Ver.07/27/01*END*
This etext was produced by David Widger <widger@cecomet.net>
[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
entire meal of them. D.W.]
THE RED LILY
By ANATOLE FRANCE
The real name of the subject of this preface is Jacques-Anatole Thibault.
He was born in Paris, April 16, 1844, the son of a bookseller of the Quai
Malaquais, in the shadow of the Institute. He was educated at the
College Stanislas and published in 1868 an essay upon Alfred de Vigny.
This was followed by two volumes of poetry: 'Les Poemes Dores' (1873),
and 'Les Noces Corinthiennes' (1876). With the last mentioned book his
reputation became established.
Anatole France belongs to the class of poets known as "Les Parnassiens."
Yet a book like 'Les Noces Corinthiennes' ought to be classified among a
group of earlier lyrics, inasmuch as it shows to a large degree the
influence of Andre Chenier and Alfred de Vigny. France was, and is,
also a diligent contributor to many journals and reviews, among others,
'Le Globe, Les Debats, Le Journal Officiel, L'Echo de Paris, La Revue de
Famille, and Le Temps'. On the last mentioned journal he succeeded Jules
Claretie. He is likewise Librarian to the Senate, and has been a member
of the French Academy since 1896.
The above mentioned two volumes of poetry were followed by many works in
prose, which we shall notice. France's critical writings are collected
in four volumes, under the title, 'La Vie Litteraire' (1888-1892); his
political articles in 'Opinions Sociales' (2 vols., 1902). He combines
in his style traces of Racine, Voltaire, Flaubert, and Renan, and,
indeed, some of his novels, especially 'Thais' (1890), 'Jerome Coignard'
(1893), and Lys Rouge (1894), which was crowned by the Academy, are
romances of the first rank.
Criticism appears to Anatole France the most recent and possibly the
ultimate evolution of literary expression, "admirably suited to a highly
civilized society, rich in souvenirs and old traditions . . . . It
proceeds," in his opinion, "from philosophy and history, and demands for
its development an absolute intellectual liberty . . . . . It is the
last in date of all literary forms, and it will end by absorbing them all
. . . . To be perfectly frank the critic should say: 'Gentlemen, I
propose to enlarge upon my own thoughts concerning Shakespeare, Racine,
Pascal, Goethe, or any other writer.'"
It is hardly necessary to say much concerning a critic with such
pronounced ideas as Anatole France. He gives us, indeed, the full flower
of critical Renanism, but so individualized as to become perfection in
grace, the extreme flowering of the Latin genius. It is not too much to
say that the critical writings of Anatole France recall the Causeries du
Lundi, the golden age of Sainte-Beuve!
As a writer of fiction, Anatole France made his debut in 1879 with
'Jocaste', and 'Le Chat Maigre'. Success in this field was yet decidedly
doubtful when 'Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard' appeared in 1881. It at
once established his reputation; 'Sylvestre Bonnard', as 'Le Lys Rouge'
later, was crowned by the French Academy. These novels are replete with
fine irony, benevolent scepticism and piquant turns, and will survive the
greater part of romances now read in France. The list of Anatole
France's works in fiction is a large one. The titles of nearly all of
them, arranged in chronological order, are as follows: 'Les Desirs de
Jean Seyvien (1882); Abeille (1883); Le Livre de mon Ami (1885); Nos
Enfants (1886); Balthazar (1889); Thais (1890); L'Etui de Naire (1892);
Jerome Coignard, and La Rotisserie de la Reine Pedanque (1893); and
Histoire Contemporaine (1897-1900), the latter consisting of four
separate works: 'L'Orme du Mail, Le Mannequin d'Osier, L'Anneau
d'Amethyste, and Monsieur Bergeret a Paris'. All of his writings show
his delicately critical analysis of passion, at first playfully tender in
its irony, but later, under the influence of his critical antagonism to
Brunetiere, growing keener, stronger, and more bitter. In 'Thais' he has
undertaken to show the bond of sympathy that unites the pessimistic
sceptic to the Christian ascetic, since both despise the world. In 'Lys
Rouge', his greatest novel, he traces the perilously narrow line that
separates love from hate; in 'Opinions de M. l'Abbe Jerome Coignard' he
has given us the most radical breviary of scepticism that has appeared
since Montaigne. 'Le Livre de mon Ami' is mostly autobiographical;
'Clio' (1900) contains historical sketches.
