Toc, toc, toc.
And at the same time a small drawn otter skin bonnet appeared in the
slight opening of the door, followed by two smiling eyes under a veil,
then a long fur cape which outlined the slender body of a young woman.
"I am not disturbing you?... May I come in?"
Lirat, the painter, raised his head.
"Ah! it's you, Madame!" he said in a curt tone, almost irritated, while
shaking his hands soiled with pastel. "Why, yes, certainly.... Come
right in!"
He left his easel and offered a seat.
"How is Charles?" he asked.
"He is all right, thank you."
She sat down, smiling, and her smile was really charming as well as
sad. Although covered with a veil, her clear eyes of pinkish blue,
her very large eyes which illuminated her whole figure, seemed to be
radiating infinite kindness.... She was dressed very elegantly, without
striving to be pretentious. A little over-perfumed, however.... There
was a moment of silence.
The studio of the painter Lirat, situated in a peaceful section of the
Faubourg Saint Honoré, on Rodrigues Square, was a vast, bare place with
grey walls, with rough carpentry work and without furniture. Lirat
called it familiarly "his hangar." A hangar it was, indeed, where
the north winds blew and the rain entered the room through the small
crevices in the roof. Two long tables of plain wood supported boxes
of paint, scrap books, blocks, handles of fans, Japanese albums,
casts, a mess of odd and useless things. Near a book case filled with
old magazines in a corner there was a pile of pasteboard, canvas,
torn sketches with the stretchers sticking through. A shattered sofa
creaking with a sound like that of a piano out of tune, whenever one
tried to sit on it, two rickety arm chairs, a looking glass without a
frame--constituted the only luxury of the studio illumined by trembling
sunlight. In the winter, on days when Lirat had a model posing for
him in the studio, he used to light his little cast iron stove whose
chimney, crooked into several large bends, supported by iron wire and
covered with rust, rose in a serpentine fashion in the middle of the
room, before losing itself in the roof through an opening, all too
large. On other days, even during the coldest nights, he substituted
for the heat of the stove an old coat of astracan fur, worn out, bald
and scabby, which he put on with real pleasure.
Lirat took a childish pride in this dilapidated studio, and he boasted
of its bareness as other painters do of their embroidered plush and
tapestries, invariably historical in origin. Nay, he even wanted it to
be still less attractive, he wanted its floor to be the bare ground.
"It is in my studio that I learn who my best friends are," he would
often say, "they always come again, the others stay away. That's very
convenient." Very few came more than once.
The young woman was attractively seated in her chair, her bust slightly
bent forward, her hands buried in her muff; from time to time she
would take out an embroidered handkerchief and bring it slowly to her
mouth which I could not see because of the thick border of the veil
which hid it, but which I surmised was very beautiful, very red and
exquisitely shaped. In her whole figure, elegant and refined, about
which, in spite of the smile which rendered it so alluring, there was
an air of modesty and even haughtiness, I could distinguish only these
beautiful eyes which rested on objects like the rays of some heavenly
star, and I followed her gaze which passed from the floor to the frame
work, so vibrant with luminosity and caresses. The embarrassing silence
continued. I thought I alone was the cause of this embarrassment and I
was getting ready to leave, when Lirat exclaimed:
"Ah! Pardon! ... I have forgotten.... Dear Madame, allow me to
introduce to you my friend Jean Mintié."
She greeted me with a gracious and at the same time coaxing nod of her
head and in a very sweet voice, which thrilled me deliciously, she said:
"I am delighted to meet you, Monsieur, but I know you well."
While very much flushed, I was stammering out a few confused and silly
words, Lirat broke in mockingly:
"I hope you are not going to make him believe that you have read his
book?"
"I beg your pardon, Monsieur Lirat.... I have read it.... It is very
good."
"Yes, like my studio and my painting, isn't that right?"
"Oh, no! what a comparison!"
She said it frankly, with a laugh, which rolled through the room like
the chirping of a bird.
I did not like this laughter. Although it had a hard, sonorous quality,
it nevertheless rang false. It seemed to me out of harmony with the
expression of her face, so delicately sad, and then, in my admiration
for Lirat's genius it hurt me almost like an insult. I do not know why,
but it would have been more pleasing to me if she had expressed her
admiration for this great unrecognized artist, if she had shown at
this moment a loftier judgment, if she had evinced a sentiment superior
to those of other women. On the other hand the contemptuous manner of
Lirat, his tone of bitter hostility, shocked me deeply! I had a grudge
against him for this affected rudeness, for this attitude of boyish
insolence which lowered him in my esteem, I thought. I was displeased
and very much embarrassed. I tried to speak of indifferent things, but
not a single object of conversation came to my mind.
The young woman got up. She walked a few steps in the studio, stopped
before the sketches lying in a heap, examined one or two of them with
an air of disgust.
"My God! Monsieur Lirat," she said, "why do you persist in painting
such ugly women, so comically shaped?"
"If I should tell you," Lirat replied, "you would not understand it."
"Thanks!... And when will you paint my portrait?"
"You should ask Monsieur Jacket or, better still, a photographer about
that."
"Monsieur Lirat?"
"Madame!"
"Do you know why I came?"
"To oblige me with your kindness, I suppose."
"That's in the first place!... And then?"
"We seem to be playing an innocent little game? That's very nice."
"To ask you to come to dine with me on Friday? Do you care to?"
"You are very kind, dear Madame, but on Friday that is just when it
will be utterly impossible. That's my day at the Institute."
"Well, of all things!... Charles will be hurt by your refusal."
"You will express my regrets to him, will you not?"
"Well, good bye, Monsieur Lirat! A person can freeze to death here."
And walking over to me, she gave me her hand.
"Monsieur Mintié. I am home every day, from five to seven!... I shall
be delighted to see you ... delighted...."
I bowed and thanked her, and she went out leaving in my ears some of
the music of her voice, in my eyes some of the kindliness of her look
and in the studio the strong perfume of her hair, of her cape, of her
muff, of her small handkerchief.
Lirat resumed his work without saying a word; I was turning over
the pages of a book which I was not reading at all, and upon the
moving pages there was flitting incessantly back and forth the image
of the young visitor. I certainly was not asking myself what kind
of an impression I had retained of her, nor whether I had retained
any impression at all; but although she went out, she was not gone
entirely. There was left with me an indefinite something of this
short-lived apparition, something like a haze which assumed her form
in which I could make out the shape of her head, the turn of the back
of her neck, the movement of her shoulders, the graceful curve of her
waistline, and that something haunted me.... I still beheld her in that
chair which she had just left, unfathomable and more charming than
ever, with her tender and luminous smile which radiated from her and
created a halo of love about her.
"Who is that woman?" I suddenly asked, in a tone which I forced myself
to render indifferent.
"What woman?" said Lirat.
"Why, the one that has just left."
"Ah! Yes ...my God! A woman just like others."
"I should think so.... This does not tell me her name, however, nor who
she is."
