By one of those inconsistencies which sway the popular mind in times of
trouble, the gorgeous splendour and wasteful extravagance which were not
permitted to an ancient nobility were willingly conceded to those who
now ministered to public amusement, and the costly magnificence which
aided the downfall of a monarchy was deemed pardonable in one whose
early years had been passed in misery and in want.
It was in the ancient hotel of the Duc de Noailles that Gabrielle was
lodged, and all the splendour of that princely residence remained as
in the time of its former owners; even to the portraits of the haughty
ancestry upon the walls, and the proud emblazonry of armorial bearings
over doors and chimneys, nothing was changed; the embroidered crests
upon chairs and tablecovers, the gilded coronets that ornamented every
architrave and cornice, stood forth in testimony of those in whose
honour those insignia were fashioned.
Preceding Gerald, and walking at a rapid pace, Gabrielle passed through
several splendid rooms, till she came to one whose walls, hung in
purple velvet with a deep gold fringe, had an air of almost sombre
magnificence, the furniture being all of the same grave tint, and even
the solitary lamp which lighted the apartment having a glass shade of a
deep purple colour.
‘This is my chamber of study, Gherardi,’ said she, as they entered.
‘None ever come to disturb me when here. Here, therefore, we are alone
to question and to reply to each other--to render account of the past
and speculate on the future--and, first of all, tell me, am I changed?’
As she spoke she tossed aside her bonnet, and loosening her long hair
from its bands, suffered it to fall upon her neck and shoulders in the
wild masses it assumed in girlhood. She crossed her arms, too, upon her
breast in imitation of a gesture familiar to her, and stood motionless
before him.
Long and steadfastly did Gerald continue to stare at her.. It was like
the look of one who would read if he might every trait and lineament
before him, and satisfy his mind what characters had time written upon a
nature he had once known so well.
‘You do not answer me,’ said she at last; ‘am I then changed?’
A faint low sigh escaped him, but he uttered no word.
‘Be frank with me as a brother ought; tell me wherein is this change?
You thought me handsome once; am I less so?’
‘Oh! no, no! not that, not that!’ cried he passionately; ‘you are more
beautiful than ever.’
‘Is there in my expression aught that gives you grief? has the world
written boldness upon my brow? or do you fancy that you can trace the
cost of all the splendour around us in some faint lines of shame and
sorrow? Speak, sir, and be honest with me.’
‘I have no right to call you to such a reckoning, Marietta,’ said he,
half proudly.
‘I know it, and would have resented had you dared to do it of a right;
but I stand here as one equal to such questioning. It will be your own
turn soon,’ added she, smiling, ‘and it will be well if you can stand
the test so bravely.’
‘I accept the challenge,’ cried Gerald eagerly; ‘I take you at your
word. Some years back, Marietta, I left you poor, friendless, and a
wayworn wanderer through the world. Our fortunes were alike in those
days, and I can remember when we deemed the day a lucky one that did not
send us supperless to bed. We had sore trials, and we felt them, though
we bore them bravely. When we parted, our lot was misery, and now, what
do I see? I find you in the splendour of a princely house; your dress
that which might become the highest rank; the very jewels on your wrist
and on your fingers a fortune. I know well,’ added he, bitterly, ‘that
in this brief interval of time destiny has changed many a lot; great
and glorious men have fallen; and mean, ignoble, and unworthy ones have
taken their places. You, however, as a woman, could have taken no share
in these convulsions. How is it, then, that I see you thus?’
‘Say on, sir,’ said she, with a disdainful gesture; ‘these words mean
nothing, or more than they ought.’
He did not speak, but he bent his eyes upon her in reproachful silence.
‘You lack the courage to say the word. Well, I ‘ll say it for you: Whose
mistress are you to be thus splendidly attired? What generous patron has
purchased this princely house--given you equipage, servants, diamonds?
Against how much have you bartered your heart? Who has paid the price?
Ay, confess it, these were the generous thoughts that filled your
mind--these the delicate questions your timidity could not master. Well,
as I have spoken, so will I answer them. Only remember this,’ added she
solemnly, ‘when I have made this explanation, when all is told, there is
an end for ever between us of that old tie that once bound us: we trust
each other no more. It is for you to say if you accept this contract.’
Gerald was silent; if he could not master the suspicions that impressed
him, as little could he resolve to forget for ever his hold upon
Marietta. That she was one to keep her word he well knew; and if she
decided to part, he felt that the separation was final. She watched him
calmly, as he sat in this conflict with himself; so far from showing
any sense of impatience at the struggle, she seemed rather to enjoy the
painful difficulty of his position.