To represent Anatole France as one of the undying names in literature
would hardly be extravagant. Not that I would endow Ariel with the
stature and sinews of a Titan; this were to miss his distinctive
qualities: delicacy, elegance, charm. He belongs to a category of
writers who are more read and probably will ever exercise greater
influence than some of greater name. The latter show us life as a whole;
but life as a whole is too vast and too remote to excite in most of us
more than a somewhat languid curiosity. France confines himself to
themes of the keenest personal interest, the life of the world we live
in. It is herein that he excels! His knowledge is wide, his sympathies
are many-sided, his power of exposition is unsurpassed. No one has set
before us the mind of our time, with its half-lights, its shadowy vistas,
its indefiniteness, its haze on the horizon, so vividly as he.
In Octave Mirbeau's notorious novel, a novel which it would be
complimentary to describe as naturalistic, the heroine is warned by her
director against the works of Anatole France, "Ne lisez jamais du
Voltaire. . . C'est un peche mortel . . . ni de Renan . . . ni
de l'Anatole France. Voila qui est dangereux." The names are
appropriately united; a real, if not precisely an apostolic, succession
exists between the three writers.
JULES LEMAITRE
de l'Academie Francais
BOOK 1.
CHAPTER I
"I NEED LOVE"
She gave a glance at the armchairs placed before the chimney, at the tea-
table, which shone in the shade, and at the tall, pale stems of flowers
ascending above Chinese vases. She thrust her hand among the flowery
branches of the guelder roses to make their silvery balls quiver. Then
she looked at herself in a mirror with serious attention. She held
herself sidewise, her neck turned over her shoulder, to follow with her
eyes the spring of her fine form in its sheath-like black satin gown,
around which floated a light tunic studded with pearls wherein sombre
lights scintillated. She went nearer, curious to know her face of that
day. The mirror returned her look with tranquillity, as if this amiable
woman whom she examined, and who was not unpleasing to her, lived without
either acute joy or profound sadness.
On the walls of the large drawing-room, empty and silent, the figures of
the tapestries, vague as shadows, showed pallid among their antique games
and dying graces. Like them, the terra-cotta statuettes on slender
columns, the groups of old Saxony, and the paintings of Sevres, spoke of
past glories. On a pedestal ornamented with precious bronzes, the marble
bust of some princess royal disguised as Diana appeared about to fly out
of her turbulent drapery, while on the ceiling a figure of Night,
powdered like a marquise and surrounded by cupids, sowed flowers.
Everything was asleep, and only the crackling of the logs and the light
rattle of Therese's pearls could be heard.
Turning from the mirror, she lifted the corner of a curtain and saw
through the window, beyond the dark trees of the quay, the Seine
spreading its yellow reflections. Weariness of the sky and of the water
was reflected in her fine gray eyes. The boat passed, the 'Hirondelle',
emerging from an arch of the Alma Bridge, and carrying humble travellers
toward Grenelle and Billancourt. She followed it with her eyes, then let
the curtain fall, and, seating herself under the flowers, took a book
from the table. On the straw-colored linen cover shone the title in
gold: 'Yseult la Blonde', by Vivian Bell. It was a collection of French
verses composed by an Englishwoman, and printed in London. She read
indifferently, waiting for visitors, and thinking less of the poetry than
of the poetess, Miss Bell, who was perhaps her most agreeable friend, and
whom she almost never saw; who, at every one of their meetings, which
were so rare, kissed her, calling her "darling," and babbled; who, plain
yet seductive, almost ridiculous, yet wholly exquisite, lived at Fiesole
like a philosopher, while England celebrated her as her most beloved
poet. Like Vernon Lee and like Mary Robinson, she had fallen in love
with the life and art of Tuscany; and, without even finishing her
Tristan, the first part of which had inspired in Burne-Jones dreamy
aquarelles, she wrote Provencal verses and French poems expressing
Italian ideas. She had sent her 'Yseult la Blonde' to "Darling," with a
letter inviting her to spend a month with her at Fiesole. She had
written: "Come; you will see the most beautiful things in the world, and
you will embellish them."