Lirat was rummaging in his paint box. He answered carelessly:
"And so you want to know the name of that woman.... Strange
curiosity!... Her name is Juliette Roux.... As for biographical
information, the police can furnish you all you want, I imagine.... I
presume that Juliette Roux gets up late, that she has her fortune told
by cards, that she is deceiving and ruining as well as she can that
poor Charles Malterre, an excellent chap whom you met here sometime
ago, and whose mistress she is, for the time being.... Lastly, she
is like other women, only with this difference, which makes her case
worse: she is more beautiful than most of them and consequently more
foolish and more malicious.... That sofa there, that you are sitting on
... it was Charles who broke it by lying and crying on it for entire
days, while telling me his troubles, you understand? One day he caught
her with a croupier of a gambling club, on another day with a buffoon
at the Bouffes theatre.
"There was also an affair with the wrestler of Neuilly, to whom she
gave twenty francs and Charles' old trousers. As you see, it's full of
idylls.... I like Malterre very much ... because he is good-natured and
his lack of sense evokes my pity.... He really has my sympathy.... But
what can one say to such men, to whom love is the greatest thing in
life and who can't see a woman's back without tacking on to it wings
of dreams and sending it flying to the stars.... Nothing, isn't that
true?... So much so that the unfortunate fellow, in the midst of his
rage and sobs, could brag about the fact that Juliette had received
a good education. He used to take pride in the fact that she came
from the womb of a physician's wife and not from that of the wife of
a janitor, and he would show me her letters, emphasizing the correct
spelling and the elegant turn of phrases!... He seemed to say: 'How I
suffer, but how well written this is!'... What a pity!"
"Ah! You, too, love the woman!" I exclaimed, when he finished his
tirade.
And foolishly, I added:
"They say you have suffered much."
Lirat shrugged his shoulders and smiled:
"You talk like Delauney, of the Comédie-Française. No, no, my kind
friend, I have not suffered; I have seen others suffer, and that was
enough for me ... do you understand?"
Suddenly his voice became shrill, an almost cruel light shone in his
eyes. He resumed:
"Ordinary people, poor devils like Charles Malterre, when stepped upon,
are crushed, they disappear in the blood, in the mire, in the atrocious
filth stirred up by woman's hands ... that's unfortunate of course....
Humanity, however, does not claim them back; for nothing has been
stolen from it.... But artists, men of our calibre with big hearts and
big brains,--when these are lost, strangled, killed!... You understand?"
His hand trembled, he crushed his crayon on the canvas.
"I have known three of them, three wonderful, divine ones; two died by
hanging themselves; the third one, my teacher, is in a padded dark room
at Bicêtre!... Of this pure genius there has been left only a lump of
wan flesh, a sort of raving beast who grimaces and hurls himself at you
with froth at his mouth!... And in this crowd of cast-offs, how many
young hopes have perished in the grasp of the beast of prey! Count
them up, all these lamentable, bewildered, maimed people; those who had
wings and who are now crawling on all fours; those who scrape the earth
with their nails and feed on their own excrements! Why, you yourself
... a minute ago looked at Juliette with ecstasy ... you were ready to
do anything for a kiss from her.... Don't deny it, I saw you.... Oh!
well, let's go out; that's enough, I can't work any more."
He arose and paced across the studio in agitation. Gesticulating
and angry, he upset the chairs and paste-boards, ripped some of his
sketches with a kick. I thought he was going mad. His bloodshot eyes
rolled wildly; he was pale, and the words were coming out of his
drawn-up mouth in a violent jumble.
"For men to be born of woman ... men!... How irrational! For men
to be conceived in an impure womb!... For men to gorge themselves
with woman's vices, with her imbecile, ferocious appetites, to have
sucked the sap of life from her nefarious breasts! Mother!... Ah!
yes, mother!... Divinized mother, eh? Mother who creates us, sick and
wasted race that we are, who stifles the man in the child and hurls
us nailless and toothless, stupid and tamed, upon the bedstead of a
mistress and the nuptial bed!..."
Lirat stopped for a moment; he was choking. Then, bringing his hands
together and knotting his crisp fingers in the air, as if gripping an
imaginary neck, he shouted madly, terribly:
"This is what should be done with them, all of them, all of them!...Do
you understand? ... eh ... tell me?... All of them!..."
And he began pacing back and forth again, swearing, stamping his feet.
But the last shout of anger had evidently relieved him.
"Come now, my dear Lirat, calm yourself," I said to him. "What's the
use of getting excited, and over what, I ask you? Come now, you are not
a woman."
"That's true, too, but you provoked me with this Juliette.... How does
this Juliette concern you anyway?"
"Was it not natural on my part to want to know the name of the person
to whom you had introduced me?... And then, frankly, pending the
invention of some other machine than woman for breeding children ..."
"Pending that... I am a brute," interrupted Lirat, who again seated
himself before his easel, a little ashamed of himself, and in a quiet
voice asked:
"Dear little Mintié, would you mind sitting for me a little. That won't
bore you, will it? For only ten minutes."
Joseph Lirat was forty-two years old. I made his acquaintance casually
one evening; I no longer remember where it was, and though he had
the reputation of being a misanthrope, unsociable and spiteful, I
instantly took a fancy to him. Is it not painful to think that our
deepest friendships, which ought to be the result of a long process of
selection, that the gravest events in our life which should be brought
about by a logical chain of causes, are for the most part, the instant
result of chance?... You are at home in your study, tranquilly absorbed
in a book. Outside the sky is grey, the air is cold: it is raining, the
wind is blowing, the street is gloomy and dirty, therefore you have
every good reason in the world not to stir from your chair.... Yet you
go out, driven by weariness, by idleness, by something you yourself
don't know--by nothing, ... and then at the end of a hundred steps, you
meet the man, the woman, the carriage, the stone, the orange peel, the
mud puddle which upsets your whole existence from top to bottom.
In the midst of the most sorrowful of my experiences I used to think
of these things, and often I would say to myself--with what bitter
regrets!--"If on the evening when I met Lirat, in the forgotten place
where I certainly had nothing to do, I had but stayed at home and
worked or dreamed or slept, I would have been today the happiest man
on earth and there would have happened to me none of the things which
did happen to me." And that moment of trivial hesitancy, the moment
when I was asking myself: "Shall I go out or shall I not?," that moment
embraced the most important act in my life; my whole destiny was
determined in the brief space of time which in my memory left no more
trace than a gust of wind, which blows down a house or uproots an oak
tree, leaves upon the skies! I recall the most insignificant details
of my life. For example, I remember the blue velvet suit, laced in
front, which I wore on Sunday, when I was very little. I can swear, yes
I can swear, that I could count the grease spots on the habit of curé
Blanchetière or even the number of tobacco grains he used to drop while
snuffing up his pinch of snuff.
