LENTEN LOVES
One evening in Lent Rodolphe returned home early with the idea of
working. But scarcely had he sat down at his table and dipped his pen in
the ink than he was disturbed by a singular noise. Putting his ear to
the treacherous partition that separated him from the next room, he
listened, and plainly distinguished a dialogue broken by the sound of
kisses and other amourous interruptions.
"The deuce," thought Rodolphe, glancing at his clock, "it is still
early, and my neighbor is a Juliet who usually keeps her Romeo till long
after the lark has sung. I cannot work tonight."
And taking his hat he went out. Handing in his key at the porter's
lodge he found the porter's wife half clasped in the arms of a gallant.
The poor woman was so flustered that it was five minutes before she
could open the latch.
"In point of fact," though Rodolphe, "there are times when porters grow
human again."
Passing through the door he found in its recess a sapper and a cook
exchanging the luck-penny of love.
"Hang it," said Rodolphe, alluding to the warrior and his robust
companion, "here are heretics who scarcely think that we are in Lent."
And he set out for the abode of one of his friends who lived in the
neighborhood.
"If Marcel is at home," he said to himself, "we will pass the evening in
abusing Colline. One must do something."
As he rapped vigorously, the door was partly opened, and a young man,
simply clad in a shirt and an eye-glass, presented himself.
"I cannot receive you," said he to Rodolphe.
"Why not?" asked the latter.
"There," said Marcel, pointing to a feminine head that had just peeped
out from behind a curtain, "there is my answer."
"It is not a pretty one," said Rodolphe, who had just had the door
closed in his face. "Ah!" said he to himself when he got into the
street, "what shall I do? Suppose I call on Colline, we could pass the
time in abusing Marcel."
Passing along the Rue de l'Ouest, usually dark and unfrequented,
Rodolphe made out a shade walking up and down in melancholy fashion, and
muttering in rhyme.
"Ho, ho!" said Rodolphe, "who is this animated sonnet loitering here?
What, Colline!"
"What Rodolphe! Where are you going?"
"To your place."
"You won't find me there."
"What are you doing here?"
"Waiting."
"What are you waiting for?"
"Ah!" said Colline in a tone of raillery, "what can one be waiting for
when one is twenty, when there are stars in the sky and songs in the
air?"
"Speak in prose."
"I am waiting for a girl."
"Good night," said Rodolphe, who went on his way continuing his
monologue. "What," said he, "is it St. Cupid's Day and cannot I take a
step without running up against people in love? It is scandalously
immoral. What are the police about?"
As the gardens of the Luxembourg were still open, Rodolphe passed into
them to shorten his road. Amidst the deserted paths he often saw
flitting before him, as though disturbed by his footsteps, couples
mysteriously interlaced, and seeking, as a poet has remarked, the
two-fold luxury of silence and shade.
"This," said Rodolphe, "is an evening borrowed from a romance." And yet
overcome, despite himself, by a langourous charm, he sat down on a seat
and gazed sentimentally at the moon.
In a short time he was wholly under the spell of a feverish
hallucination. It seemed to him that the gods and heroes in marble who
peopled the garden were quitting their pedestals to make love to the
goddesses and heroines, their neighbors, and he distinctly heard the
great Hercules recite a madrigal to the Vedella, whose tunic appeared to
him to have grown singularly short.
From the seat he occupied he saw the swan of the fountain making its way
towards a nymph of the vicinity.
"Good," thought Rodolphe, who accepted all this mythology, "There is
Jupiter going to keep an appointment with Leda; provided always that the
park keeper does not surprise them."
Then he leaned his forehead on his hand and plunged further into the
flowery thickets of sentiment. But at this sweet moment of his dream
Rodolphe was suddenly awakened by a park keeper, who came up and tapped
him on the shoulder.
"It is closing time, sir," said he.
"That is lucky," thought Rodolphe. "If I had stayed here another five
minutes I should have had more sentiment in my breast than is to be
found on the banks of the Rhine or in Alphonse Karr's romances."
And he hastened from the gardens humming a sentimental ballad that was
for him the _Marseillaise_ of love.
Half an hour later, goodness knows how, he was at the Prado, seated
before a glass of punch and talking with a tall fellow celebrated on
account of his nose, which had the singular privilege of being aquiline
when seen sideways, and a snub when viewed in front. It was a nose that
was not devoid of sharpness, and had a sufficiency of gallant adventures
to be in such a case to give good advice and be useful to its friend.