And "darling" was saying to herself that she would not go, that she must
remain in Paris. But the idea of seeing Miss Bell in Italy was not
indifferent to her. And turning the leaves of the book, she stopped by
chance at this line:
Love and gentle heart are one.
And she asked herself, with gentle irony, whether Miss Bell had ever been
in love, and what manner of man could be the ideal of Miss Bell. The
poetess had at Fiesole an escort, Prince Albertinelli. He was very
handsome, but rather coarse and vulgar; too much so to please an aesthete
who blended with the desire for love the mysticism of an Annunciation.
"Good-evening, Therese. I am positively worn out."
The Princess Seniavine had entered, supple in her furs, which almost
seemed to form a part of her dark beauty. She seated herself brusquely,
and, in a voice at once harsh yet caressing, said:
"This morning I walked through the park with General Lariviere. I met
him in an alley and made him go with me to the bridge, where he wished to
buy from the guardian a learned magpie which performs the manual of arms
with a gun. Oh! I am so tired!"
"But why did you drag the General to the bridge?"
"Because he had gout in his toe."
Therese shrugged her shoulders, smiling:
"You squander your wickedness. You spoil things."
"And you wish me, dear, to save my kindness and my wickedness for a
serious investment?"
Therese made her drink some Tokay.
Preceded by the sound of his powerful breathing, General Lariviere
approached with heavy state and sat between the two women, looking
stubborn and self-satisfied, laughing in every wrinkle of his face.
"How is Monsieur Martin-Belleme? Always busy?"
Therese thought he was at the Chamber, and even that he was making a
speech there.
Princess Seniavine, who was eating caviare sandwiches, asked Madame
Martin why she had not gone to Madame Meillan's the day before. They had
played a comedy there.
"A Scandinavian play? Was it a success?"
"Yes--I don't know. I was in the little green room, under the portrait
of the Duc d'Orleans. Monsieur Le Menil came to me and did me one of
those good turns that one never forgets. He saved me from Monsieur
Garain."
The General, who knew the Annual Register, and stored away all useful
information, pricked up his ears.
"Garain," he asked, "the minister who was in the Cabinet when the princes
were exiled?"
"Himself. I was excessively agreeable to him. He talked to me of the
yearnings of his heart and he looked at me with alarming tenderness.
And from time to time he gazed, with sighs, at the portrait of the Duc
d'Orleans. I said to him: 'Monsieur Garain, you are making a mistake.
It is my sister-in-law who is an Orleanist. I am not.' At this moment
Monsieur Le Menil came to escort me to the buffet. He paid great
compliments--to my horses! He said, also, there was nothing so beautiful
as the forest in winter. He talked about wolves. That refreshed me."
The General, who did not like young men, said he had met Le Menil the day
before in the forest, galloping, with vast space between himself and his
saddle.
He declared that old cavaliers alone retained the traditions of good
horsemanship; that people in society now rode like jockeys.
"It is the same with fencing," he added. "Formerly--"
Princess Seniavine interrupted him:
"General, look and see how charming Madame Martin is. She is always
charming, but at this moment she is prettier than ever. It is because
she is bored. Nothing becomes her better than to be bored. Since we
have been here, we have bored her terribly. Look at her: her forehead
clouded, her glance vague, her mouth dolorous. Behold a victim!"
She arose, kissed Therese tumultuously, and fled, leaving the General
astonished.
Madame Martin-Belleme prayed him not to listen to what the Princess had
said.
He collected himself and asked:
"And how are your poets, Madame?"
It was difficult for him to forgive Madame Martin her preference for
people who lived by writing and were not of his circle.
"Yes, your poets. What has become of that Monsieur Choulette, who visits
you wrapped in a red muffler?"
"My poets? They forget me, they abandon me. One should not rely on
anybody. Men and women--nothing is sure. Life is a continual betrayal.
Only that poor Miss Bell does not forget me. She has written to me from
Florence and sent her book."
"Miss Bell? Isn't she that young person who looks, with her yellow
waving hair, like a little lapdog?"
