THE MUSIC LESSON
Blanche was seated at work near her window, the small, dim panes of
which scarcely permitted her to distinguish anything in the street.
However, from time to time she glanced downward in that direction to
distract her thoughts; not that she was at all sad, or that she had
anything to trouble her, but a young girl who is nearly sixteen years of
age experiences in the depths of her innocent heart certain void, vague
desires which she cannot easily account for. She sighs, she becomes
dreamy; a mere nothing renders her uneasy; the least noise, the sound of
an unknown voice, makes her heart beat more quickly; she looks oftener
in the mirror; she pays more attention to her toilet, though, as yet,
there is nobody in particular whom she wishes to charm. But a secret
instinct implants in her the desire to please, a sure symptom that she
begins to feel the need of loving; and, for that reason, she falls into
reveries and sighs without knowing why--so it was, at least, in the time
of which we are speaking. As to the young girls of our own time, they
dream, also, but they sigh less.
The character of the barber, the cold, serious manner which he wore
before Blanche, did not invite confidence, and imposed a restraint on
the young girl, whose ingenuous heart seemed to seek a friend. She
respected Touquet and obeyed him; she regarded him as her benefactor,
but she could not chat freely with him, for the barber's laconic answers
always appeared to indicate little desire to engage in a long
conversation. To make up for this, Marguerite was very chatty, and would
willingly have passed the entire day in gossip; but the sole subjects of
her conversation were sorcerers, magicians and robbers, and these were
not at all amusing to Blanche, who preferred, to Marguerite's appalling
stories, a tender love-song or a story of chivalry, the heroes of which
were very strong on love; and one of that ilk had no less prowess as a
paladin because he was faithful to his lady for twenty years.
Blanche was dreaming, then, when somebody rapped softly at her door; and
immediately Chaudoreille's odd little head appeared between the door and
the wall, and he said in mellifluous accents,--
"May one come in, interesting scholar?"
Blanche raised her eyes and burst into a fit of laughter on perceiving
Chaudoreille's face, this being the effect his appearance ordinarily
produced on the young girl.
"Come in, come in, my dear master," said she, rising to curtsey to
Chaudoreille, who then introduced himself entirely into the room, bowing
to Blanche three times, so low that each time his sword fell before him,
and on rising he was obliged to put Rolande into his scabbard again.
"I am so much in the habit of drawing him," said Chaudoreille, "that he
can't rest quietly in his sheath for two hours at a time.--Come, be
quiet, Rolande; you know well, my dear companion, that the night never
passes without my giving you some occupation."
"Why, Monsieur Chaudoreille, do you fight every day?"
"What else could you expect, beautiful angel? It is my element; I should
not sleep if I had not drawn my sword, and I should fall ill if three
days were to elapse without my ridding the earth of an impertinent
fellow or a rival."
"O good Heavens!"
"But let us leave that subject and speak of you, delightful creature.
You seem to me fresher and more beautiful than ever; it is the unfolding
of the bud, it is the opening of the flower, it is the fruit which--By
the way, how are you?"
"Very well. Did you come to give me a music lesson?"
"Yes, if you will permit me the pleasure. It is a long time since I had
that happiness."
"I hope you're going to teach me something new."
"By Jove! I'm not at the end of my tether. Besides, were new songs
lacking, your beautiful eyes would inspire me to improvise a ballad in
sixteen couplets."
Blanche brought her sitar and handed it to Chaudoreille, who raised his
eyes to Heaven and heaved a big sigh as he took it.
"Are you going to be ill, Monsieur Chaudoreille?" questioned the young
girl, astonished at this moaning.
"No, I am not ill; however, I feel rather uneasy," answered
Chaudoreille, venturing to try the effect of the glances and smiles
which he had studied before the glass.
"You seem to have difficulty in breathing," responded Blanche; "perhaps
your supper last night did not agree with you."
"Pardon me; I swear to you it did not trouble me in the least. I have a
horror of indigestion. Out upon it! I never put myself in the way of
having it."
"Sing to me the air you are going to teach me; that will make you feel
better."
"She is innocence itself," said Chaudoreille to himself while tuning the
sitar; "she doesn't understand what makes me sigh. Despite that,
however, I can see that she's glad to see me. Patience; before long her
heart will awaken, and I shall be its conqueror."
Blanche took up her work again; Chaudoreille seated himself near her,
and after a quarter of an hour's tuning of the sitar, coughed,
expectorated, blew his nose, turned around on his chair, arranged his
cape, pursed his mouth, passed his tongue over his lips, and at last
commenced in a shrill voice, which pierced the ears, an ancient ditty
which Blanche had heard a hundred times before.
