The Contessa di Rimini received her visitors in a boudoir furnished with
much apparent simplicity, but a simplicity by no means inexpensive. The
draperies were but of chintz, and the walls covered with the same
material,--a lively pattern, in which the prevalents were rose-colour and
white; but the ornaments on the mantelpiece, the china stored in the
cabinets or arranged on the shelves, the small knickknacks scattered on
the tables, were costly rarities of art.
The Contessa herself was a woman who had somewhat passed her thirtieth
year,--not strikingly handsome, but exquisitely pretty. "There is," said
a great French writer, "only one way in which a woman can be handsome,
but a hundred thousand ways in which she can be pretty;" and it would be
impossible to reckon up the number of ways in which Adeline di Rimini
carried off the prize in prettiness.
Yet it would be unjust to the personal attractions of the Contessa to
class them all under the word "prettiness." When regarded more
attentively, there was an expression in her countenance that might almost
be called divine, it spoke so unmistakably of a sweet nature and an
untroubled soul. An English poet once described her by repeating the old
lines,
"Her face is like the milky way I' the sky,
--A meeting of gentle lights without a name."
She was not alone; an elderly lady sat on an armchair by the fire,
engaged in knitting; and a man, also elderly, and whose dress proclaimed
him an ecclesiastic, sat at the opposite corner, with a large Angora cat
on his lap.
"I present to you, Madame," said Raoul, "my new-found cousin, the
seventeenth Marquis de Rochebriant, whom I am proud to consider on the
male side the head of our house, representing its eldest branch. Welcome
him for my sake,--in future he will be welcome for his own."
The Contessa replied very graciously to this introduction, and made room
for Alain on the divan from which she had risen.
The old lady looked up from her knitting; the ecclesiastic removed the
cat from his lap. Said the old lady, "I announce myself to M. le
Marquis. I knew his mother well enough to be invited to his christening;
otherwise I have no pretension to the acquaintance of a cavalier _si
beau_, being old, rather deaf, very stupid, exceedingly poor--"
"And," interrupted Raoul, "the woman in all Paris the most adored for
_bonte_, and consulted for _savoir vivre_ by the young cavaliers whom she
deigns to receive. Alain, I present you to Madame de Maury, the widow of
a distinguished author and academician, and the daughter of the brave
Henri de Gerval, who fought for the good cause in La Vendee. I present
you also to the Abbe Vertpre, who has passed his life in the vain
endeavour to make other men as good as himself."
"Base flatterer!" said the Abbe, pinching Raoul's ear with one hand,
while he extended the other to Alain. "Do not let your cousin frighten
you from knowing me, Monsieur le Marquis; when he was my pupil, he so
convinced me of the incorrigibility of perverse human nature, that I now
chiefly address myself to the moral improvement of the brute creation.
Ask the Contessa if I have not achieved a _beau succes_ with her Angora
cat. Three months ago that creature had the two worst propensities of
man,--he was at once savage and mean; he bit, he stole. Does he ever
bite now? No. Does he ever steal? No. Why? I have awakened in that
cat the dormant conscience, and that done, the conscience regulates his
actions; once made aware of the difference between wrong and right, the
cat maintains it unswervingly, as if it were a law of nature. But if,
with prodigious labour, one does awaken conscience in a human sinner, it
has no steady effect on his conduct,--he continues to sin all the same.
Mankind at Paris, Monsieur le Marquis, is divided between two classes,-
one bites and the other steals. Shun both; devote yourself to cats."
The Abbe delivered this oration with a gravity of mien and tone which
made it difficult to guess whether he spoke in sport or in earnest, in
simple playfulness or with latent sarcasm.
But on the brow and in the eye of the priest there was a general
expression of quiet benevolence, which made Alain incline to the belief
that he was only speaking as a pleasant humourist; and the Marquis
replied gayly,--
"Monsieur L'Abbe, admitting the superior virtue of cats when taught by so
intelligent a preceptor, still the business of human life is not
transacted by cats; and since men must deal with men, permit me, as a
preliminary caution, to inquire in which class I must rank yourself. Do
you bite or do you steal?"
This sally, which showed that the Marquis was already shaking off his
provincial reserve, met with great success. Raoul and the Contessa
laughed merrily; Madame de Maury clapped her hands, and cried "Bien!"
The Abbe replied, with unmoved gravity, "Both. I am a priest; it is my
duty to bite the bad and steal from the good, as you will see, Monsieur
le Marquis, if you will glance at this paper."
Here he handed to Alain a memorial on behalf of an afflicted family who
had been burnt out of their home, and reduced from comparative ease to
absolute want. There was a list appended of some twenty subscribers, the
last being the Contessa, fifty francs, and Madame de Maury, five.
"Allow me, Marquis," said the Abbe, "to steal from you. Bless you two-
fold, _mon fils_!" (taking the napoleon Alain extended to him) "first for
your charity; secondly, for the effect of its example upon the heart of
your cousin. Raoul de Vandemar, stand and deliver. Bah! what! only ten
francs."
Raoul made a sign to the Abbe, unperceived by the rest, as he answered,
"Abbe, I should excel your expectations of my career if I always continue
worth half as much as my cousin."
Alain felt to the bottom of his heart the delicate tact of his richer
kinsman in giving less than himself, and the Abbe replied, "Niggard, you
are pardoned. Humility is a more difficult virtue to produce than
charity, and in your case an instance of it is so rare that it merits
encouragement."
The "tea equipage" was now served in what at Paris is called the English
fashion; the Contessa presided over it, the guests gathered round the
table, and the evening passed away in the innocent gayety of a domestic
circle. The talk, if not especially intellectual, was at least not
fashionable. Books were not discussed, neither were scandals; yet
somehow or other it was cheery and animated, like that of a happy family
in a country-house. Alain thought still the better of Raoul that,
Parisian though he was, he could appreciate the charm of an evening so
innocently spent.
On taking leave, the Contessa gave Alain a general invitation to drop in
whenever he was not better engaged.
"I except only the opera nights," said she. "My husband has gone to
Milan on his affairs, and during his absence I do not go to parties; the
opera I cannot resist."
Raoul set Alain down at his lodgings. "Au revoir; tomorrow at one
o'clock expect Enguerrand and myself."