He reflected, and expressed the opinion that she must be at least thirty.
An old lady, wearing with modest dignity her crown of white hair, and a
little vivacious man with shrewd eyes, came in suddenly--Madame Marmet
and M. Paul Vence. Then, carrying himself very stiffly, with a square
monocle in his eye, appeared M. Daniel Salomon, the arbiter of elegance.
The General hurried out.
They talked of the novel of the week. Madame Marmet had dined often with
the author, a young and very amiable man. Paul Vence thought the book
tiresome.
"Oh," sighed Madame Martin, "all books are tiresome. But men are more
tiresome than books, and they are more exacting."
Madame Marmet said that her husband, who had much literary taste, had
retained, until the end of his days, a horror of naturalism. She was the
widow of a member of the 'Academie des Inscriptions', and plumed herself
upon her illustrious widowhood. She was sweet and modest in her black
gown and her beautiful white hair.
Madame Martin said to M. Daniel Salomon that she wished to consult him
particularly on the picture of a group of beautiful children.
"You will tell me if it pleases you. You may also give me your opinion,
Monsieur Vence, unless you disdain such trifles."
M. Daniel Salomon looked at Paul Vence through his monocle with disdain.
Paul Vence surveyed the drawing-room.
"You have beautiful things, Madame. That would be nothing. But you have
only beautiful things, and all serve to set off your own beauty."
She did not conceal her pleasure at hearing him speak in that way. She
regarded Paul Vence as the only really intelligent man she knew. She had
appreciated him before his books had made him celebrated. His ill-
health, his dark humor, his assiduous labor, separated him from society.
The little bilious man was not very pleasing; yet he attracted her. She
held in high esteem his profound irony, his great pride, his talent
ripened in solitude, and she admired him, with reason, as an excellent
writer, the author of powerful essays on art and on life.
Little by little the room filled with a brilliant crowd. Within the
large circle of armchairs were Madame de Wesson, about whom people told
frightful stories, and who kept, after twenty years of half-smothered
scandal, the eyes of a child and cheeks of virginal smoothness; old
Madame de Morlaine, who shouted her witty phrases in piercing cries;
Madame Raymond, the wife of the Academician; Madame Garain, the wife of
the exminister; three other ladies; and, standing easily against the
mantelpiece, M. Berthier d'Eyzelles, editor of the 'Journal des Debats',
a deputy who caressed his white beard while Madame de Morlaine shouted at
him:
"Your article on bimetallism is a pearl, a jewel! Especially the end of
it."
Standing in the rear of the room, young clubmen, very grave, lisped among
themselves:
"What did he do to get the button from the Prince?"
"He, nothing. His wife, everything."
They had their own cynical philosophy. One of them had no faith in
promises of men.
"They are types that do not suit me. They wear their hearts on their
hands and on their mouths. You present yourself for admission to a club.
They say, 'I promise to give you a white ball. It will be an alabaster
ball--a snowball! They vote. It's a black ball. Life seems a vile
affair when I think of it."
"Then don't think of it."
Daniel Salomon, who had joined them, whispered in their ears spicy
stories in a lowered voice. And at every strange revelation concerning
Madame Raymond, or Madame Berthier, or Princess Seniavine, he added,
negligently:
"Everybody knows it."
Then, little by little, the crowd of visitors dispersed. Only Madame
Marmet and Paul Vence remained.
The latter went toward Madame Martin, and asked:
"When do you wish me to introduce Dechartre to you?"
It was the second time he had asked this of her. She did not like to see
new faces. She replied, unconcernedly:
"Your sculptor? When you wish. I saw at the Champ de Mars medallions
made by him which are very good. But he does not work much. He is an
amateur, is he not?"
"He is a delicate artist. He does not need to work in order to live.
He caresses his figures with loving slowness. But do not be deceived
about him, Madame. He knows and he feels. He would be a master if he
did not live alone. I have known him since his childhood. People think
that he is solitary and morose. He is passionate and timid. What he
lacks, what he will lack always to reach the highest point of his art,
is simplicity of mind. He is restless, and he spoils his most beautiful
impressions. In my opinion he was created less for sculpture than for
poetry or philosophy. He knows a great deal, and you will be astonished
at the wealth of his mind."
