time was still planted with venerable elms; sometimes the
lamplighter would be ahead of him, making the large gas-jets shoot
out under the leafless old trees. This walk, that Amedee imposed
upon himself for health’s sake, would bring him, about six o’clock, a
workman’s appetite for his dinner,--in the little creamery situated in
front of Val-de-Grace, where he had formed the habit of going. Then he
would return to his garret, and relight his stove and lamp, and work
until midnight. This ardent, continuous effort, this will-tension kept
in his mind the warmth, animation, and excitement indispensable for
poetical production. His mind expanded rapidly, ready to receive the
germs that were blown to him by the mysterious winds of inspiration. At
times he was astonished to see his pen fill the sheet so rapidly that he
would stop, filled with pride at having thus reduced to obedience words
and rhythms, and would ask himself what supernatural power had permitted
him to arm these divine wild birds.
On Sundays, he had his meals brought him by the concierge, working all
day and not going out until nearly five o’clock in the afternoon, to
dine with Mamma Gerard. It was the only distraction that he allowed
himself, or rather the only recompense that he permitted himself. He
walked halfway across Paris to buy a cake in the Rue Fontaine for their
dessert; then he climbed without fatigue, thanks to his young legs, to
the top of Montmartre, lighted by swinging lamps, where one could almost
believe one’s self in the distant corner of some province. They would be
waiting for him to serve the soup, and the young man would seat himself
between the widow and the two orphans.
Alas, how hard these poor ladies’ lives had become! Damourette, a member
of the Institute, remembered that he had once joked in the studios with
Gerard, and obtained a small annual pension for the widow; but it was
charity--hardly enough to pay the rent. Fortunately Louise, who already
looked like an old maid at twenty-three, going about the city all day
with her roll of music under her black shawl, had many pupils, and
more than twenty houses had well-nigh become uninhabitable through her
exertions with little girls, whose red hands made an unendurable racket
with their chromatic scales. Louise’s earnings constituted the surest
part of their revenue. What a strange paradox is the social life
in large cities, where Weber’s Last Waltz will bring the price of a
four-pound loaf of bread, and one pays the grocer with the proceeds of
Boccherini’s Minuet!
In spite of all, they had hard work to make both ends meet at the
Gerards. The pretty Maria wished to make herself useful and aid her
mother and sister. She had always shown great taste for drawing, and her
father used to give her lessons in pastel. Now she went to the Louvre to
work, and tried to copy the Chardins and Latours. She went there alone.
It was a little imprudent, she was so pretty; but Louise had no time to
go with her, and her mother had to be at home to attend to the housework
and cooking. Maria’s appearance had already excited the hearts of
several young daubers. There were several cases of persistent sadness
and loss of appetite in Flandrin’s studio; and two of Signol’s pupils,
who were surprised hovering about the young artist, were hated secretly
as rivals; certain projects of duels, after the American fashion, were
profoundly considered. To say that Maria was not a little flattered
to see all these admirers turn timidly and respectfully toward her; to
pretend that she took off her hat and hung it on one corner of her easel
because the heat from the furnace gave her neuralgia and not to show
her beautiful hair, would be as much of a lie as a politician’s promise.
However, the little darling was very serious, or at least tried to be.
She worked conscientiously and made some progress. Her last copy of the
portrait of that Marquise who holds a pug dog in her lap, with a ribbon
about his neck, was not very bad. This copy procured a piece of good
luck for the young artist.
Pere Issacar, a bric-a-brac merchant on the Quay Voltairean--an
old-fashioned Jew with a filthy overcoat, the very sight of which made
one long to tear it off--approached Maria one day, just as she was about
to sketch a rose in the Marquise’s powdered wig, and after raising a hat
greasy enough to make the soup for a whole regiment, said to her:
“Matemoiselle, vould you make me von dozen vamily bordraits?”
The young girl did not at first understand his abominable language, but
at last he made her comprehend.
Every thing is bought nowadays, even rank, provided, of course, that one
has a purse sufficiently well filled. Nothing is simpler! In return for
a little money you can procure at the Vatican--second corridor on your
right, third door at the left--a brand-new title of Roman Count. A
heraldic agency--see advertisement--will plant and make grow at your
will a genealogical tree, under whose shade you can give a
country breakfast to twenty-five people. You buy a castle with
port-holes--port-holes are necessary--in a corner of some reactionary
province. You call upon the lords of the surrounding castles with a
gold fleur-de-lys in your cravat. You pose as an enraged Legitimist and
ferocious Clerical. You give dinners and hunting parties, and the
game is won. I will wager that your son will marry into a Faubourg
St.-Germain family, a family which descends authentically from the
Crusaders.