"So," said Alexander Schaunard, the man with the nose, "you are in
love."
"Yes, my dear fellow, it seized on me, just now, suddenly, like a bad
toothache in the heart."
"Pass me the tobacco," said Alexander.
"Fancy," continued Rodolphe, "for the last two hours I have met nothing
but lovers, men and women in couples. I had the notion of going into the
Luxembourg Gardens, where I saw all manner of phantasmagorias, that
stirred my heart extraordinarily. Ellegies are bursting from me, I bleat
and I coo; I am undergoing a metamorphosis, and am half lamb half turtle
dove. Look at me a bit, I must have wool and feathers."
"What have you been drinking?" said Alexander impatiently, "you are
chaffing me."
"I assure you that I am quite cool," replied Rodolphe. "That is to say,
no. But I will announce to you that I must embrace something. You see,
Alexander, it is not good for man to live alone, in short, you must help
me to find a companion. We will stroll through the ballroom, and the
first girl I point out to you, you must go and tell her that I love
her."
"Why don't you go and tell her yourself?" replied Alexander in his
magnificent nasal bass.
"Eh? my dear fellow," said Rodolphe. "I can assure you that I have quite
forgot how one sets about saying that sort of thing. In all my love
stories it has been my friends who have written the preface, and
sometimes even the _denouement_; I never know how to begin."
"It is enough to know how to end," said Alexander, "but I understand
you. I knew a girl who loved the oboe, perhaps you would suit her."
"Ah!" said Rodolphe. "I should like her to have white gloves and blue
eyes."
"The deuce, blue eyes, I won't say no--but gloves--you know that we
can't have everything at once. However, let us go into the aristocratic
regions."
"There," said Rodolphe, as they entered the saloon favored by the
fashionables of the place, "there is one who seems nice and quiet," and
he pointed out a young girl fairly well dressed who was seated in a
corner.
"Very good," replied Alexander, "keep a little in the background, I am
going to launch the fire-ship of passion for you. When it is necessary
to put in an appearance I will call you."
For ten minutes Alexander conversed with the girl, who from time to time
broke out in a joyous burst of laughter, and ended by casting towards
Rodolphe a smiling glance which said plainly enough, "Come, your
advocate has won the cause."
"Come," said Alexander, "the victory is ours, the little one is no doubt
far from cruel, but put on an air of simplicity to begin with."
"You have no need to recommend me to do that."
"Then give me some tobacco," said Alexander, "and go and sit down beside
her."
"Good heavens," said the young girl when Rodolphe had taken his place by
her side, "how funny you friend is, his voice is like a trumpet."
"That is because he is a musician."
Two hours later Rodolphe and his companion halted in front of a house
in the Rue St. Denis.
"It is here that I live," said the girl.
"Well, my dear Louise, when and where shall I see you again?"
"At your place at eight o'clock tomorrow evening."
"For sure?"
"Here is my pledge," replied Louise, holding up her rosy cheek to
Rodolphe's, who eagerly tasted this ripe fruit of youth and health.
Rodolphe went home perfectly intoxicated.
"Ah!" said he, striding up and down his room, "it can't go off like
that, I must write some verses."
The next morning his porter found in his room some thirty sheets of
paper, at the top of which stretched in solitary majesty of line--
"Ah; love, oh! love, fair prince of youth."
That morning, contrary to his habits, Rodolphe had risen very early, and
although he had slept very little, he got up at once.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, "today is the great day. But then twelve hours to
wait. How shall I fill up these twelve eternities?"
And as his glance fell on his desk he seemed to see his pen wriggle as
though intending to say to him "Work."
"Ah! yes, work indeed! A fig for prose. I won't stop here, it reeks of
ink."
He went off and settled himself in a cafe where he was sure not to meet
any friends.
"They would see that I am in love," he thought, "and shape my ideal for
me in advance."
After a very brief repast he was off to the railway station, and got
into a train. Half an hour later he was in the woods of Ville d'Avray.
Rodolphe strolled about all day, let loose amongst rejuvenated nature,
and only returned to Paris at nightfall.
After having put the temple which was to receive his idol in nature,
Rodolphe arrayed himself for the occasion, greatly regretting not being
able to dress in white.
