No one was astonished at hearing she was going to marry again.
Notwithstanding all his genius, perhaps even on account of his genius,
the great man had for fifteen years led her a hard life, full of
caprices and mad freaks that had attracted the attention of all
Paris. On the high road to fame, over which he had so triumphantly and
hurriedly travelled, like those who are to die young, she had sat behind
him, humbly and timidly, in a corner of the chariot, ever fearful of
collisions. Whenever she complained, relatives, friends, every one was
against her: "Respect his weaknesses," they would say to her, "they are
the weaknesses of a god. Do not disturb him, do not worry him. Remember
that your husband does not belong exclusively to you. He belongs much
more to Art, to his country, than to his family. And who knows if
each of the faults you reproach him with has not given us some sublime
creation?" At last, however, her patience was worn out, she rebelled,
became indignant and even unjust, so much indeed, that at the moment of
the great man's death, they were on the point of demanding a judicial
separation and ready to see their great and celebrated name dragged into
the columns of a society paper.
After the agitation of this unhappy match, the anxieties of the last
illness, and the sudden death which for a moment revived her former
affection, the first months of her widowhood acted on the young woman
like a healthy calming water-cure. The enforced retirement, the quiet
charm of mitigated sorrow, lent to her thirty-five years a second youth
almost as attractive as the first.
[Illustration: p167-178]
Moreover black suited her, and then she had the responsible and rather
proud look of a woman left alone in life, with all the weight of a great
name to carry honourably. Mindful of the fame of the departed one, that
wretched fame that had cost her so many tears, and now grew day by day,
like a magnificent flower nourished by the black earth of the tomb, she
was to be seen draped in her long sombre veils holding interviews with
theatrical managers and publishers, busying herself in getting her
husband's operas put again on the stage, superintending the printing of
his posthumous works and unfinished manuscripts, bestowing on all these
details a kind of solemn care and as it were the respect for a shrine.
It was at this moment that her second husband met her. He too was a
musician, almost unknown it is true, the author of a few waltzes
and songs, and of two little operas, of which the scores, charmingly
printed, were scarcely more played than sold. With a pleasant
countenance, a handsome fortune that he owed to his exceedingly
_bourgeois_ family, he had above all an infinite respect for genius,
a curiosity about famous men, and the ingenuous enthusiasm of a still
youthful artist. Thus when he met the wife of the great man, he was
dazzled and bewildered. It was as though the image of the glorious muse
herself had appeared to him. He at once fell in love, and as the widow
was beginning to receive a few friends, he had himself presented to her.
There his passion grew in the atmosphere of genius that still lingered
in all the corners of the drawing-room. There was the bust of the
master, the piano he composed on, his scores spread over all the
furniture, melodious even to look at, as though from between their
half-opened pages, the written phrases re-echoed musically. The actual
and very real charm of the widow surrounded by those austere memories as
by a frame that became her, brought his love to a climax.
[Illustration: p169-180]
After hesitating a long time, the poor fellow at last proposed, but
in such humble and timid terms! "He knew how unworthy he was of her. He
understood all the regret she would feel, in exchanging her illustrious
name for his, so unknown and insignificant." And a thousand other
artless phrases in the same style. In reality, the lady was indeed very
much flattered by her conquest; however, she played the comedy of a
broken heart, and assumed the disdainful, wearied airs of a woman whose
life is ended without hopes of renewal. She, who had never in her life
been so quiet and comfortable as since the death of her great man, she
actually found tears with which to mourn for him, and an enthusiastic
ardour in speaking of him. This, of course, only inflamed her youthful
adorer the more and made him more eloquent and persuasive.
In short, this severe widowhood ended in a marriage; but the widow did
not abdicate, and remained--although married--more than ever the widow
of a great man; well knowing that herein lay, in the eyes of her second
husband, her real prestige. As she felt herself much older than he, to
prevent his perceiving it, she overwhelmed him with her disdain, with
a kind of vague pity, and unexpressed and offensive regret at her
condescending marriage. However, he was not wounded by it, quite the
contrary. He was so convinced of his inferiority and thought it so
natural that the memory of such a man should reign despotically in her
heart! In order the better to maintain in him this humble attitude, she
would at times read over with him the letters the great man had
written to her when he was courting her. This return towards the past
rejuvenated her some fifteen years, lent her the assurance of a handsome
and beloved woman, seen through all the wild love and delightful
exaggeration of written passion. That she had since then changed her
young husband cared little, loving her on the faith of another, and
drawing therefrom I know not what strange kind of vanity. It seemed
to him that these passionate appeals added to his own, and that he
inherited a whole past of love.
A strange couple indeed! It was in society, however, that they presented
the most curious spectacle. I sometimes caught sight of them at the
theatre. No one would have recognized the timid and shy young woman, who
formerly accompanied the _maestro_, lost in the gigantic shadow he cast
around him. Now, seated upright in the front of the box, she displayed
herself, attracting all eyes by the pride of her own glance. It might be
said that her head was surrounded by her first husband's halo of glory,
his name re-echoing around her like a homage or a reproach. The other
one, seated a little behind her, with the subservient physiognomy of one
ready for every abnegation in life, watched each of her movements, ready
to attend to her slightest wish.
At home, the peculiarity of their attitude was still more noticeable. I
remember a certain evening party they gave a year after their marriage.
The husband moved about among the crowd of guests, proud but rather
embarrassed at gathering together so many in his own house. The wife,
disdainful, melancholy, and very superior, was on that evening more than
ever the widow of a great man! She had a peculiar way of glancing at her
husband from over her shoulder, of calling him "my poor dear friend," of
casting on him all the wearisome drudgery of the reception, with an air
of saying: "You are only fit for that." Around her gathered a circle of
former friends, those who had been spectators of the brilliant debuts of
the great man, of his struggles, and his success. She simpered to them;
played the young girl! They had known her so young! Nearly all of
them called her by her Christian name, "Anaïs." They formed a kind of
conaculum, which the poor husband respectfully approached, to hear his
predecessor spoken of. They recalled the glorious first nights, those
evenings on which nearly every battle was won, and the great man's
manias, his way of working; how, in order to summon up inspiration, he
insisted on his wife being by his side, decked out in full ball dress.
"Do you remember, Anaïs?" And Anaïs sighed and blushed.
It was at that time that he had written his most tender pieces, above
all _Savonarole_, the most passionate of his creations, with a grand
duet, interwoven with rays of moonshine, the perfume of roses and the
warbling of nightingales. An enthusiast sat down and played it on the
piano, amid a silence of attentive emotion. At the last note of the
magnificent piece, the lady burst into tears. "I cannot help it," she
said, "I have never been able to hear it without weeping." The great
man's old friends surrounded his unhappy widow with sympathetic
expressions, coming up to her one by one, like at a funereal ceremony,
to give a thrilling clasp to her hand. "Come, come, Anaïs, be
courageous." And the drollest thing was to see the second husband,
standing by the side of his wife, deeply touched and affected, shaking
hands all round, and accepting, he too, his share of sympathy. "What
genius! what genius!" he repeated as he mopped his eyes. It was at the
same time ridiculous and affecting.
[Illustration: p174-185]
[Illustration: p177-188]