Denoisel had left Renée at her piano, and had gone out into the garden.
As he came back towards the house he was surprised to hear her playing
something that was not the piece she was learning; then all at once the
music broke off and all was silent. He went to the drawing-room, pushed
the door open, and discovered Renée seated on the music-stool, her face
buried in her hands, weeping bitterly.
"Renée, good heavens! What in the world is the matter?"
Two or three sobs prevented Renée's answering at first, and then, wiping
her eyes with the backs of her hands, as children do, she said in a
voice choked with tears:
"It's--it's--too stupid. It's this thing of Chopin's, for his funeral,
you know--his funeral mass, that he composed. Papa always tells me not
to play it. As there was no one in the house to-day--I thought you were
at the bottom of the garden--oh, I knew very well what would happen, but
I wanted to make myself cry with it, and you see it has answered to my
heart's content. Isn't it silly of me--and for me, too, when I'm
naturally so fond of fun!"
"Don't you feel well, Renée? Come, tell me; there's something the
matter. You wouldn't cry like that."
"No, there's nothing the matter, I assure you. I'm as strong as a horse;
there's nothing at all the matter, really and truly. If there were
anything I should tell you, shouldn't I? It all came about through that
dreadful, stupid music. And to-day, too--to-day, when papa has promised
to take me to see _The Straw Hat_."
A faint smile lighted up her wet eyes as she spoke, and she continued in
the same strain:
"Only fancy, _The Straw Hat_--at the Palais Royal. It will be fun, I'm
sure; I only like pieces of that kind. As for the others, dramas and
sentimental things--well, I think we have enough to stir us up with our
own affairs; it isn't worth while going in search of trouble. Then, too,
crying with other people; why, it's like weeping into some one else's
handkerchief. We are going to take you with us, you know--a regular
bachelor's outing it's to be. Papa said we should dine at a restaurant;
and I promise you that I'll be as nonsensical, and laugh as I used to
when I was a little girl--when I had my English governess--you remember
her? She used to wear orange-coloured ribbons, and drink eau de Cologne
that she kept in a cupboard until it got in her head. She was a nice old
thing."
And as she uttered these words her fingers flew over the keyboard, and
she attacked an arrangement with variations of the _Carnival of Venice_.
"You've been to Venice, haven't you?" she said suddenly, stopping short.
"Yes."
"Isn't it odd that there should be a spot like that on earth, that I
don't know and yet that attracts me and makes me dream of it? For some
people it's one place, and for others it's another. Now, I've never
wanted to see any place except Venice. I'm going to say something
silly--Venice seems to me like a city where all the musicians should be
buried."
She put her fingers on the notes again, but she only skimmed over them
without striking them at all, as if she were just caressing the silence
of the piano. Her hands then fell on her knees again, and in a pensive
manner, giving way to her thoughts, she half turned her head towards
Denoisel.
"You see," she said, "it seems as though there is sadness in the very
air. I don't know how it is, but there are days when the sun is shining,
when I have nothing the matter with me, no worry and no troubles to
face; and yet I positively want to be sad, I try to get the blues, and
feel as though I _must_ cry. Many a time I've said I had a headache and
gone to bed, just simply for the sake of having a good cry, of burying
my face in the pillow; it did me ever so much good. And at such times I
haven't the energy to fight against it or to try to overcome it. It's
just the same when I am going off in a faint; there's a certain charm in
feeling all my courage leaving me----"
"There, there, that's enough, Renée dear! I'll have your horse saddled
and we'll go for a ride."
"Ah, that's a good idea! But I warn you I shall go like the wind,
to-day."