‘Well, have you made your choice?’ cried she at length, as with a slight
smile she stood in front of him.
‘It would be a treachery to my own heart, and to you, too, were I to say
that all this magnificence I see here suggested no thought of evil. We
were poor even to misery once, Marietta--I am still so; and well I know
that in such wretchedness as ours temptation is triply dangerous. To
tell me that you have yielded is, then, no more than to confess you were
like others.’
‘Of what, then, do you accuse me? Is it that I am Mirabeau’s mistress?
Would that I were!’ cried she passionately; ‘would that by my devotion
I could share his love and give him all my own! You would cry shame
upon me for this avowal. You think more highly of your own petty
contrivances, your miserable attempts to sustain a mock morality--your
boasted tie of marriage--than of the emotions that are born with you,
that move your infancy, sway your manhood, and temper your old age. You
hold that by such small cheats you supply the insatiable longings of the
human heart. But the age of priestcraft is over; throne, altar, purple,
sceptre, incense and all, have fled; and in the stead of man’s mummeries
we have installed Man himself, in the might of his intellect, the
glorious grandeur of his great conceptions, and the noble breadth of his
philanthropy; and who is the type of these, if not Gabriel Riquetti? His
mistress! what have I not done to win the proud name? Have I not striven
hard for it? These triumphs, as they call them, my great successes, had
no other promptings. If my fame as an actress stands highest in Europe,
it was gained but in his cause. Your great Alfieri himself has taught me
no emotions I have not learned in my own deep love; and how shadowy and
weak the poet’s words beside the throbbing ecstasies of one true heart!
You ask for a confession: you shall have one. But why do you go? Would
you leave me?’
‘Would that we had never met again!’ said Gerald sadly. ‘Through many a
dark and sad hour have I looked back upon our life, when, as little more
than children, we journeyed days long together. I pictured to myself
how the same teachings that nerved my own heart in trouble must have
supported and sustained yours. If you knew how I used to dwell upon the
memory of that time; its very privations were hallowed in my memory,
telling how through all our little cares and sorrows our love sufficed
us!’
‘Our love,’ broke she in scoffingly. ‘What a mockery! The poor offspring
of some weak sentimentality, the sickly cant of some dreamy sonneteer.
These men never knew what love was, or they had not dared to profane
it by their tawdry sentiments. Is it in nature,’ cried she wildly, ‘to
declare trumpet-tongued to the world the secrets on which the heart
feeds to live, the precious thoughts that to the dearest could not be
revealed? These are your poets! Over and over have I wished for you to
tell you this--to tear out of your memory that wretched heresy we then
believed a faith.’
‘You have done your work well,’ said he sorrowfully. ‘Good-bye for
ever!’
‘I wish you would not go, Gherardi,’ said she, laying her hand on his
arm, and gazing at him with a look of the deepest meaning. ‘To me,
alone and orphaned, you represent a family and kindred. The old ties are
tender ones.’
‘Why will you thus trifle with me?’ said he, half angrily.
‘Is it to rekindle the flame you would extinguish afterward?’
‘And why not return to that ancient faith? You were happier when you
loved me--when I learned my verses by your side, and sang the wild songs
of my own wild land. Do you remember this one; it was a favourite once
with you?’ And, turning to the piano, she struck a few chords, and in
a voice of liquid melody sang a little Calabrese peasant song, whose
refrain ended with the words--
‘Ti am’ ancor, ti am’ ancor.’
‘After the avowal you have made me, Marietta, it were base in me to be
beguiled thus,’ said he, moving away. ‘You love another: be it so. Live
in that love, and be happy.’
‘This, too, Gherardi, we used to sing together,’ said she, beginning
another air. ‘Let us see if your memory, of which you boast so much,
equals mine. Come, this is your verse,’ said she caressingly. ‘Ah,
fratello mio, how much more lovable you were long ago! I remember a
certain evening, that glided into a long night, when we leaned together,
with arms around each other’s necks, out of a little window; it was a
poor, melancholy street beneath, but to us it was like an alley between
cedar-trees. Well, on that same night, you swore to me a vow of eternal
love; you told me a miraculous story: that, though poor and friendless,
you were of birth and blood; and that birth and blood meant rank and
fortune in some long hereafter, for which neither of us was impatient.
It was on that same night you drew a picture to my mind of our life of
happiness--a bright and gorgeous picture it was too--ay, and I believed
it all; and yet, and yet--on the very day after you deserted me.’ As she
uttered the last words, her head fell upon his shoulder, and her long
hair in waving masses dropped down over his chest and on his arm; a
violent sobbing seemed to choke her utterance, and her frame shook with
a strong tremor.
