"But at any rate,"--and here he extended his hand to Ramel,--"you will
see me this evening?"
"Certainly."
"And you still live at--?"
"Rue Boursault, Boulevard des Batignolles."
"Till then, my dear Ramel! If occasion require, you will not refuse to
give me your advice?"
"Nor my devotion. But without office, remember without office," said
Ramel, still smiling.
Vaudrey took great delight in chatting with his old friend, but for a
moment he had been seized with an eager desire to find amid the
increasing crowd that thronged the salons, the pretty girl who had
appeared to him like a statue of Desire, whetted desire, but even in her
charms somewhat unwholesome, yet disturbing and appetizing.
He had come to Sabine Marsy's only by chance and as if to display in
public the joy of his triumph, just as a newly decorated man willingly
accepts invitations in order to show off his new ribbon, but he now felt
happy for having done so. He had promised himself only to put himself in
evidence and then disappear with Adrienne to the enjoyment of their
usual chats, to taste that intimacy that was so dear to him, but which,
since his establishment on Place Beauvau, had vanished.
He habitually disliked such receptions as that in which he now took
part, those soirées as fatiguing as those crowds where one packs six
hundred persons in salons capable of holding only sixty: commonplace
receptions, where the master of the house is as happy when he refuses
invitations as a theatre-manager when his play is the rage; where one is
stifled, crushed, and where one can only reach the salon after a
pugilistic encounter, and where the capture of a glass of syrup entails
an assault, and the securing of an overcoat demands a battle. He held in
horror those salons where there is no conversation, where no one is
acquainted, where, because of the hubbub of the crowd or the stifling
silence attending a concert, one cannot exchange either ideas or
phrases, not even a furtive handshake, because of the packing and
crushing of the guests. It was a miracle that he had just been able to
exchange a few words with Mademoiselle Kayser and Ramel. The vulgarity
of the place had at once impressed him,--the more so because he was the
object of attraction for all those crowded faces.
All that gathering of insignificant, grave and pretentious young men,
who, while they crowded, made their progress in the ranks of the
sub-prefects, councillors of prefectures, picking up nominations under
the feet of the influential guests as they would cigar stumps, disgusted
him; men of twenty years, born, as it were, with white cravats,
pretentious and pensive, creatures of office and not of work, haunting
the Chambers and the antechambers, mere collectors of ideas, repeaters
of serious commonplaces, salon democrats who would not offer their
ungloved hand to a workman on the street; staff-majors ambitious of
honors and not of devotion, whom he felt crowding around him, with
smiles on their lips and applications in their pockets. How he preferred
the quiet pleasure of reading at the fireside, a chat with a friend, or
listening to one of Beethoven's sonatas, or a selection from Mendelssohn
played by Adrienne, whose companionship made the unmarked flight of the
hours pass more sweetly.
It was for that that he was created. At least he thought so and believed
it. And now this salon that he had simply desired to traverse, at once
seemed altogether delightful to him. And all this was due to his meeting
a divine creature in the midst of this crowd. He was eager to find
Marianne, to see her again. She aroused his curiosity as some enigma
might.
What, then, was this woman, was she virtuous or of questionable status?
Ah! she was a woman, or rather ten women in one, at the very least! A
woman from head to foot! A woman to her finger tips, a refined, Parisian
woman, perverse even in her virginity, and a virgin perhaps in her
perversity. A problem in fair flesh.
As Vaudrey hurriedly left the buffet, every one made way for him, and he
crossed the salons, eagerly looking out for Marianne. As he passed
along, he saw Guy de Lissac sitting on a chair upholstered in garnet
satin, his right hand resting on the gilded back and chatting with
Adrienne who was fanning herself leisurely. On noticing Sulpice, the
young woman smiled at him even at a distance, the happy smile of a
loving woman, and she embraced him with a pure glance, asking a question
without uttering a word, knowing well that he habitually left in great
haste.
"Do you wish to return?" was the meaning of her questioning glance.
He passed before her, replying with a smile, but without appearing to
have understood her, and disappeared in another salon, while Lissac said
to Adrienne:
"What about the ministry, madame?"
"Oh! don't speak to me of it!--it frightens me. In those rooms, it seems
to me that I am not at home. Do you know just what I feel? I fancy
myself travelling, never, however, leaving the house. Ministers
certainly should be bachelors. Men have all the honor, but their wives
endure all the weariness."
"There must, however, be at the bottom of this weariness, some pleasure,
since they so bitterly regret to take leave of it."
"Ah! _Dieu!_" said Adrienne. "Already I believe that I should regret
nothing. No, I assure you, nothing whatever."
