Between the Barrière d’Italie and the Barrière de la Santé, along the
boulevard which leads to the Jardin des Plantes, you have a view of
Paris fit to send an artist or the tourist, the most _blase_ in matters
of landscape, into ecstasies. Reach the slightly higher ground where the
line of boulevard, shaded by tall, thick-spreading trees, curves with
the grace of some green and silent forest avenue, and you see spread
out at your feet a deep valley populous with factories looking almost
countrified among green trees and the brown streams of the Bièvre or the
Gobelins.
On the opposite slope, beneath some thousands of roofs packed close
together like heads in a crowd, lurks the squalor of the Faubourg
Saint-Marceau. The imposing cupola of the Panthéon, and the grim
melancholy dome of the Val-du-Grace, tower proudly up above a whole
town in itself, built amphitheatre-wise; every tier being grotesquely
represented by a crooked line of street, so that the two public
monuments look like a huge pair of giants dwarfing into insignificance
the poor little houses and the tallest poplars in the valley. To your
left behold the observatory, the daylight, pouring athwart its windows
and galleries, producing such fantastical strange effects that the
building looks like a black spectral skeleton. Further yet in the
distance rises the elegant lantern tower of the Invalides, soaring
up between the bluish pile of the Luxembourg and the gray tours of
Saint-Sulpice. From this standpoint the lines of the architecture are
blended with green leaves and gray shadows, and change every moment with
every aspect of the heavens, every alteration of light or color in the
sky. Afar, the skyey spaces themselves seem to be full of buildings;
near, wind the serpentine curves of waving trees and green footpaths.
Away to your right, through a great gap in this singular landscape,
you see the canal Saint-Martin, a long pale stripe with its edging
of reddish stone quays and fringes of lime avenue. The long rows of
buildings beside it, in genuine Roman style, are the public granaries.
Beyond, again, on the very last plane of all, see the smoke-dimmed
slopes of Belleville covered with houses and windmills, which blend
their freaks of outline with the chance effects of cloud. And still,
between that horizon, vague as some childish recollection, and the
serried range of roofs in the valley, a whole city lies out of sight: a
huge city, engulfed, as it were, in a vast hollow between the pinnacles
of the Hôpital de la Pitié and the ridge line of the Cimetiere de l’Est,
between suffering on the one hand and death on the other; a city sending
up a smothered roar like Ocean grumbling at the foot of a cliff, as if
to let you know that “I am here!”
When the sunlight pours like a flood over this strip of Paris, purifying
and etherealizing the outlines, kindling answering lights here and there
in the window panes, brightening the red tiles, flaming about the golden
crosses, whitening walls and transforming the atmosphere into a gauzy
veil, calling up rich contrasts of light and fantastic shadow; when the
sky is blue and earth quivers in the heat, and the bells are pealing,
then you shall see one of the eloquent fairy scenes which stamp
themselves for ever on the imagination, a scene that shall find as
fanatical worshipers as the wondrous views of Naples and Byzantium or
the isles of Florida. Nothing is wanting to complete the harmony, the
murmur of the world of men and the idyllic quiet of solitude, the voices
of a million human creatures and the voice of God. There lies a whole
capital beneath the peaceful cypresses of Pere-Lachaise.
The landscape lay in all its beauty, sparkling in the spring sunlight,
as I stood looking out over it one morning, my back against a huge
elm-tree that flung its yellow flowers to the wind. At the sight of the
rich and glorious view before me, I thought bitterly of the scorn with
which even in our literature we affect to hold this land of ours, and
poured maledictions on the pitiable plutocrats who fall out of love with
fair France, and spend their gold to acquire the right of sneering at
their own country, by going through Italy at a gallop and inspecting
that desecrated land through an opera-glass. I cast loving eyes on
modern Paris. I was beginning to dream dreams, when the sound of a kiss
disturbed the solitude and put philosophy to flight. Down the sidewalk,
along the steep bank, above the rippling water, I saw beyond the
Ponte des Gobelins the figure of a woman, dressed with the daintiest
simplicity; she was still young, as it seemed to me, and the blithe
gladness of the landscape was reflected in her sweet face. Her
companion, a handsome young man, had just set down a little boy. A
prettier child has never been seen, and to this day I do not know
whether it was the little one or his mother who received the kiss. In
their young faces, in their eyes, their smile, their every movement, you
could read the same deep and tender thought. Their arms were interlaced
with such glad swiftness; they drew close together with such marvelous
unanimity of impulse that, conscious of nothing but themselves, they did
not so much as see me. A second child, however--a little girl, who had
turned her back upon them in sullen discontent--threw me a glance, and
the expression in her eyes startled me. She was as pretty and engaging
as the little brother whom she left to run about by himself, sometimes
before, sometimes after their mother and her companion; but her charm
was less childish, and now, as she stood mute and motionless, her
attitude and demeanor suggested a torpid snake. There was something
indescribably mechanical in the way in which the pretty woman and her
companion paced up and down. In absence of mind, probably, they were
content to walk to and fro between the little bridge and a carriage that
stood waiting nearby at a corner in the boulevard, turning, stopping
short now and again, looking into each other’s eyes, or breaking into
laughter as their casual talk grew lively or languid, grave or gay.