From seven to eight o'clock he was a prey to the sharp fever of
expectation. A slow torture, that recalled to him the old days and the
old loves which had sweetened them. Then, according to habit, he already
began to dream of an exalted passion, a love affair in ten volumes, a
genuine lyric with moonlight, setting suns, meetings beneath the
willows, jealousies, sighs and all the rest. He was like this every time
chance brought a woman to his door, and not one had left him without
bearing away any aureola about her head and a necklace of tears about
her neck.
"They would prefer new boots or a bonnet," his friend remarked to him.
But Rodolphe persisted, and up to this time the numerous blunders he had
made had not sufficed to cure him. He was always awaiting a woman who
would consent to pose as an idol, an angel in a velvet gown, to whom he
could at his leisure address sonnets written on willow leaves.
At length Rodolphe heard the "holy hour" strike, and as the last stroke
sounded he fancied he saw the Cupid and Psyche surmounting his clock
entwine their alabaster arms about one another. At the same moment two
timid taps were given at the door.
Rodolphe went and opened it. It was Louise.
"You see I have kept my word," said she.
Rodolphe drew the curtain and lit a fresh candle.
During this operation the girl had removed her bonnet and shawl, which
she went and placed on the bed. The dazzling whiteness of the sheets
caused her to smile, and almost to blush.
Louise was rather pleasing than pretty; her fresh colored face presented
an attractive blending of simplicity and archness. It was something like
an outline of Greuze touched up by Gavarni. All her youthful attractions
were cleverly set off by a toilette which, although very simple,
attested in her that innate science of coquetry which all women possess
from their first swaddling clothes to their bridal robe. Louise
appeared besides to have made an especial study of the theory of
attitudes, and assumed before Rodolphe, who examined her with the
artistic eye, a number of seductive poses. Her neatly shod feet were of
satisfactory smallness, even for a romantic lover smitten by Andalusian
or Chinese miniatures. As to her hands, their softness attested
idleness. In fact, for six months past she had no longer any reason to
fear needle pricks. In short, Louise was one of those fickle birds of
passage who from fancy, and often from necessity, make for a day, or
rather a night, their nest in the garrets of the students' quarter, and
remain there willingly for a few days, if one knows how to retain them
by a whim or by some ribbons.
After having chatted for an hour with Louise, Rodolphe showed her, as an
example, the group of Cupid and Psyche.
"Isn't it Paul and Virginia?"
"Yes," replied Rodolphe, who did not want to vex her at the outset by
contradicting her.
"They are very well done," said Louise.
"Alas!" thought Rodolphe, gazing at her, "the poor child is not up to
much as regards literature. I am sure that her only orthography is that
of the heart. I must buy her a dictionary."
However, as Louise complained of her boots incommoding her, he
obligingly helped her to unlace them.
All at once the light went out.
"Hallo!" exclaimed Rodolphe, "who has blown the candle out?"
A joyful burst of laughter replied to him.
A few days later Rodolphe met one of his friends in the street.
"What are you up to?" said the latter. "One no longer sees anything of
you."
"I am studying the poetry of intimacy," replied Rodolphe.
The poor fellow spoke the truth. He sought from Louise more than the
poor girl could give him. An oaten pipe, she had not the strains of a
lyre. She spoke to, so to say, the jargon of love, and Rodolphe
insisted upon speaking the classic language. Thus they scarcely
understood each other.
A week later, at the same ball at which she had found Rodolphe, Louise
met a fair young fellow, who danced with her several times, and at the
close of the entertainment took her home with him.
He was a second year's student. He spoke the prose of pleasure very
fluently, and had good eyes and a well-lined pocket.
Louise asked him for ink and paper, and wrote to Rodolphe a letter
couched as follows:--
"Do not rekkon on me at all. I sende you a kiss for the last time.
Good bye.
Louise."
As Rodolphe was reading this letter on reaching home in the evening, his
light suddenly went out.
"Hallo!" said he, reflectively, "it is the candle I first lit on the
evening that Louise came--it was bound to finish with our union. If I
had known I would have chosen a longer one," he added, in a tone of half
annoyance, half of regret, and he placed his mistress' note in a drawer,
which he sometimes styled the catacomb of his loves.
One day, being at Marcel's, Rodolphe picked up from the ground to light
his pipe with, a scrap of paper on which he recognized his handwriting
and the orthography of Louise.
"I have," said he to his friend, "an autograph of the same person, only
there are two mistakes the less than in yours. Does not that prove that
she loved me better than you?"
"That proves that you are a simpleton," replied Marcel. "White arms and
shoulders have no need of grammar."