It seems a senseless and yet disquieting thing: very often when I cry,
or look at the sea or even watch the sunset upon an enchanted field--I
can still see by that odious freak of irony which is at the bottom of
our ideals, our dreams and our sufferings--I can still see upon the
nose of an old guard we had, father Lejars, a big tumor, grumous and
funny with its four hair filaments which proved an excellent attraction
for flies.... Whereas the moment which decided my life, which cost
me my peace, my honor, and reduced me to the position of a scabby
dog; this moment which I passionately wish to reconstruct, to bring
back again to memory with the aid of physical reminders and mental
associations--this moment I cannot recall. Thus it is that in the
course of my life there happened a tremendous, a singular event, since
all the subsequent occurrences flow from it, and yet the recollection
of it escapes me entirely!... I remember neither the occasion, nor the
place, nor the circumstances, nor the immediate cause of that event....
What do I know then about myself?... What do people in general know
about themselves, when they are hopelessly unable to trace the sources
of their actions? Nothing, nothing, nothing! And must one explain
the enigmas which our mental phenomena and the manifestation of our
so-called will represent, by the promptings of this blind mysterious
force, the fatality of human nature?... That is not speaking to the
point, however.
I said that I had met Lirat one evening by accident, in a place I don't
remember and that instantly I took a fancy to him.... He was the most
original of men.... With his forbidding appearance, his machine-like
and magisterial stiffness and his air of a petty official, he at
first made the impression of a typical functionary, of some orleanist
puppet such as are manufactured in the politicians' clubs and drawing
rooms for the punch and judy show of parliaments and academies. From
a distance, he positively looked like one who is in the habit of
distributing decorations, excize offices and prizes for valor! This
impression, however, quickly disappeared; for this it was sufficient to
listen, if only for five minutes, to his conversation, lucid, colorful,
bristling with original ideas, and above all to feel the power of his
glance, his extraordinary glance, exhilarated and cold at the same
time, a glance to which all things seemed familiar, which went through
you like a gimlet against your will.
I liked him very much, only in my liking for him there was lacking the
element of tenderness, of kindliness; I liked him with a sort of fear
and uneasiness, with a painful feeling that in his presence I did not
amount to much and that I was eclipsed, so to speak, by the grandeur of
his genius.... I liked him as one likes the sea, the tempest, as one
likes some immense force of nature. Lirat inspired me with fear, his
presence paralyzed what little intellectual powers there were in me,
for I was always afraid that I might say something foolish at which
he would jeer. He was so severe, so relentless to everybody; he knew
so well how to discover, to reveal the ridiculous side in artists,
in writers whom I considered superior to myself, and to characterize
them by some apt remark unforgettable and fierce, that in his presence
I found myself in a state of constant mistrust, of ever present
disquietude. I always asked myself: "What does he think of me? What
scornful thoughts do I inspire in him?"
I had that feminine curiosity which obsessed me to know what opinion
he had of me. By means of distant allusions, absurd affections or
hypocritical circumlocutions, I would sometimes try to surprise or
provoke him into frankness, and I suffered even more when he deigned to
pay me a curt compliment, as one who throws a few pennies to a pauper
whom one wishes to be rid of; at least, that is what I imagined. In a
word, I liked him very much, I assure you; I was very much devoted to
him, but in this affection and in this devotion there was an element
of uncertainty, which destroyed the charm of those feelings; there was
also a certain grudge which rendered those feelings almost painful, a
grudge caused by the sense of my inferiority. Never, not even when I
was most intimate with him, was I able to conquer that feeling of base
and timid pride, never could I enjoy a friendship which I prized very
highly. Lirat, on the other hand, was simple in his relations with me,
often affectionate, sometimes "fatherly" in his attentions, and of all
his friends, who were very few in number, I was the only one whose
companionship he sought.
Like all those who hold tradition in contempt, like all who rebel
against the prejudices of conventional education, against the idiotic
formulae of the School, Lirat was very much discussed; spoken of
with contempt--I should rather say. It must be stated also that his
conception of free and lofty art conflicted with all the professed
conventions and accepted ideas, and that by their forceful synthesis
and prodigious knowledge of life which obscured his craftsmanship, his
works of art disconcerted the lovers of prettiness and grace and of the
frigid correctness of academic unity. The return of modern painting to
the great gothic art--this they could never forgive him.
He fashioned the man of today in his craving for enjoyment, a
frightfully tortured soul with a body sapped by neurosis, with flesh
tormented by lust, which quivers under the influence of passion that
lures man on and sinks its claws into his skin. In his representations
of the human body wrought in avenging postures, with monstrous
apophyses guessed at under the garments, there was such human emphasis,
such grief over infernal voluptuousness, such tragic power, that a
shudder passed through one's frame when looking at them. It was no
longer curly headed, pomaded love, adorned with ribbons and fainting
with yearning, rose in mouth, by the light of the moon, or strumming
on a guitar under the balcony; it was Love besmirched with blood,
drunk with the filth of vice, Love with its onanistic furies, wretched
Love which fastens upon man its mouth like a cupping glass and drains
his veins, sucks the marrow of his bones and emaciates his frame. And
in order to give these representations a still greater intensity of
horror, to weigh them down with the burden of even greater affliction,
he cast them in the midst of peaceful, smiling surroundings of
surpassing clearness, among pink and blue landscapes with softened
vistas, amidst glorious sunshine, with the radiant sea in the
background. All around them nature was resplendent with all the magic
of her delicate and changing colors.
When for the first time he consented to place his works on a free
exhibit, together with a group of friends, the critics and the mob,
which influences the critics, shouted with indignation. But the anger
did not last very long--for there is a sort of nobility, or generosity
in anger--and they merely contented themselves with laughing. Then
the humbug which is always represented by mediocre opinion with its
foul spittle, this humbug came to replace the menace of raised fists.
And viewing the superb artistry of Lirat, they were convulsed with
laughter, holding their sides with both hands. Clever, merry-making
people deposited pennies on the edge of the frames as one does for
a Jack-in-the-box, and this was considered excellent sport--for it
actually became a sport for people of the better sort, with purses.
In the magazines, in the studios, in the salons, in the clubs and
the cafés the name of Lirat served as a term of comparison, as an
indispensable standard whenever one wanted to designate something
devoid of sense or some sort of obscenity; it even seemed as if
women--and girls too--could not pronounce that reprobate name without
blushing. The year-end reviews dragged it into their revolting
lampoons, people sang it at the cabarets. Then from these "centres of
Parisian culture" it spread to the street--where one saw it blossom
forth again into a vulgar bud, upon the sloppy lips of drivers, in the
shriveled mouths of street boys, "It's a go, eh! Lirat!" For a few
years poor Lirat really enjoyed an uproarious popularity.... But one
gets tired of everything, even of abusing a person. Paris abandons
its puppets which it raises to the throne as quickly as it does its
martyrs whom it hoists on the gibbet; in its perpetual hunger for new
playthings, it never gets itself excited overly much before the statues
of its heroes or at the sight of the blood of its victims.