Madame Marmet approved.
She pleased society by appearing to find pleasure in it. She listened a
great deal and talked little. Very affable, she gave value to her
affability by not squandering it. Either because she liked Madame
Martin, or because she knew how to give discreet marks of preference in
every house she went, she warmed herself contentedly, like a relative, in
a corner of the Louis XVI chimney, which suited her beauty. She lacked
only her dog.
"How is Toby?" asked Madame Martin. "Monsieur Vence, do you know Toby?
He has long silky hair and a lovely little black nose."
Madame Marmet was relishing the praise of Toby, when an old man, pink and
blond, with curly hair, short-sighted, almost blind under his golden
spectacles, rather short, striking against the furniture, bowing to empty
armchairs, blundering into the mirrors, pushed his crooked nose before
Madame Marmet, who looked at him indignantly.
It was M. Schmoll, member of the Academie des Inscriptions. He smiled
and turned a madrigal for the Countess Martin with that hereditary harsh,
coarse voice with which the Jews, his fathers, pressed their creditors,
the peasants of Alsace, of Poland, and of the Crimea. He dragged his
phrases heavily. This great philologist knew all languages except
French. And Madame Martin enjoyed his affable phrases, heavy and rusty
like the iron-work of brica-brac shops, among which fell dried leaves of
anthology. M. Schmoll liked poets and women, and had wit.
Madame Marmet feigned not to know him, and went out without returning his
bow.
When he had exhausted his pretty madrigals, M. Schmoll became sombre and
pitiful. He complained piteously. He was not decorated enough, not
provided with sinecures enough, nor well fed enough by the State--he,
Madame Schmoll, and their five daughters. His lamentations had some
grandeur. Something of the soul of Ezekiel and of Jeremiah was in them.
Unfortunately, turning his golden-spectacled eyes toward the table, he
discovered Vivian Bell's book.
"Oh, 'Yseult La Blonde'," he exclaimed, bitterly. "You are reading that
book, Madame? Well, learn that Mademoiselle Vivian Bell has stolen an
inscription from me, and that she has altered it, moreover, by putting it
into verse. You will find it on page 109 of her book: 'A shade may weep
over a shade.' You hear, Madame? 'A shade may weep over a shade.' Well,
those words are translated literally from a funeral inscription which I
was the first to publish and to illustrate. Last year, one day, when I
was dining at your house, being placed by the side of Mademoiselle Bell,
I quoted this phrase to her, and it pleased her a great deal. At her
request, the next day I translated into French the entire inscription and
sent it to her. And now I find it changed in this volume of verses under
this title: 'On the Sacred Way'--the sacred way, that is I."
And he repeated, in his bad humor:
"I, Madame, am the sacred way."
He was annoyed that the poet had not spoken to him about this
inscription. He would have liked to see his name at the top of the poem,
in the verses, in the rhymes. He wished to see his name everywhere, and
always looked for it in the journals with which his pockets were stuffed.
But he had no rancor. He was not really angry with Miss Bell. He
admitted gracefully that she was a distinguished person, and a poet that
did great honor to England.
When he had gone, the Countess Martin asked ingenuously of Paul Vence if
he knew why that good Madame Marmet had looked at M. Schmoll with such
marked though silent anger. He was surprised that she did not know.
"I never know anything," she said.
"But the quarrel between Schmoll and Marmet is famous. It ceased only at
the death of Marmet.
"The day that poor Marmet was buried, snow was falling. We were wet and
frozen to the bones. At the grave, in the wind, in the mud, Schmoll read
under his umbrella a speech full of jovial cruelty and triumphant pity,
which he took afterward to the newspapers in a mourning carriage. An
indiscreet friend let Madame Marmet hear of it, and she fainted. Is it
possible, Madame, that you have not heard of this learned and ferocious
quarrel?
"The Etruscan language was the cause of it. Marmet made it his unique
study. He was surnamed Marmet the Etruscan. Neither he nor any one else
knew a word of that language, the last vestige of which is lost. Schmoll
said continually to Marmet: 'You do not know Etruscan, my dear colleague;
that is the reason why you are an honorable savant and a fair-minded
man.' Piqued by his ironic praise, Marmet thought of learning a little
Etruscan. He read to his colleague a memoir on the part played by
flexions in the idiom of the ancient Tuscans."