"I know that, my dear master," said she, interrupting Chaudoreille in
the middle of a point d'orgue, which he seemed willing to prolong
indefinitely; "that's one of the three you have already taught me."
"Do you think so?"
"Wait; I'll sing it for you."
Blanche took the instrument, and, gracefully accompanying herself, sang,
in a melodious voice which gave a charm to the old ballad.
"That's very well, indeed," said Chaudoreille; "you sing the passages
precisely in my manner; I seem to hear myself."
"Teach me another, then," said the young girl, returning the instrument
to him; and Chaudoreille intoned a virelay on the great feats of Pepin
the Short.
"I know that, too," said Blanche, stopping him.
"In that case I will sing you a charming villanelle."
"Mercy! that will be the third of those you have taught me. Don't you
know any others?"
[Illustration]
"Pardon me, but as a cursed dog ran off with my ruff while I was being
shaved, I cannot venture a new song while my throat is naked; it would
embarrass the middle notes. Nevertheless, the villanelle is always a
novelty, since I ever sing it with variations."
"Well, I'll listen," said Blanche, glancing towards the street.
Chaudoreille heaved another sigh, and when he had taken a position which
seemed to him more favorable for displaying his graces, he commenced the
villanelle, which he sang to Blanche every time that he gave her a
lesson:--
I have lost my turtle-dove,
And her flight I must pursue,--
Is she not the one I love?
You regret your own fond dove,
As the loss of mine I rue;
I have lost my turtle-dove.
At this moment some perambulating singers came into the street. They
stationed themselves in front of the barber's house and, accompanying
themselves on their mandolins, sang some Italian songs. Blanche listened
eagerly; this music, so different from that which she heard from her
master of the sitar, stirred her pulses deliciously, and approaching the
window she cried,--
"Oh, how pretty that is!"
"Yes, undoubtedly it's pretty," said Chaudoreille, who believed the
young girl to be speaking of the villanelle; "but it's necessary to
acquire the same expression that I have given it. Notice it well, 'I
have lost my turtle-dove,'--the accent tremulous with grief; raise the
eyes to the ceiling, beat time with the left foot. 'And her flight I
must pursue,'--a distracted air, and always the same accompaniment with
the thumb and index finger. 'Is she not the one I love?'--a soft,
flute-like sound, and make a movement of surprise while sustaining the
falsetto. 'You regret your own fond dove,--' that demands much
expression. 'You regret,'--an exquisitely performed shake,--'your own
fond dove,'--inflate the sound and ascend still."
"Ah, I should be contented if I could only hear such music often," said
Blanche, who had paid no attention to what Chaudoreille was saying, and
had listened only to the Italians.
"I should much like to give you a lesson every day, lovely damsel; but
my occupations overwhelm me--and then, Master Touquet does not often
permit me the pleasure of seeing you; when far from you I sing without
ceasing,--
You regret your own fond dove."
"It's a barcarolle--is it not, monsieur?"
"No, my dear girl; that's called a villanelle, the favorite song of our
ancient troubadours, and of shepherds who bemoaned their shepherdesses."
"What a pity that I don't know Italian!"
"What do you require Italian for,--in order to say,
Is she not the one I love?"
"Be quiet, be quiet; they're singing in French now," said Blanche,
pressing close to the window-panes, and signing with her hand to
Chaudoreille not to stir.
"What's that you're saying?" cried the sitar master, rising in
surprise,--"for me to be quiet! Does that noise out there disturb you
too much? To the devil with the street singers who prevent you from
hearing me! I hardly know how to restrain myself from going to drive
them away with a few blows from my good blade Rolande!"
"If I only dared open my window for a few moments," sighed Blanche. "But
no, I must not, for M. Touquet has firmly forbidden me to do so. What a
pretty, pretty air! Ah, I shall easily remember that,
I love to eternity
My darling is all to me;
that's the refrain."
"No, divine Blanche, you are mistaken; these are the words,--
I have lost my turtle-dove,
And her flight I must pursue,--
Is she not the one I love?"
The singers departed. Blanche then left the casement, and, on turning,
saw Chaudoreille with his neck elongated, the better to execute a note.
She could not restrain a desire to laugh, which was evoked by the face
of the chevalier; and the latter remained with his mouth open, not
knowing how to take the young girl's laughter, when Marguerite entered
the room.
"It's burned at last," said the old woman as she came in.
"What is burned," cried Chaudoreille,--"the roast?"
"Ah, yes, indeed; it's a book of witchcraft, of magic. It was very hard
to get it to burn, those books are so accustomed to fire."