Now there was only silence for Lirat's portion. It was very seldom
indeed that in some of the magazines there was again heard an echo of
the past, in the form of some annoying anecdote. Besides, he decided
not to exhibit any more, saying:
"Leave me alone in peace!... Is painting done to be seen ... tell me
... painting ... do you understand?... One works for himself, for two
or three living friends and for others whom one has never known and who
are dead ... Poe, Baudelaire, Dostoiewsky, Shakespeare.... Shakespeare!
... do you understand?.... And the rest?... The rest don't amount to
anything."
Having reduced his needs to a minimum, he lived on little with
admirable and touching dignity. Provided he earned enough with which
to buy his brushes, paints, canvas, pay his models and his landlord,
make a studying trip each year, he did not wish for more. Money did
not tempt him at all, and I am sure that he never sought success. But
if success had come to him, I am also sure that Lirat would not have
resisted the joy, so human, of relishing factitious delights. Though
he did not want to admit it, though he affected to defy injustice
gayly, he felt it more keenly than anyone else, and at heart suffered
from it cruelly. He suffered from the present neglect shown to him as
much as he had suffered from the former insults. Only once did a young
critic publish an enthusiastic and high-sounding article about him in
a magazine. The article was well-meant but full of banalities and
errors; one could see that its author was not sufficiently familiar
with art and that he did not understand anything about the talent of
the great artist.
"Have you read it?" Lirat shouted, "have you read it, eh, tell me?...
What idiots these critics are!... If they keep on talking about me,
they will finally force me to paint in a cave, understand?... What do
they take me for anyway--a vulgarizer?... And then what business is it
of this fellow here--whether I make paintings, boots or slippers?...
That's my private affair!"
Nevertheless he had put it away in a drawer as a thing of great value,
and several times I surprised him reading it. It was very well for him
to say with supreme detachment, when we were inveighing against the
stupidity of the public: "Well, what would you want them to do?...
Do you expect the people to start a revolution because I paint my
canvases plainly?" But in reality this contempt for notoriety, this
apparent resignation concealed deep but secret sentiment. Deep in
his very sensitive and very generous soul there accumulated profound
aversions, which were vented with terrible and malignant fervor on the
whole world. If, on the one hand, his talent had gained in strength and
ruggedness on account of this, his character, on the other hand, had
lost something of its inherent nobility, and his critical spirit had
been deprived of some of its penetrating quality and brilliance.
He ended by giving himself over entirely to decrying everybody and
everything, the excess of which threatened to render him odious; at
times it bore evidence of nothing but a childishness which made him
ridiculous. Great souls nearly always have petty weaknesses--that is
a mysterious law of nature, and Lirat did not escape the effects of
this law. Above everything else, he held fast to his well-established
reputation of an ill-natured man. He bore very well with the opinion
which denied him talent, but what he could not tolerate was that they
called in question the propriety of his insulting humanity with his
sarcastic jibes.
To avenge the scouring words with which he characterized them, some of
the enemies of Lirat attributed to him unnatural vices; others simply
called him an epileptic, and these coarse and cowardly calumnies,
strengthened every day by ingenious comments, based on "certain"
stories which made the rounds of the studios--these calumnies found
ready listeners willing, some owing to his actual malice, others
prompted solely by the intemperance of the painter's tongue, to receive
and spread them.
"You know Lirat?... He had another attack yesterday, this time on the
street."
And names of important personages were mentioned who had assisted in
the scene and who had seen him rolling in the mud, lying, with foam at
his mouth.
I must confess that I myself at the beginning of our friendship was
greatly troubled by these stories. I could not think of Lirat without
at the same time picturing to myself horrible fits in which, I was
told, he was writhing. Victim of a delusion born of an obsession with
this idea, I seemed to discover in him symptoms of horrible diseases;
I often imagined that he suddenly became livid, that his mouth was
distorted, that his body was convulsed in horrible spasms, that his
eyes, wild and streaked with red, were shunning the light and seeking
the shadow of deep vacuous space, like the eyes of trapped beasts that
are about to die. And I regretted that I did not see him fall, shriek,
writhe here in his studio filled with his genius, under my avid glance
that watched him and hoped for the worst!... Poor Lirat!... And still I
loved him!...
The day was drawing to a close. All over Rodrigues place one heard the
slamming of doors; the noise of steps upon the street was rapidly dying
away, and in the shops voices were heard rising in song at the end of
the day's work. Lirat had not uttered a word since resuming his work,
except to fix my posture, which I did not keep just the way he wanted.
"The leg a little this way!... A little more now!... Your chest not
quite so drawn in!... You'll excuse me, my dear Mintié, but you pose
like a pig!"
He worked now feverishly, now haltingly, mumbling in his mustache,
swearing from time to time. His crayon snapped at the canvas with a
sort of uneasy haste of angry nervousness.
"Ah, shucks!" he cried out, pushing away the easel with a kick.... "I
can do nothing but botch-work today!... The devil take me, one might
think I was competing for a prize."
Moving back his chair he examined his sketch with a frigid air and
muttered:
"Whenever women come here it's the same old story.... When they go away
the women leave you the soul of a Boulanger in the pretty claws of a
Henner.... Henner, do you understand?... Let's go out."
When we were at the end of the street:
"Are you coming to dine with me, Lirat?" I asked him.
"No," he replied in a dry tone, reaching out his hand.
And he walked away, stiff, formal, solemn, with the business air of a
deputy who has just discussed the budget.
That evening I did not go out and remained at home to muse in solitude.
Stretched on a sofa, with half-closed eyes, and body made torpid by the
heat, almost slumbering, I liked to go back to my past, to bring to
life things dead and to recall memories which escaped me. Five years
had passed since the war--the war in which I began my apprenticeship
in life by entering the tormenting profession of a man-killer....
Five years already!...Still it seemed like yesterday ... the smoke,
the fields covered with snow, stained with blood and ruins, these
fields where, like ghosts, we wandered about piteously, worn out with
fatigue.... Only five years!... And when I came back to the Priory,
the house was empty, my father dead!... My letters had come to him
only rarely, at long intervals and they had always been short, dry,
written in haste on the back of my knapsack. Only once, after a night
of terrible anguish had I become tender, affectionate; only once had I
poured out my heart to him, and this letter which should have brought
him sweetness, hope and consolation he had not received!... Every
morning, Marie told me, he used to come out to the gate an hour before
the arrival of the mailman and watch the turn of the road, a prey to
mortal fear. Old wood cutters would pass on their way to the woods; my
father used to question them:
"Hey there, uncle Ribot, you have not seen the mailman, by any chance?"
"Why no, Monsieur Mintié--it's a little early yet."
"Oh, no, uncle Ribot, he is rather late."
"That might be, Monsieur Mintié, that might be."
When he noticed the kepi and red collar of the mailman he became pale,
trembling with the fear of bad news. As the mailman approached, the
heart of my father beat furiously, almost bursting.
"Nothing but magazines today, Monsieur Mintié."
"How is that!... No letters at all! You must be mistaken, my boy. Look
... look again...."
He made the mailman search in his letter bag, untie the bundles and go
through them again....