Madame Martin asked what a flexion was.
"Oh, Madame, if I explain anything to you, it will mix up everything.
Be content with knowing that in that memoir poor Marmet quoted Latin
texts and quoted them wrong. Schmoll is a Latinist of great learning,
and, after Mommsen, the chief epigraphist of the world.
"He reproached his young colleague--Marmet was not fifty years old--with
reading Etruscan too well and Latin not well enough. From that time
Marmet had no rest. At every meeting he was mocked unmercifully; and,
finally, in spite of his softness, he got angry. Schmoll is without
rancor. It is a virtue of his race. He does not bear ill-will to those
whom he persecutes. One day, as he went up the stairway of the Institute
with Renan and Oppert, he met Marmet, and extended his hand to him.
Marmet refused to take it, and said 'I do not know you.'--'Do you take me
for a Latin inscription?' Schmoll replied. Marmet died and was buried
because of that satire. Now you know the reason why his widow sees his
enemy with horror."
"And I have made them dine together, side by side."
"Madame, it was not immoral, but it was cruel."
"My dear sir, I shall shock you, perhaps; but if I had to choose, I
should like better to do an immoral thing than a cruel one."
A young man, tall, thin, dark, with a long moustache, entered, and bowed
with brusque suppleness.
"Monsieur Vence, I think that you know Monsieur Le Menil."
They had met before at Madame Martin's, and saw each other often at the
Fencing Club. The day before they had met at Madame Meillan's.
"Madame Meillan's--there's a house where one is bored," said Paul Vence.
"Yet Academicians go there," said M. Robert Le Menil. "I do not
exaggerate their value, but they are the elite."
Madame Martin smiled.
"We know, Monsieur Le Menil, that at Madame Meillan's you are preoccupied
by the women more than by the Academicians. You escorted Princess
Seniavine to the buffet and talked to her about wolves."
"What wolves?"
"Wolves, and forests blackened by winter. We thought that with so pretty
a woman your conversation was rather savage!"
Paul Vence rose.
"So you permit, Madame, that I should bring my friend Dechartre? He has
a great desire to know you, and I hope he will not displease you. There
is life in his mind. He is full of ideas."
"Oh, I do not ask for so much," Madame Martin said. "People that are
natural and show themselves as they are rarely bore me, and sometimes
they amuse me."
When Paul Vence had gone, Le Menil listened until the noise of footsteps
had vanished; then, coming nearer:
"To-morrow, at three o'clock? Do you still love me?"
He asked her to reply while they were alone. She answered that it was
late, that she expected no more visitors, and that no one except her
husband would come.
He entreated. Then she said:
"I shall be free to-morrow all day. Wait for me at three o'clock."
He thanked her with a look. Then, placing himself on at the other side
of the chimney, he asked who was that Dechartre whom she wished
introduced to her.
"I do not wish him to be introduced to me. He is to be introduced to me.
He is a sculptor."
He deplored the fact that she needed to see new faces, adding:
"A sculptor? They are usually brutal."
"Oh, but this one does so little sculpture! But if it annoys you that I
should meet him, I will not do so."
"I should be sorry if society took any part of the time you might give to
me."
"My friend, you can not complain of that. I did not even go to Madame
Meillan's yesterday."
"You are right to show yourself there as little as possible. It is not a
house for you."
He explained. All the women that went there had had some spicy adventure
which was known and talked about. Besides, Madame Meillan favored
intrigue. He gave examples. Madame Martin, however, her hands extended
on the arms of the chair in charming restfulness, her head inclined,
looked at the dying embers in the grate. Her thoughtful mood had flown.
Nothing of it remained on her face, a little saddened, nor in her languid
body, more desirable than ever in the quiescence of her mind. She kept
for a while a profound immobility, which added to her personal attraction
the charm of things that art had created.
He asked her of what she was thinking. Escaping the magic of the blaze
in the ashes, she said:
"We will go to-morrow, if you wish, to far distant places, to the odd
districts where the poor people live. I like the old streets where
misery dwells."
