"Tell me, sir,
Have you cast up your state, rated your land,
And find it able to endure the charge?"
/The Noble Gentleman/.
By degrees, as Maltravers sobered down from the first shock of that
unexpected meeting, and from the prolonged disappointment that followed
it, he became sensible of a strange kind of happiness or contentment.
Alice was not in poverty, she was not eating the unhallowed bread of
vice, or earning the bitter wages of laborious penury. He saw her in
reputable, nay, opulent circumstances. A dark nightmare, that had
often, amidst the pleasures of youth, or the triumphs of literature,
weighed upon his breast, was removed. He breathed more freely--he could
sleep in peace. His conscience could no longer say to him, "She who
slept upon thy bosom is a wanderer upon the face of the earth--exposed
to every temptation, perishing perhaps for want." That single sight of
Alice had been like the apparition of the injured Dead conjured up at
Heraclea--whose sight could pacify the aggressor and exorcise the
spectres of remorse. He was reconciled with himself, and walked on to
the Future with a bolder step and a statelier crest. Was she married to
that staid and sober-looking personage whom he had beheld with her? was
that child the offspring of their union? He almost hoped so--it was
better to lose than to destroy her. Poor Alice! could she have dreamed,
when she sat at his feet gazing up into his eyes, that a time would come
when Maltravers would thank Heaven for the belief that she was happy
with another?
Ernest Maltravers now felt a new man: the relief of conscience operated
on the efforts of his genius. A more buoyant and elastic spirit entered
into them--they seemed to breathe as with a second youth.
Meanwhile, Cesarini threw himself into the fashionable world, and to his
own surprise was /feted/ and caressed. In fact, Castruccio was exactly
the sort of person to be made a lion of. The letters of introduction
that he had brought from Paris were addressed to those great personages
in England between whom and personages equally great in France politics
makes a bridge of connection. Cesarini appeared to them as an
accomplished young man, brother-in-law to a distinguished member of the
French Chamber. Maltravers, on the other hand, introduced him to the
literary dilettanti, who admire all authors that are not rivals. The
singular costume of Cesarini, which would have revolted persons in an
Englishman, enchanted them in an Italian. He looked, they said, like a
poet. Ladies like to have verses written to them, and Cesarini, who
talked very little, made up for it by scribbling eternally. The young
man's head soon grew filled with comparisons between himself in London
and Petrarch at Avignon. As he had always thought that fame was in the
gift of lords and ladies, and had no idea of the multitude, he fancied
himself already famous. And, since one of his strongest feelings was
his jealousy of Maltravers, he was delighted at being told he was a much
more interesting creature than that haughty personage, who wore his
neckcloth like other people, and had not even those indispensable
attributes of genius--black curls and a sneer. Fine society, which, as
Madame de Stael well says, depraves the frivolous mind and braces the
strong one, completed the ruin of all that was manly in Cesarini's
intellect. He soon learned to limit his desire of effect or distinction
to gilded saloons; and his vanity contented itself upon the scraps and
morsels from which the lion heart of true ambition turns in disdain.
But this was not all. Cesarini was envious of the greater affluence of
Maltravers. His own fortune was in a small capital of eight or nine
thousand pounds: but, thrown in the midst of the wealthiest society in
Europe, he could not bear to sacrifice a single claim upon its esteem.
He began to talk of the satiety of wealth, and young ladies listened to
him with remarkable interest when he did so--he obtained the reputation
of riches--he was too vain not to be charmed with it. He endeavoured to
maintain the claim by adopting the extravagant excesses of the day. He
bought horses--he gave away jewels--he made love to a marchioness of
forty-two, who was very kind to him and very fond of /ecarte/--he
gambled--he was in the high road to destruction.