In order to execute this agreeable buffoonery, you must not forget
certain accessories--particularly portraits of your ancestors. They
should ornament the castle walls where you regale the country nobles.
One must use tact in the selection of this family gallery. There must be
no exaggeration. Do not look too high. Do not claim as a founder of your
race a knight in armor hideously painted, upon wood, with his coat of
arms in one corner of the panel. Bear in mind the date of chivalry.
Be satisfied with the head of a dynasty whose gray beard hangs over a
well-crimped ruff. I saw a very good example of that kind the other day
on the Place Royale. A dog was just showing his disrespect for it as
I passed. You can obtain an ancestor like this in the outskirts of the
city for fifteen francs, if you haggle a little. Or you need not give
yourself so much trouble. Apply to a specialist, Pere Issacar, for
instance. He will procure magnificent ancestors for you; not dear
either! If you will consent to descend to simple magistrates, the price
will be insignificant. Chief justices are dirt cheap. Naturally, if you
wish to be of the military profession, to have eminent clergy among your
antecedents, the price increases. Pere Issacar is the only one who can
give you, at a reasonable rate, ermine-draped bishops, or a colonel with
a Louis XIV wig, and, if you wish it, a blue ribbon and a breast-plate
under his red coat. What produces a good effect in a series of family
portraits is a series of pastels. What would you say to a goggle-eyed
abbe, or an old lady indecently decolletee, or a captain of dragoons
wearing a tigerskin cap (it is ten francs more if he has the cross of
St. Louis)? Pere Issacar knows his business, and always has in reserve
thirty of these portraits in charming frames of the period, made
expressly for him in the Faubourg St.-Antoine, and which have all been
buried fifteen days and riddled with shot, in order to have the musty
appearance and indispensable worm holes.
You can understand now why the estimable Jew, in passing through the
Louvre for his weekly promenade, took an interest in little Maria
copying the charming Marquise de Latour. He was just at this time short
of powdered marquises, and they are always very much in demand. He
begged the young woman to take her copy home and make twelve more of it,
varying, only the color of the dress and some particular detail in each
portrait. Thus, instead of the pug dog, marquise No. 2 would hold a King
Charles spaniel, No. 2 a monkey, No. 3 a bonbon box, No. 4 a fan. The
face could remain the same. All marquises looked alike to Pere Issacar;
he only exacted that they should all be provided with two black patches,
one under the right eye, the other on the left shoulder. This he
insisted upon, for the patch, in his eyes, was a symbol of the
eighteenth century.
Pere Issacar was a fair man and promised to furnish frames, paper, and
pastels, and to pay the young girl fifteen francs for each marquise.
What was better yet, he promised, if he was pleased with the first work,
to order of the young artist a dozen canonesses of Remiremont and a
half-dozen of royal gendarmes.
I wish you could have seen those ladies when Maria went home to tell the
good news. Louise had just returned from distributing semiquavers in the
city; her eyes and poor Mother Gerard’s were filled with tears of joy.
“What, my darling,” said the mother, embracing her child, “are you going
to trouble yourself about our necessaries of life, too?”
“Do you see this little sister?” said Louise, laughing cordially. “She
is going to earn a pile of money as large as she is herself. Do you
know that I am jealous--I, with my piano and my displeasing profession?
Good-luck to pastel! It is not noisy, it will not annoy the neighbors,
and when you are old you can say, ‘I never have played for anybody.’”
But Maria did not wish them to joke. They had always treated her like a
doll, a spoiled child, who only knew how to curl her hair and tumble her
frocks. Well, they should see!
When Amedee arrived on Sunday with his cake, they told him over several
times the whole story, with a hundred details, and showed him the two
marquises that Maria had already finished, who wore patches as large as
wafers.
She appeared that day more attractive and charming than ever to the
young man, and it was then that he conceived his first ambition. If
he only had enough talent to get out of his obscurity and poverty, and
could become a famous writer and easily earn his living! It was
not impossible, after all. Oh, with what pleasure he would ask this
exquisite child to be his wife! How sweet it would be to know that she
was happy with, and proud of, him! But he must not think of it now, they
were too poor; and then, would Maria love him?