Gerald sank into a chair, and pressed her gently to his heart. Oh,
what a wild conflict raged within him; what hopes and fears, wishes and
dreads, warred there with each other! At one moment all his former love
came back, and she was the same Marietta he had wandered with through
the chestnut groves, reciting in boyish ardour the verses he had learned
to master; at the next, a shuddering shame reminded him that she had
just confessed she loved another, making a very mockery of the memory
of their former passion. What, too, was she--what her life--that she did
not dare to reveal it?
‘And you,’ cried she, suddenly springing up, ‘what do you know of
Riquetti? How came you to be with him?’
‘I have known him long, Marietta. Would that I had never known him!
Without him and his teachings I had thought better of the world--been
less prone to suspect--less ready to distrust. You may remember how,
long ago, I told you of a certain Gabriel----’
‘It was he, then, who befriended you in the Maremma? Oh, the noble
nature that can do generous things, yet seem to think them weakness! How
widely different from your poets this--your men of high sentiment and
sordid action--your coiners of fine phrases, hollow-hearted and empty!’
‘True enough,’ said Gerald bitterly; ‘Gabriel de Mirabeau is at least
consistent; his sentiments are all in harmony with his life--he is no
hypocrite.’
It was with a quick gesture, like a tigress about to spring, that she
now turned on him, her eyeballs staring wildly, and her fingers closely
clutched. ‘Is it,’ cried she in passion, ‘is it given to creatures like
you or me to judge of a man like this? Do you imagine that by any strain
of your fancy you can conceive the trials, the doubts, the difficulties,
which beset him? To intellects like his what we call excess may give
that repose which to sluggish natures comes of mere apathy. I, too,’
said she, drawing herself proudly up, ‘I, too, have been his pupil; he
saw me in the Cleopatra; he told me how I had misconceived the poet--or
rather, how the poet had mistaken the character--for he loves not your
Alfieri.’
‘How should he? Whence could he draw upon the noble fund of emotions
that fill that great heart?’
A smile of proud, ineffable scorn was all her reply.
‘Tell me rather of yourself, Marietta mia,’ said he, taking her hand,
and placing her at his side. ‘I long to hear how you became great and
distinguished, as I see you.’
‘The human heart throbs alike beneath rags or purple. When I could make
tears course down the rude cheeks that were gaunt with famine, the task
was easy to move those whose natures yielded to lighter impulse. For a
whole winter--it was the first after we parted--I was the actress of
a little theatre in the cité. We dramatised the events of the day; and
they whose hard toil estranged them from the world of active life, could
see at evening the sorrows and sufferings of the nobility they hated
on “the scène.” The sack of chateau and the guillotine were favourite
themes; and mine was to portray some woman of the people, seduced,
wronged, deserted, but avenged! A chance--a caprice of the
moment--brought Riquetti one night to our theatre. He came behind the
scenes and talked with me. My accent betrayed my birth, and we talked
Italian. He questioned me closely, how and where I had learned to
declaim. I spoke of you, though not by name. “Ah!” cried he, “a lover
already!” The look which he gave me at the words was like a stab; I felt
it here, in my heart. It was the careless scoff of one who deemed that
to such as me no sense of delicacy need be observed. He might think
and say as he pleased, my station was too ignoble to suggest respect. I
hated him, and turned away, vowing, if occasion served, to be
revenged upon him. He came a few nights after, accompanied by several
others--there were ladies too, handsome and splendidly dressed. This
splendour shocked the meanness of our misery, and even outraged
the meanly clad audience around. I saw this, and seized it as the
opportunity of my vengeance. Our piece was, as usual, the story of our
daily life; I represented a seduced peasant girl, left to starve in a
chateau, from which the owners had gone to enjoy the delights of Paris.
I had wandered on foot to the capital, and was supposed to be in search
of my seducer through the streets. I sat famished and shivering upon a
door-sill, watching with half-listless gaze the rich tide of humanity
that swept past. I heeded not the proud display of equipages; the gay
groups; the gorgeous procession of life before me; till suddenly, as if
on a balcony, I beheld him I sought, the centre of a knot of beautiful
women, who, leaning over the balustrade, seemed to criticise the world
below. Addressing myself at once to where Riquetti sat, I made him part
of the scene. I knew nothing of him, nor of his history; but in blind
chance I actually invented some of the chief incidents of his life. I
made him a profligate, a duellist, and a seducer. I represented how he
had won the affections of his friend’s wife, eloped with, and deserted
her; and yet, covered with crime, debased by every iniquity, and
degraded by every vice, there he sat, successful, triumphant, and
esteemed.