She, too, might have desired,--as Vaudrey did formerly--to leave the
soirée, to be with her husband again, and she thought that Sulpice found
it necessary to remain longer, since he had not definitely decided on
going away.
The new salon that he entered, communicated with a smaller, circular
one, hung with Japanese silk draperies, and lighted by a Venetian
chandelier that cast a subdued light over the divans upon which some of
the guests sat chatting. Sulpice immediately divined, as if by instinct,
that Marianne was there. He went straight in that direction, and as he
entered the doorway, through the opening framed by two pale blue
portières, he saw in front of him, sitting side by side, the pretty girl
and the Duc de Rosas to whom she had listened so attentively, almost
devotedly, a little earlier; he recalled this now.
The light fell directly on Mademoiselle Kayser's shoulders and played
over her fair hair. The duke was looking at her.
Vaudrey took but a single step forward.
He experienced an altogether curious and inexplicable sensation. This
tête-à-tête displeased him.
At that moment, on half-turning round,--perhaps by chance--she perceived
the minister and greeting him with a sweet smile, she rose and beckoned
to him to approach her.
The sky-blue satin hangings, on which the light fell, seemed like a
natural framework for the beautiful blonde creature.
"Your Excellency," she said, "permit me to introduce my friend, the Duc
de Rosas, he is too accomplished not to appreciate eloquence and he
entertains the greatest admiration for you."
Rosas had risen in his turn, and greeted the minister with a very
peculiar half-inclination, not as a suitor in the presence of a powerful
man, but as a nobleman greeting a man of talent.
Vaudrey sought to discover an agreeable word in the remarks of this man
but he failed to do so. He had, nevertheless, just before applauded
Rosas's remarks, either out of condescension or from politeness. But it
seemed to him that here the duke was no longer the same man. He gave him
the impression of an intruder who had thrust himself in the way that led
to some possible opportunity. He nevertheless concealed all trace of the
ill-humor that he himself could not define or explain, and ended by
uttering a commonplace phrase in praise of the duke, but which really
meant nothing.
As he was about to move away, Marianne detained him by a gesture:
"Well, your Excellency," she remarked, with a charming play of her lips
as she smiled, "you see,"--and she pointed to the blue draperies of the
little salon, as dainty as a boudoir--"you see that there are some women
who like blue."
"Yes, Madame Marsy!--" Vaudrey answered, with an entirely misplaced
irony that naturally occurred to him, as a reproach.
"So do I," said Marianne. "We have only chatted together five minutes,
but I have found that time enough to discover that you and I have many
tastes in common. I am greatly flattered thereby."
"And I am very happy," replied Vaudrey, who was disturbed by her direct
glances that pierced him like a blade.
She had resumed her place on the divan, but Vaudrey had already forgiven
her tête-à-tête with Rosas--and in truth, what had he to forgive?--This
burning glance had effaced everything. He bore it away like a bright ray
and still shuddered at the sensation he experienced.
He was in a hurry to leave. He now felt a sudden attack of nervousness.
He was at the same moment charmed and bored. Again he resumed--amid the
throng that made way for him, humbly performing its duty as a crowd--his
rôle of minister, raising his head, and greeting with his official
smile, but, at the bottom of his heart, really consumed by an entirely
different thought. His brain was full of blue, of floating clouds, and
he still heard Marianne's voice ringing in his ears with an insinuating
tone, whispering: "We have many tastes in common," together with all
kinds of mutual understandings which, as it were, burned like a fire in
his heart.
He saw Adrienne still seated in the same place and smiling sweetly at
him,--a smile of ardent devotion, but which seemed to him to be
lukewarm. He leaned toward her, reached his hands out and said to De
Lissac, hurriedly, as he grasped his hand: "We meet later, do we not,
Guy?" Then he disappeared in the antechamber, while the servants
hurried toward Madame Vaudrey, bearing her cloak, and as Vaudrey put on
his overcoat, a voice called out:
"His Excellency's carriage."
"I am exhausted," said Adrienne, when she had taken her place in the
carriage. "What about yourself?"
"I? not at all! I am not at all tired. It was very entertaining! One
must show one's self now--"
"I know that very well," the young wife replied.
Like a child who is anxious to go to sleep, she gently rested her
hood-covered head on Sulpice's shoulder. Her tiny hands sought her
husband's hand, to press it beneath her cloak, as warm as a nest; and
after she had closed her eyes, overcome as she was by weariness, her
breathing seemed to become gradually almost as regular as in slumber,
and Sulpice Vaudrey recalled once more, beneath the light of the
chandeliers, that pretty blonde, with her half-bare arms and shoulders,
and strange eyes, who moistened her dry lips and smiled as she swallowed
her sherbet.