He promised to satisfy her taste, although he let her know that he
thought it absurd. The walks that she led him sometimes bored him, and
he thought them dangerous. People might see them.
"And since we have been successful until now in not causing gossip--"
She shook her head.
"Do you think that people have not talked about us? Whether they know or
do not know, they talk. Not everything is known, but everything is
said."
She relapsed into her dream. He thought her discontented, cross, for
some reason which she would not tell. He bent upon her beautiful, grave
eyes which reflected the light of the grate. But she reassured him.
"I do not know whether any one talks about me. And what do I care?
Nothing matters."
He left her. He was going to dine at the club, where a friend was
waiting for him. She followed him with her eyes, with peaceful sympathy.
Then she began again to read in the ashes.
She saw in them the days of her childhood; the castle wherein she had
passed the sweet, sad summers; the dark and humid park; the pond where
slept the green water; the marble nymphs under the chestnut-trees, and
the bench on which she had wept and desired death. To-day she still
ignored the cause of her youthful despair, when the ardent awakening of
her imagination threw her into a troubled maze of desires and of fears.
When she was a child, life frightened her. And now she knew that life is
not worth so much anxiety nor so much hope; that it is a very ordinary
thing. She should have known this. She thought:
"I saw mamma; she was good, very simple, and not very happy. I dreamed
of a destiny different from hers. Why? I felt around me the insipid
taste of life, and seemed to inhale the future like a salt and pungent
aroma. Why? What did I want, and what did I expect? Was I not warned
enough of the sadness of everything?"
She had been born rich, in the brilliancy of a fortune too new. She was
a daughter of that Montessuy, who, at first a clerk in a Parisian bank,
founded and governed two great establishments, brought to sustain them
the resources of a brilliant mind, invincible force of character, a rare
alliance of cleverness and honesty, and treated with the Government as if
he were a foreign power. She had grown up in the historical castle of
Joinville, bought, restored, and magnificently furnished by her father.
Montessuy made life give all it could yield. An instinctive and powerful
atheist, he wanted all the goods of this world and all the desirable
things that earth produces. He accumulated pictures by old masters, and
precious sculptures. At fifty he had known all the most beautiful women
of the stage, and many in society. He enjoyed everything worldly with
the brutality of his temperament and the shrewdness of his mind.
Poor Madame Montessuy, economical and careful, languished at Joinville,
delicate and poor, under the frowns of twelve gigantic caryatides which
held a ceiling on which Lebrun had painted the Titans struck by Jupiter.
There, in the iron cot, placed at the foot of the large bed, she died one
night of sadness and exhaustion, never having loved anything on earth
except her husband and her little drawing-room in the Rue Maubeuge.
She never had had any intimacy with her daughter, whom she felt
instinctively too different from herself, too free, too bold at heart;
and she divined in Therese, although she was sweet and good, the strong
Montessuy blood, the ardor which had made her suffer so much, and which
she forgave in her husband, but not in her daughter.
But Montessuy recognized his daughter and loved her. Like most hearty,
full-blooded men, he had hours of charming gayety. Although he lived out
of his house a great deal, he breakfasted with her almost every day, and
sometimes took her out walking. He understood gowns and furbelows. He
instructed and formed Therese. He amused her. Near her, his instinct
for conquest inspired him still. He desired to win always, and he won
his daughter. He separated her from her mother. Therese admired him,
she adored him.
In her dream she saw him as the unique joy of her childhood. She was
persuaded that no man in the world was as amiable as her father.
At her entrance in life, she despaired at once of finding elsewhere so
rich a nature, such a plenitude of active and thinking forces. This
discouragement had followed her in the choice of a husband, and perhaps
later in a secret and freer choice.
She had not really selected her husband. She did not know: she had
permitted herself to be married by her father, who, then a widower,
embarrassed by the care of a girl, had wished to do things quickly and
well. He considered the exterior advantages, estimated the eighty years
of imperial nobility which Count Martin brought. The idea never came to
him that she might wish to find love in marriage.