"Nothing!... Why it's impossible!"
And he would return to the kitchen, seat himself in the rocking chair
heaving a sigh:
"Just think of it," he would say to Marie who gave him a bowl of milk,
"just think of it, Marie, if his poor mother had been alive!"
During the day, when in town, he used to visit people who had sons in
the army; the conversation was always the same.
"Well, have you heard from your boys."
"Why, no, M'sieur Mintié. How about you, have you heard anything from
Jean?"
"I haven't either."
"That's very strange. How is it possible?... Can you explain it?..."
That they themselves did not get any letters only half surprised them,
but that Mintié, the mayor, had not received any either, surprised
them very much. Most unusual conjectures were made; they turned to the
confusing statements of the papers, they questioned old soldiers who
told them their war experiences with the most extravagant and lavish
details; at the end of a couple of hours, they would part with lighter
hearts.
"Don't worry M'sieur Mayor. You'll see him back a colonel, sure."
"Colonel, colonel!" my father would say, shaking his head.... "I don't
ask that much.... Just so he comes back!..."
One day--nobody knew how that happened--Saint-Michel found itself full
of Prussian soldiers. The Priory was occupied. Long sabres were found
in our old house. From this moment, my father became more ill than
ever, he took fever and was confined to his bed, and in his delirium
he repeated without end: "Put the horses to, Felix, put the horses to,
for I want to go to Alençon to get some news of Jean!" He imagined
himself starting out on the road. "Gid up, gid up, Bichette, gid up,
come on!... We are going to have some news of Jean this evening.... Gid
up, gid up, come on!... And my poor father gently breathed his last in
the arms of the curé Blanchetière, surrounded by Felix and Marie who
were sobbing!... After a six months' stay at the Priory, now sadder
than ever, I was weary to death... Old Marie, accustomed to manage the
house according to her own notions, was unbearable to me; in spite of
her devotion, her whims exasperated me, and there always were long
altercations in which I never had the last word. For my only company I
had the good curé to whom nothing appealed as much as the profession of
a notary. From morning till night he used to lecture to me thus:
"Your grandfather was a notary, so was your father, your uncles, your
cousins, in fact your whole family.... You owe it to yourself, my dear
child, not to desert your post. You shall be Mayor of Saint-Michel,
you may even hope to replace your poor father at the general council,
in a few years.... Why man alive, that's something! And then--take my
word for it--times are going to be pretty hard for decent people who
love the good Lord.... You see that rascal Lebecq, he is municipal
counsellor. All he thinks of is how to rob and kill people, that
brigand there.... We need at the head of our country a right-minded
man to uphold religion and defend the principles of righteousness....
Paris, Paris!... Oh! these silly heads, those youngsters!... But will
you please tell me what good you have accomplished at Paris?...Why,
the very air there is infected! Look at big Mange, he comes from a good
family, but that did not prevent him from coming back from Paris with a
red cap on. Isn't that a pretty affair?"
And he would continue in this vein for hours, taking his snuff, evoking
the vision of the red cap of big Mange which appeared to him more
abominable than the horns of the devil.
What was there to do at Saint-Michel? There was no one to whom I could
communicate my thoughts, my dreams; there was no outlet for the ardor
of life where I could expend that intellectual energy, that passion
for knowledge and for creative work which the war, in developing my
muscles, in strengthening my body, had awakened in me, and which
omnivorous reading overstimulated in me more and more every day. I
realized that Paris alone, which formerly had frightened me so much,
that Paris alone could furnish nourishment for ambitions, as yet
indefinite, which spurred me on, and with the estate settled, and the
library sold I left suddenly, leaving the Priory to the care of Felix
and Marie.... And here I am back in Paris!...
What have I accomplished during these five years, to use the words
of the curé?... Carried away by vague ardors, by confused enthusiasm
which blended together some sort of a chimeric ideal with a kind of
impracticable apostleship, how far did I get?... I am no longer the
timid child whom the footmen, in the vestibule flooded with light, used
to put to flight. If I have not acquired much self-assurance, I at
least know how to behave in society without appearing too ridiculous.
I pass pretty much unnoticed, a condition which is the best that could
be wished for a man of my calibre who possesses none of the graces and
qualities which are necessary to shine there.
Very often I ask myself: what am I doing here in this society to which
I do not belong, where they respect only success however fraudulently
obtained, only money, no matter from what filthy place it comes; where
every spoken word acts as a wound inflicted on everything I love best
and everything I admire most?... Besides, is not man with all his
differences of education which are betrayed only in his gestures,
in his manner of greeting, in his more or less graceful bearing,
pretty much the same no matter where he is?... What! were these the
high-spirited artists, the much admired writers whose glory is sung,
whose genius is acclaimed ... these petty, vulgar, frightfully pedantic
beings, slavishly aping the manners of the society they rail at,
ludicrously vain, fiercely jealous, lying prostrate before wealth, and
kneeling in the dust, worshipping publicity--that old blackguard, which
they carry about on velvet cushions.... Oh, how much better I love
the herdsmen and their oxen, the pig drivers and their pigs, yes the
pigs, round and pink, digging the earth with their snouts and whose fat
smooth backs reflect the clouds that float above!
I read excessively, without discrimination, without system, and from
this faulty reading there was left in my mind nothing but a chaos of
disjointed facts and incomplete ideas, from the tangle of which I did
not know how to extricate myself.... I tried to acquire knowledge in
every way, but I realized that I was just as ignorant today as I had
been in the past.... I had had mistresses whom I loved for a week,
sentimental and romantic blondes, fierce brunettes, impatient to be
caressed, and love showed me only the frightful emptiness of the human
heart, the deceptiveness of affection, the lie of the ideal, the
nothingness of pleasure....
Believing myself converted to the formulæ of descriptive art by means
of which I was going to harness my ambition and fix my shifting and
thrilling dreams upon the pinion of words, I had published a book which
was praised and which proved to be "a best seller." Of course, I was
flattered by this little success; I, too, spoke of myself with pride as
of a rare talent; I, too, gave myself superior airs in order to deceive
others all the better. And wishing to deceive myself as well, I often
looked upon myself in the mirror with the complacency of a comedian, in
order that I might discover certain marks of genius in my eyes, on my
forehead, in the majestic bearing of my head.
Alas! Success rendered yet more painful the inner knowledge of my
impotence. My book did not amount to much; its style was forced, its
conception infantile: a passionate harangue, an absurd phraseology
took the place of ideas in it. At times I would read over the passages
praised by the critics, and in those passages discover something
of everybody: Herbert Spencer and Scribe, Jean Jacques Rousseau
and Commerson, Victor Hugo, Poe and Eugene Chavette. Of my own
contribution, I, whose name was displayed on the title page, on the
yellow cover of the volume, found nothing. Following the caprices of
my memories, aroused by the intermittent light of my recollections,
I expressed the thoughts of one and used the style of another; none
of the ideas or style belonged to me. And important looking persons
whose tastes are infallible and whose judgment is law praised my
personality, my originality, the unexpected nature and subtleness of my
impressions!...