‘What was my amazement, as the curtain fell, to see him at my side. “I
have come,” said he, in that rich, deep voice of his--“I have come
to make you my compliments; you have your country’s gift, and can
‘improvise’ well!” I blushed deeply, and could not answer him; but he
went on: “These, however, are not wise themes to dwell upon. Popular
passions are dangerous seas, and will often shipwreck even those whose
breath has stirred them; besides, this is not art”; and with these
words he launched forth into a grand description of what really should
constitute the artist’s realm, to what his teachings might extend, where
should be their limits. He showed how the strict imitation of nature was
an essential, yet, that the true criterion of success in art lay in
the combination of such ingredients as best suited the impression to be
conveyed; no mean or petty detail, however truthful or accurate, being
suffered to detract from the whole conception. He then warned me against
exaggeration, the prime fault of all inexperienced minds. “Even this
very moment,” said he, “you marred a fine effect when you spoke of me
as one capable of parricide.” “Of you,” said I, blushing, and trying to
disown the personality. “Yes,” said he, “of me. Your biography was often
very accurate--to any but myself it might seem painfully accurate: I
have done all that you ascribe to me, and more!”--“But I never knew it,”
cried I; “I never heard it; my improvisation was pure chance. I owed
you a vendetta for some cruel words you had spoken to me.”--“I remember
them,” said he, smiling; “you may live to believe that such phrases are
a flattery! But to yourself, come to me to-morrow; bring your books
with you, that you may read me something I will select. I can and may
befriend you!” And he did befriend me.
‘There was with him a tall, dark man, of sombre aspect, and a deep
voice, who questioned me long and closely as to my early studies, and
who undertook from that hour to teach me. This was Talma.
‘And now a life of glorious labour opened upon me. I worked unceasingly,
with such ardour, indeed, as to affect my health, which at last gave
way, and I was obliged to retire into the country, on the Loire, to
recruit. Riquetti came to see me once there; he was coming up from the
south, and happened to stop at Tours. His visit was scarcely an hour,
but it left me with memories that endured for months. But why should
I weary you with a recital which can only interest when all its daily
chances and changes are duly weighed? I came out at the “Français” as
Zaire; my success was a triumph! Roxane followed, and was even a greater
success. You do not care to hear by what flatteries I was surrounded,
what temptations assailed me, what wealth laid at my feet, what
protestations of devotion, what offers of splendour met me. We were in a
world that, repudiating all its old traditions, had sworn allegiance to
a new code! Nobility, birth, title, were as nothing; genius alone could
sway men’s minds. Eloquence was deemed the grand exponent of intellect;
and next after the splendid oratory of the Constituent came the
declamation of the drama. You must know France in its aspect of generous
youth--in this, its brightest hour of destiny--to understand how much of
influence is wielded by those who once were deemed the mere creatures
of a pampered civilisation. The artist is now a “puissance,” as is every
power that can move the passions, influence the motives, and direct the
actions of mankind. The choice of the piece we played at night was in
accordance with the political exigency of the day; and often has it
been my lot to complete by some grand declamation the eloquent appeal by
which Mirabeau had moved the Assembly. Oh, what a glorious life it
was to feel no longer the mere mouthpiece of mock passion, but a real,
actual, living influence on men’s hearts; what a triumph was it then to
hear that wild outburst of applause, that seemed to say: “Here are we,
ready at your call; speak but the word and the blade shall flash and the
brand flare; denounce the treason, and leave the traitors to us!” It
was in this life, as in an orgie, I have lived. If you fancy that I
exaggerate this power, or overrate its extent, listen to one fact.
‘I was one night at Mirabeau’s--at one of those small, select receptions
which none but his most intimate friends frequented. D’Entraiques was
there, Lavastocque, Maurice de Talleyrand, De Noe, and a few more. We
were talking of the fall of the Monarchy, and discussing whether there
was in the story anything that future dramatists might successfully
avail themselves of. The majority thought not, and gave their reasons.
I was not able to controvert by argument such subtle critics, but I
replied by improvising a scene in the Temple of Marie Antoinette writing
a last letter to her children. There was no incident to give story, no
accessory of scenery to suggest a picture; but I felt that the theme
had its own pathetic power, and I was right. D’Entraiques shed tears;
Charles de Noe sobbed aloud. “She must never repeat this,” muttered
Riquetti.--“Not for a while at least,” said Talleyrand, smiling, as he
took a pinch of snuff. From that hour I felt what it was to stir men’s
hearts. Then, success became real; for it was certain and assured.