He flattered himself that she would find in it the satisfaction of the
luxurious desires which he attributed to her, the joy of making a display
of grandeur, the vulgar pride, the material domination, which were for
him all the value of life, as he had no ideas on the subject of the
happiness of a true woman, although he was sure that his daughter would
remain virtuous.
While thinking of his absurd yet natural faith in her, which accorded so
badly with his own experiences and ideas regarding women, she smiled with
melancholy irony. And she admired her father the more.
After all, she was not so badly married. Her husband was as good as any
other man. He had become quite bearable. Of all that she read in the
ashes, in the veiled softness of the lamps, of all her reminiscences,
that of their married life was the most vague. She found a few isolated
traits of it, some absurd images, a fleeting and fastidious impression.
The time had not seemed long and had left nothing behind. Six years had
passed, and she did not even remember how she had regained her liberty,
so prompt and easy had been her conquest of that husband, cold, sickly,
selfish, and polite; of that man dried up and yellowed by business and
politics, laborious, ambitious, and commonplace. He liked women only
through vanity, and he never had loved his wife. The separation had been
frank and complete. And since then, strangers to each other, they felt
a tacit, mutual gratitude for their freedom. She would have had some
affection for him if she had not found him hypocritical and too subtle in
the art of obtaining her signature when he needed money for enterprises
that were more for ostentation than real benefit. The man with whom she
dined and talked every day had no significance for her.
With her cheek in her hand, before the grate, as if she questioned a
sibyl, she saw again the face of the Marquis de Re. She saw it so
precisely that it surprised her. The Marquis de Re had been presented to
her by her father, who admired him, and he appeared to her grand and
dazzling for his thirty years of intimate triumphs and mundane glories.
His adventures followed him like a procession. He had captivated three
generations of women, and had left in the heart of all those whom he had
loved an imperishable memory. His virile grace, his quiet elegance, and
his habit of pleasing had prolonged his youth far beyond the ordinary
term of years. He noticed particularly the young Countess Martin. The
homage of this expert flattered her. She thought of him now with
pleasure. He had a marvellous art of conversation. He amused her. She
let him see it, and at once he promised to himself, in his heroic
frivolity, to finish worthily his happy life by the subjugation of this
young woman whom he appreciated above every one else, and who evidently
admired him. He displayed, to capture her, the most learned stratagems.
But she escaped him very easily.
She yielded, two years later, to Robert Le Menil, who had desired her
ardently, with all the warmth of his youth, with all the simplicity of
his mind. She said to herself: "I gave myself to him because he loved
me." It was the truth. The truth was, also, that a dumb yet powerful
instinct had impelled her, and that she had obeyed the hidden impulse of
her being. But even this was not her real self; what awakened her nature
at last was the fact that she believed in the sincerity of his sentiment.
She had yielded as soon as she had felt that she was loved. She had
given herself, quickly, simply. He thought that she had yielded easily.
He was mistaken. She had felt the discouragement which the irreparable
gives, and that sort of shame which comes of having suddenly something to
conceal. Everything that had been whispered before her about other women
resounded in her burning ears. But, proud and delicate, she took care to
hide the value of the gift she was making. He never suspected her moral
uneasiness, which lasted only a few days, and was replaced by perfect
tranquillity. After three years she defended her conduct as innocent and
natural.
Having done harm to no one, she had no regrets. She was content. She
was in love, she was loved. Doubtless she had not felt the intoxication
she had expected, but does one ever feel it? She was the friend of the
good and honest fellow, much liked by women who passed for disdainful and
hard to please, and he had a true affection for her. The pleasure she
gave him and the joy of being beautiful for him attached her to this
friend. He made life for her not continually delightful, but easy to
bear, and at times agreeable.
That which she had not divined in her solitude, notwithstanding vague
yearnings and apparently causeless sadness, he had revealed to her. She
knew herself when she knew him. It was a happy astonishment. Their
sympathies were not in their minds. Her inclination toward him was
simple and frank, and at this moment she found pleasure in the idea of
meeting him the next day in the little apartment where they had met for
three years. With a shake of the head and a shrug of her shoulders,
coarser than one would have expected from this exquisite woman, sitting
alone by the dying fire, she said to herself: "There! I need love!"