"What is that you say, Marguerite? You have books of magic,--you who are
afraid of everything? Do you wish to enter into communication with the
spirits of the other world?"
"Ah, God keep me from it, Monsieur Chaudoreille. But I'll tell you how
that book came into my hands, where it didn't stay long, for it seemed
to me that that cursed conjuring-book burned my fingers. My master
wished me to change my room--because--but I oughtn't to tell you that."
"Try to remember what you wished to tell me."
"Well, it seems I must quit the room I've occupied, to go into one in
which no one has set foot during the eight years I have been in the
house; and, to judge by the look of it, no one had visited it for a long
time before. It's so dark, so dismal; the window-panes, which are two
inches thick with dust, hardly allow the daylight to penetrate into the
room."
"I had an idea--God forgive me--that she was going to recount to me all
the spiders' webs she had found there. What do you think of it, my
charming pupil?"
Blanche did not answer, for she had paid no attention to what Marguerite
said; she was committing to memory the sweet refrain which had appeared
so pretty to her, and was repeating in a low voice,--
"I love to eternity;"
and Chaudoreille, seeing her steeped in reverie, would not disturb her,
fully persuaded that the young girl could not defend her heart against
the charms of the villanelle.
"It's not a question of spiders," resumed the old servant, rather
ill-humoredly; "if I had not seen that which--but at the bottom of a
closet Mademoiselle Blanche found a diabolical book; it was the
conjuring-book of a sorcerer named Odoard. Have you ever heard tell of a
sorcerer by that name?"
"No, not that I remember. If you were to ask me about a brave man, a man
of spirit, a rake of honor, most certainly I should have known him; but
a sorcerer! What the devil do you think I should have to do with him?
These people don't fight."
"Monsieur Chaudoreille,--you who are so brave,--you must render me a
service."
"What is it?" inquired Chaudoreille, paying more attention to
Marguerite's words.
"Just now, after having burned the conjuring-book of that Odoard,
surnamed the great Tier of Tags, I made another inspection of my room,
sprinkling holy water everywhere, as you may well suppose."
"And what followed?"
"At the end of the alcove I perceived a little door,--one would never
have supposed there was a door there; but, though old, I have good eyes,
and, while pushing the bed, which made the wainscot creak, I saw the
door."
"To the point, I beg of you," resumed Chaudoreille, whose eyes betrayed
the uneasiness he tried in vain to dissemble.
"Well, now, I confess to you, monsieur, that I didn't dare open that
door. It was no doubt the door of a closet; but that alcove is so
gloomy, so dark. Finally, I'll be very much obliged if you'll come up
with me and go first into whatever place we find there. I daren't ask M.
Touquet, for he'd scoff at me."
"And he would be right, by jingo! Why, Marguerite, at your age, not to
have more courage than that!"
"What can you expect? I'm afraid there may be a goblin in that closet,
who will jump in my face when I open the door, which has perhaps been
closed for many years; for I've never seen M. Touquet enter the room."
"Don't goblins pass through keyholes? Come, Marguerite, I blush for your
cowardice."
"No one can say that sorcerers are rare in Paris. Haven't they
established a Chamber at the Arsenal expressly to judge them?"
"That's true, I confess; but I don't see what makes you imagine there
are any in this house?"
"Ah, Monsieur Chaudoreille, if I was to tell you all I have seen and
heard--and at night the noises which--"
"What have you seen, dear nurse?" inquired Blanche, whose reverie had
flown, and who had heard the last words of the old woman.
"Nothing--nothing--mademoiselle;" and the old servant added, addressing
the chevalier in a low tone, "My master doesn't like me to talk of it,
and he'll send me away if he learns--"
"That's enough; I don't wish to hear anything further," said
Chaudoreille, rising and taking his hat. "And since Touquet has
forbidden you to tell these idle stories, I beg you not to deafen my
ears with them."
"But you'll come upstairs with me and look in the closet--won't you,
monsieur?"
"Ah, mon Dieu! I hear ten o'clock striking; I should be in the city now;
I didn't receive ten crowns for listening to your old stories; I must
run. Au revoir, my interesting pupil. I am delighted that my last
variations gave you pleasure. I hope before long to give you another
lesson. With a master like me, you should be a virtuoso."
While saying these words Chaudoreille drew himself up, placed his left
hand on his hip, arranged his right arm as though he were about to take
his weapon; but, instead of drawing Rolande from the scabbard, he
carried his hand to his hat and bowed respectfully to Blanche; then,
passing quickly by Marguerite, who tried vainly to restrain him, he
opened the door and went downstairs humming,--
You regret your own fond dove,
As the loss of mine I rue.