How sad it was!... Whither was I going? I knew no more about it today
than I did yesterday. I had the conviction that I could not be a
writer, because all the effort of which I was capable had been spent
in writing that miserable and incoherent book. Had I had a more humble
and compromising ambition, were I only prompted by desires less noble,
by those which never cause remorse--such as love of money, official
titles, dissoluteness!... But, no! Only one thing which I could never
attain lured me, and that was talent.... To be able to say to myself,
yes ... to say to myself: "This book, this sonnet, this phrase is
yours, you wrung it from your brains swollen with passion; it is your
thought that quivers here; it is pieces of your flesh and drops of
your blood, that it scatters over the sorrowful pages; it is your
nerves that vibrate in it like the strings of a violin under the bow
of a divine musician. What you have accomplished here is beautiful and
grand!" For this moment of supreme joy I would be willing to sacrifice
my future, my wealth, my life; I would be willing even to kill!...
And never, never will I be able to say that to myself!... Ah how I
envied the eternal self-contentment of the mediocre!... Now I again
felt a passionate desire to return to Saint-Michel. I wished I could
drive the plough in the brown furrow, roll in the fields of yellow
clover, smell the wholesome odor of the stables, and, above all, lose
myself in the thick of the coppice wood, penetrating into it farther
and farther....
The light went out and my lamp was smoking. A cold like a gentle caress
filled my legs and sent a current of pleasurable chills through my
back. Outside not a sound was heard; the street grew silent. It had
been long since I heard the dull trundle of the omnibus rolling on
the causeway. The clock struck six. But a sort of laziness kept me
glued to my sofa: while thus stretched out I felt a physical pleasure
amidst a great mental depression. I had to make a strenuous effort
to free myself from this languor and to go into my bedroom. I found
it impossible to fall asleep. No sooner did I close my eyes than it
seemed to me that I had been thrown into a black and very deep pit, and
suddenly I awoke, panting and perspiring. I again lit my lamp, tried
to read.... I could not concentrate my mind on the lines of the text
which seemed to swerve, to cross one another, to abandon themselves to
a fantastic dance under my very eyes.
What a stupid life mine is!... Why am I so different, preyed upon by
obnoxious chimeras? Who has poured into my soul this deadly poison of
weariness and discouragement? Before others there stretches a vast
horizon illumined by the sun! But I am walking in the darkness, stopped
on every side by walls which obstruct my way and against which I vainly
beat my head and knees.... Perhaps it is because they possess love!
Love, ah yes! If I could only love!
And again I saw the beautiful virgin of Saint-Michel, the radiant
virgin of plaster of paris with its robe adorned with stars and
its golden nimbus descending from heaven. All around her suns were
revolving, inclining themselves like celestial flowers, and doves in
the exaltation of prayers were flying about, brushing her with their
wings.... I recalled the ecstasies, the fits of mystic adoration which
she evoked in me; all the sweet joys which I had experienced came back
to me at the mere contemplation of her. Did she not also speak to me,
then, at the chapel? And those unuttered words which poured into my
childish soul such ineffable tenderness, this language more harmonious
than angels' voices and the music of golden harps, this language more
fragrant than the perfume of roses,--was it not the divine language of
love?
As I listened with all my senses to this language which was music to
me, I was lifted into a world unknown and wondrous; a new enchanted
life sprouted, burst into bud and flourished all around me. The horizon
receded into mysterious infinity: space shone bright like the interior
of the sun, and I felt myself growing so tall and strong that in one
embrace I was pressing to my breast all the beings, all the flowers,
all the swarms of creatures born of the glance of love exchanged
between the Holy Virgin of plaster and a little child.
"Holy Virgin, kindly Virgin!" I cried. "Speak to me, speak to me
again,--as you used to in the past, in the chapel.... And give me love
once more, for love is life and I am dying because I am no longer able
to love."
But the Virgin was not listening to me any longer. She glided into the
chamber and curtsying, mounted the chairs, pried into the furniture
pieces, singing strange airs all the time. A drawn bonnet of otter skin
now replaced her nimbus of gold, her eyes became like those of Juliette
Roux, very large, very sweet, which smiled at me from a plaster face
under a veil of very fine gauze. From time to time she approached my
bed, waving above me her embroidered handkerchief which exhaled a
violent perfume.
"Monsieur Mintié," she said, "I am at home every day from five to
seven. And I shall be delighted to see you, delighted!"
"Virgin, kindly Virgin!" I implored again. "Speak to me, please. Speak
to me as you did formerly in the chapel."
"Tu, tu, tu, tu!" hummed the Virgin who, causing her lilac robe to
swell out and removing her cloak, adorned with golden stars with the
tips of her long, thin fingers, began to turn around slowly as if
dancing a waltz, her head swaying from one side to the other.
"Good Virgin!" I repeated in a rather irritated voice, "why don't you
speak to me!"
She stopped, posted herself in front of me, stripped off her plaster
garments one after another, and entirely nude, lustful and magnificent,
her bosom shook with clear, sonorous, precipitous laughter:
"Monsieur Mintié," she said, "I am at home every day from five to
seven. And I'll give you Charles' old trousers." And she threw her
otter skin bonnet at me.
I sat up on my bed.... With a stupid gaze and breathing with
difficulty, I looked about me. But the room was quiet, the lamp
continued to burn sadly and my open book was lying on the carpet.
The next morning I got up late, having slept badly, pursued by the
thought of Juliette in my sleep disturbed by nightmares. During the
remainder of that troubled, feverish night she did not leave me for an
instant, assuming the most extravagant forms, abandoning herself to the
most wretched pranks, and lo! I again beheld her in the morning, and
this time she was the same as when I met her before at Lirat's, with
her air of modesty, her discreet and charming manners.
I felt a kind of sadness--not exactly sadness, but regret, the regret
one feels at the sight of a rose-bush whose roses have wilted and whose
petals are scattered over the muddy ground. For I could not think of
Juliette without thinking at the same time of Lirat's malignant words:
"There was also an affair with a wrestler of Neuilly whom she gave
twenty francs." What a pity!... When she entered the studio I could
swear that she was the most virtuous of women.... Her very manner of
walking, greeting, smiling, seating herself bespoke good breeding,
a peaceful, happy life without hasty acts of indiscretion, without
degrading remorse. Her hat, her cloak, her dress, her whole appearance
was of a refined and charming elegance, meant for the enjoyment of just
one, for the cheerfulness of a secluded house, closed to the seekers
of unclean spoils.... And her eyes, radiating a perfectly legitimate
tenderness, her eyes from which shone such candor, so much sincerity,
which seemed to have no knowledge of lies, her eyes more beautiful than
the lakes haunted by the moon!...
"Is Charles all right?" Lirat had asked.