He often asked himself that question, and with uneasiness. In his own
heart he felt that the childish intimacy had become a sincere affection,
a real love. He had no reason to hope that the same transformation
had taken place in the young girl’s heart. She always treated him very
affectionately, but rather like a good comrade, and she was no more
stirred by his presence now than she was when she had lain in wait with
him behind the old green sofa to hunt Father Gerard’s battered fur hat.
Amedee had most naturally taken the Gerard family into his confidence
regarding his work. After the Sunday dinner they would seat themselves
around the table where Mamma Gerard had just served the coffee, and the
young man would read to his friends, in a grave, slow voice, the poem he
had composed during the week. A painter having the taste and inclination
for interior scenes, like the old masters of the Dutch school, would
have been stirred by the contemplation of this group of four persons in
mourning. The poet, with his manuscript in his right hand and marking
the syllables with a rhythmical movement of his left, was seated between
the two sisters. But while Louise--a little too thin and faded for
her years--fixes her attentive eyes upon the reader and listens with
avidity, the pretty Maria is listless and sits with a bored little face,
gazing mechanically at the other side of the table. Mother Gerard knits
with a serious air and her spectacles perched upon the tip of her nose.
Alas! during these readings Louise was the only one who heaved sighs
of emotion; and sometimes even great tear-drops would tremble upon her
lashes. She was the only one who could find just the right delicate word
with which to congratulate the poet, and show that she had understood
and been touched by his verses. At the most Maria would sometimes
accord the young poet, still agitated by the declamation of his lines, a
careless “It is very pretty!” with a commonplace smile of thanks.
She did not care for poetry, then? Later, if he married her, would she
remain indifferent to her husband’s intellectual life, insensible even
to the glory that he might reap? How sad it was for Amedee to have to
ask himself that question!
Soon Maria inspired a new fear within him. Maurice and his mother had
been already three months in Italy, and excepting two letters that he
had received from Milan, at the beginning of his journey, in the first
flush of his enthusiasm, Amedee had had no news from his friend.
He excused this negligence on the part of the lazy Maurice, who had
smilingly told him, on the eve of departure, not to count upon hearing
from him regularly. At each visit that Amedee paid the Gerards, Maria
always asked him:
“Have you received any news from your friend Maurice?”
At first he had paid no attention to this, but her persistency at length
astonished him, planting a little germ of suspicion and alarm in his
heart. Maurice Roger had only paid the Gerards a few visits during the
father’s lifetime, and accompanied on each occasion by Amedee. He had
always observed the most respectful manner toward Maria, and they
had perhaps exchanged twenty words. Why should Maria preserve such a
particular remembrance of a person so nearly a stranger to her? Was it
possible that he had made a deep impression, perhaps even inspired a
sentiment of love? Did she conceal in the depths of her heart, when she
thought of him, a tender hope? Was she watching for him? Did she wish
him to return?
When these fears crossed Amedee’s mind, he felt a choking sensation,
and his heart was troubled. Happy Maurice, who had only to be seen to
please! But immediately, with a blush of shame, the generous poet chased
away this jealous fancy. But every Sunday, when Maria, lowering her
eyes, and with a slightly embarrassed voice, repeated her question,
“Have you received any news from Monsieur Maurice?” Amedee felt a
cruelly discouraged feeling, and thought, with deep sadness:
“She never will love me!”
To conquer this new grief, he plunged still more deeply into work; but
he did not find his former animation and energy. After the drizzling
rain of the last days of March, the spring arrived. Now, when Amedee
awoke, it was broad daylight at six o’clock in the morning. Opening
his mansard window, he admired, above the tops of the roofs, the large,
ruddy sun rising in the soft gray sky, and from the convent gardens
beneath came a fresh odor of grass and damp earth. Under the shade of
the arched lindens which led to the shrine of a plaster Virgin, a first
and almost imperceptible rustle, a presentiment of verdure, so to
speak, ran through the branches, and the three almond trees in the
kitchen-garden put forth their delicate flowers. The young poet was
invaded by a sweet and overwhelming languor, and Maria’s face, which
was commonly before his inner vision upon awakening, became confused and
passed from his mind. He seated himself for a moment before a table
and reread the last lines of a page that he had begun; but he was
immediately overcome by physical lassitude, and abandoned himself to
thought, saying to himself that he was twenty years old, and that it
would be very good, after all, to enjoy life.