Charles?... Her husband, to be sure!... And naïvely I pictured to
myself a respectable interior of a room, with jolly children playing on
the carpet, a family lamp, grouping kind and simple beings around its
gentle shimmer; a chaste bed, protected by a crucifix and a hallowed
branch of boxtree!... Then suddenly, crashing into this peace, the
bullhead from the Bouffes, the croupier of the gambling club, and
Charles Malterre who broke Lirat's lounge by rolling on it, while
crying in rage!... I conjured the image of the comedian--a pallid face,
wrinkled, glabrous, with impudent bloodshot eyes, with sensual lips,
wearing an open collar, a pink cravat, a low-plaited short jacket!
I was unnerved and irritated.... What did it matter to me, after all?
Did the life of this woman concern me, was it related to me in any
way?... Was it my business to interest myself in the fate of women
whom chance threw in my path?... I don't care what she is, this Mlle.
Juliette Roux!... She is neither my sister nor my fiançée, nor my
friend; there is not a single bond of kinship between us.... If I had
seen her yesterday walking on the street, like one of the thousands of
persons whom one brushes against every day and who pass on and vanish,
she would have already been drawn into the vortex of oblivion and never
again would I be likely to see her.
"Maybe Lirat is mistaken?" I repeated, while breakfasting. I knew his
exaggerations, his passion for ridicule, his horror of and contempt for
woman. What he said of Juliette he was saying of all other women. Who
knows,--perhaps this comedian, this croupier, all the details of this
ignominious affair in the exposure of which his spiteful spirit found
gratification, existed only in his imagination? And Charles Malterre?
Undoubtedly I should have preferred to see her married. I should have
been pleased to see her leaning openly on the arm of a man, respected,
envied by the most honest! But she loved this Malterre, she lived
decently with him, she was devoted to him: "Charles will be sorry to
learn of your refusal." The almost entreating voice in which she said
those words was still in my ears. This means that she was mindful of
the things that might or might not please Malterre.
And at the thought that Lirat, in making improper use of a false
situation, was calumniating her in an odious manner, my heart grew
heavy, a feeling of great pity swept over me and I caught myself saying
aloud: "Poor girl!" Still this Malterre had been writhing on the
lounge, he had cried, he had laid bare his heart to Lirat, had shown
him her letters. Well, what of it? What have I to do with this woman?
Let her have all the singers, all the croupiers, all the wrestlers she
wants! To hell with her! And I went out humming a gay air, with the
free bearing of a gentleman whose spirit is not in the least troubled
by anything. And why should it be, I ask you?...
I went down the boulevards, stopping in front of the booths, strolling
in spite of the sun, which was like a niggardly and pallid smile of
December still permeated with fog; the air was cold and piercing. On
the sidewalk women were passing, shivering with cold, wrapped in long
cloaks of otter skin, some of them dressed in small drawn bonnets of
fur like Juliette's, and every time these cloaks and bonnets attracted
my attention I observed them with genuine pleasure. I liked to follow
them with my glance until they were lost in the crowd. At the corner of
the Rue Taitbout, I remember, I came upon a tall slender woman, pretty
and resembling Juliette so closely that I brought my hand to my hat
ready to greet her. I was excited--oh, it was not the violent beating
of the heart which halts your breathing, weakens the flow of blood in
your veins and stuns you; it was a light touch, a caress, something
very sweet, which brings a smile upon the lips and a cheerful surprise
to the eyes.
But this woman was not Juliette. I felt somewhat peeved and avenged
myself by thinking her very ugly. Two o'clock already!... Shall I go to
see Lirat? Why? To make him talk about Juliette, to compel him to admit
that he had lied to me, to make him tell me of her traits of character,
sublime and poignant, tell me some touching stories of her devotion,
sacrifice--that tempted me. I thought the matter over, however, knowing
that Lirat would be angry, that he would mock at me, at her, and I had
a horror of his sarcasms; I already heard sinister words, abominable
phrases coming out of a twisted corner of his mouth with a hissing
sound.
At the Champs-Elysées, I called a hackney-coach and proceeded toward
the Bois. Why dissemble? There I hoped to meet Juliette. Yes, certainly
I hoped it, but at the same time I feared it. Not to see her at all, I
felt, would prove a disappointment to me. On the other hand, were she
in the habit of exhibiting herself in this market place of gallantry
regularly like the other ladies, I should again feel hurt, and in the
end I did not know what it was that stirred me more: the hope of seeing
her or the fear of meeting her.
There were few people in the Bois. On the grand lake drive, carriages
were passing slowly at a considerable distance from one another, the
drivers perched high upon their seats. Sometimes a brougham would leave
the strung-out line, turn and disappear to the trot of its horses,
carrying away God knows where the profile of a woman, or some white
and pallid faces, or the end of a ruffled dress seen for a moment
through the window of the coach door.... My heart and the blood in my
temples were beating faster, impatience caused the tips of my fingers
to twitch; my neck was tired from turning in the same direction in an
effort to penetrate the shadow of the carriages and began to hurt;
anxiously I was chewing the end of a cigar which I could not make up
my mind to light, for fear of missing her carriage in the act. Once I
thought I saw her inside a brougham, which was going in the opposite
direction.
"Turn, turn," I shouted to the driver, "and follow that brougham."
I did not at all reflect whether or not I was acting properly towards a
woman to whom I had been introduced only the day before, and casually
at that, one whose reputation I wanted to see rehabilitated at all
costs. Half leaning against the lowered window of the coach door, I
never lost sight of the brougham. And I was saying to myself: "Perhaps
she recognized me! Perhaps she is going to stop, get out of the
carriage, appear in the street." Indeed, I was saying this to myself
without the slightest notion of attempting a gallant conquest. I
was saying that as if it were the simplest and most natural thing in
the world. The brougham rolled on speedily, lightly, bounding on its
springs, and my hackney coach followed it with difficulty.
"Faster!" I gave the order, "faster, and get ahead of it!"
The driver lashed his horse, which started into a gallop, and in a
few seconds the wheels of the two carriages touched each other. Then
a woman's head, with dishevelled hair under a very large hat, with a
nose comically turned up, with lips cracked from the excessive use of
paint and crimson like a living flesh wound, appeared in the frame of
the coach door. With a scornful glance, she took in the driver, the
cab, the horse and myself, put out her tongue and then withdrew into a
corner of her carriage. It was not Juliette! I did not come home until
night, very much disappointed and yet delighted with my useless drive!
I had no plans for the evening. Still I spent more than the usual time
in dressing myself. I did it with the greatest care, and, for the first
time, the knot of my cravat seemed to me a matter of great importance,
and I was very much absorbed in the process of tying it carefully. This
unexpected discovery brought in its train others equally important.
For example, I noticed that my shirt was ill cut, that the shirt front
wrinkled disgracefully at the opening of the vest; that my dress coat
looked very old and curiously out of style. In a word, I thought I
looked very ridiculous and promised myself to change all that in the
future. Without making elegant appearance an exacting and tyrannical
law of my life, it was quite permissible, I thought, to look like
the rest of the people. Simply because one dressed well, one was not
necessarily a fool.
These preoccupations consumed my time till the dinner hour. Usually I
ate at home, but this evening my apartment appeared to me so small, so
dismal; it suffocated me, and I felt the need of space, of noise, of
merriment.
At the restaurant I took an interest in everything: the coming and
going of people, the gilding on the ceiling, the large mirrors which
multiplied to infinity the parlors, waiters, electric globes, the
flowers on ladies hats, the counters on which were spread dressed
meats of all kinds, where pyramids of fruit, red and gold colored,
rose amid salads and sparkling glassware. I watched the women above
all, I studied their somewhat airy manner of eating, the joy in their
eyes, the movement of their ungloved arms encircled by heavy bracelets
of glittering gold, the exposed lines of their necks so delicate and
tender, which gradually receded into the bosom, under the roseate lace
napkin. This fascinated me, it affected me like something altogether
new, like a landscape of some distant country suddenly glimpsed. I was
wonder-struck, like a boy.
Ordinarily, impelled by the brooding disposition of my nature, I would
fasten my attention on the intimate moral life of a human being, that
is to say, I would point out its ugliness or suffering; at this moment,
on the contrary, I abandoned myself to the joy of solely perceiving
its physical charm: I was delighted to observe the magic spell cast
by the women; even in the ugliest one I found some little detail such
as a curve in the back of a neck, a languor in eyes, a suppleness of
hands--always something or other--which made me happy, and I reproached
myself for having until now arranged my life so badly, for having
isolated myself like a barbarian in a dark melancholy chamber, for not
having lived, while all this time Paris was offering me, at every
step, joys so easily attained and so sweet to relish.
"Is Monsieur perhaps waiting for someone?" the waiter asked me.
Some one? Why no, I was not waiting for anyone. The door of the
restaurant opened and I quickly turned around. Then I understood why
the waiter had asked that question. Each time the door opened I would
hastily turn around as I did just now and would stare anxiously at the
people entering as if I knew that someone was about to enter, someone I
was waiting for.... Some one! Well, for whom could I be waiting?
I very seldom went to the theatre; to force me there, a special
occasion or obligation or inducement was required. I quite believe that
of my own accord I would never think of going there. I even affected
a supreme contempt for the kind of literary stuff offered for sale in
these pushcart markets of mediocrity. Conceiving, as I did, the theatre
as a place not of idle distraction but of serious art, it was repugnant
to me to see human passion warbling one and the same sentimental
tune amidst the mechanism of always identical scenes, to see gaiety,
bedecked with tinsel, tumbling into the same pit of tomfoolery. A
manufacturer of such plays, be they ever so applauded, seemed to me
an artist gone astray; he bore the same relation to the poet that an
unfrocked clergyman bears to a priest, or a deserter does to a soldier!
And I always remembered Lirat's remark, so powerfully concise, so
profoundly discerning. We had been attending the funeral of the painter
M----. The celebrated dramatist D---- was the chief mourner. At the
cemetery he delivered an address. This did not surprise anyone, for did
not H---- and D---- enjoy a reputation of equal greatness? At the end of
the ceremony Lirat took my arm and we walked back to Paris very sad.
Lirat, who seemed lost in painful meditation, was silent. Suddenly he
stopped, crossed his arms and, swaying his head with an irresistibly
comical air because it was intended to be grave, exclaimed: "But why
did that fellow D---- interfere, tell me?" And he was right. Why did he
interfere, really? Did they come from the same stock and were they
headed for the same glory--the one an ardent artist with grandiose
thoughts and immortal works, and the other, whose sole ideal was to
entertain with silly nonsense an assembly of wealthy and reputable
bourgeois each evening. Yes, really, why did he interfere?
How removed I was from such morose sentiments when, after dinner,
having sauntered along the boulevards, enjoying the feeling of
physical well-being which gave to my movement a special lightness
and elasticity, I seated myself in a chair at the Varieté, where a
successful musical comedy was being played! With my face deliciously
freshened by the cold air outside, my heart entirely won over to a sort
of universal forebearance, I was really enjoying myself. With what?
I did not know and little cared to know, not being in the mood for
psychological self-analysis.
As was proper, I arrived during the intermission, when the crowd, very
elegant in appearance, was filling the lobbies. After having left
my overcoat at the check room, I passed through the parterre boxes
with that same sweet impatience, that same delicious anguish, which I
had already experienced at the Bois; on reaching the first balcony I
continued the same careful inspection of the loges. "Why is she not
here?" I asked myself. Each time I failed to distinguish clearly a
woman's face, whether it was because the face was slightly bent, in
shadow, or cut off from view by a fan, I would say to myself: "That's
Juliette!" And each time it was not Juliette at all. The play amused
me; I laughed heartily at the flat jokes which constituted the essence
of the piece: I enjoyed all this perverse ineptitude, this vulgar
coarseness and really found in it a quality of irony which did not
lack literary merit. At the love scenes I grew sentimental. During the
last intermission I met a young man whom I scarcely knew. Glad of the
opportunity to pour out the banalities which had accumulated in me and
were pressing for an outlet, I clung to him.
"An amazing thing, isn't it?" he said to me. "It is stunning, eh?"
"Yes, it isn't bad!"
"Not bad! Not bad!... Why that is a masterpiece, an astounding
masterpiece! What I especially like is the second act. There is a
situation for you, not that ... a tense situation! Why it is high
comedy, you know! And the gowns! And that Judic, ah! that Judic!..."
He struck his thigh and clicked his tongue:
"It got me all excited, my dear! It's astonishing!"
We thus discussed the merits of the various acts, scenes and actors.
When we were parting:
"Tell me," I asked him, "do you happen to know a certain Juliette Roux?"
"Wait now! Oh, perfectly well! A little brunette, very 'chic'? No, I
got mixed up. Wait now! Juliette Roux! Don't know her."
An hour later I was seated at a table with a glass of soda water in
front of me, in the café de la Paix where, after the theatre, used to
assemble the most beautiful representatives of the fashionable world. A
great many women came in and out, insolent, loud-mouthed, their faces
covered with fresh layers of rice powder, their lips newly painted with
rouge! At the adjoining table a little blonde lady, already aged but
very animated, was speaking in a nasal voice; a brunette, farther away,
was simpering with a turkey's ludicrous majesty, and with the same hand
which had raked manure on the farm she held a fan, while her escort,
leaning against his chair, his hat pushed back, his legs spread apart,
was obdurately sucking his cane's head.
An uncontrollable feeling of disgust rose within me; I was ashamed of
being here, and I compared the ridiculous and noisy manners of these
women with the reserved deportment of the gentle Juliette at Lirat's
studio. These raucous and piercing voices rendered even more suave the
freshness of her voice, the voice which I still heard saying to me:
"Delighted, Monsieur! But I know you well." I arose.
"What a scoundrel this Lirat is, all the same," I exclaimed while
getting into bed, furious at the fact that he had so treated a young
woman whom I had met neither on the street, at the Bois, in the
restaurant, at the theatre, nor at the night cabaret.