I watched this delicious picture a while from my hiding-place by the
great elm-tree, and should have turned away no doubt and respected their
privacy, if it had not been for a chance discovery. In the face of the
brooding, silent, elder child I saw traces of thought overdeep for her
age. When her mother and the young man at her side turned and came
near, her head was frequently lowered; the furtive sidelong glances
of intelligence that she gave the pair and the child her brother were
nothing less than extraordinary. Sometimes the pretty woman or her
friend would stroke the little boy’s fair curls, or lay a caressing
finger against the baby throat or the white collar as he played at
keeping step with them; and no words can describe the shrewd subtlety,
the ingenuous malice, the fierce intensity which lighted up that pallid
little face with the faint circles already round the eyes. Truly there
was a man’s power of passion in the strange-looking, delicate little
girl. Here were traces of suffering or of thought in her; and which
is the more certain token of death when life is in blossom--physical
suffering, or the malady of too early thought preying upon a soul as yet
in bud? Perhaps a mother knows. For my own part, I know of nothing more
dreadful to see than an old man’s thoughts on a child’s forehead; even
blasphemy from girlish lips is less monstrous.
The almost stupid stolidity of this child who had begun to think
already, her rare gestures, everything about her, interested me. I
scrutinized her curiously. Then the common whim of the observer drew
me to compare her with her brother, and to note their likeness and
unlikeness.
Her brown hair and dark eyes and look of precocious power made a rich
contrast with the little one’s fair curled head and sea-green eyes and
winning helplessness. She, perhaps, was seven or eight years of age; the
boy was full four years younger. Both children were dressed alike; but
here again, looking closely, I noticed a difference. It was very slight,
a little thing enough; but in the light of after events I saw that it
meant a whole romance in the past, a whole tragedy to come. The little
brown-haired maid wore a linen collar with a plain hem, her brother’s
was edged with dainty embroidery, that was all; but therein lay the
confession of a heart’s secret, a tacit preference which a child can
read in the mother’s inmost soul as clearly as if the spirit of God
revealed it. The fair-haired child, careless and glad, looked almost
like a girl, his skin was so fair and fresh, his movements so graceful,
his look so sweet; while his older sister, in spite of her energy, in
spite of the beauty of her features and her dazzling complexion, looked
like a sickly little boy. In her bright eyes there was none of the humid
softness which lends such charm to children’s faces; they seemed, like
courtiers’ eyes, to be dried by some inner fire; and in her pallor there
was a certain swarthy olive tint, the sign of vigorous character. Twice
her little brother came to her, holding out a tiny hunting-horn with a
touching charm, a winning look, and wistful expression, which would
have sent Charlet into ecstasies, but she only scowled in answer to his
“Here, Helene, will you take it?” so persuasively spoken. The little
girl, so sombre and vehement beneath her apparent indifference,
shuddered, and even flushed red when her brother came near her; but
the little one seemed not to notice his sister’s dark mood, and his
unconsciousness, blended with earnestness, marked a final difference
in character between the child and the little girl, whose brow was
overclouded already by the gloom of a man’s knowledge and cares.
“Mamma, Helene will not play,” cried the little one, seizing an
opportunity to complain while the two stood silent on the Ponte des
Gobelins.
“Let her alone, Charles; you know very well that she is always cross.”
Tears sprang to Helene’s eyes at the words so thoughtlessly uttered
by her mother as she turned abruptly to the young man by her side. The
child devoured the speech in silence, but she gave her brother one of
those sagacious looks that seemed inexplicable to me, glancing with a
sinister expression from the bank where he stood to the Bièvre, then at
the bridge and the view, and then at me.
I was afraid lest my presence should disturb the happy couple; I slipped
away and took refuge behind a thicket of elder trees, which completely
screened me from all eyes. Sitting quietly on the summit of the bank, I
watched the ever-changing landscape and the fierce-looking little girl,
for with my head almost on a level with the boulevard I could still see
her through the leaves. Helene seemed uneasy over my disappearance,
her dark eyes looked for me down the alley and behind the trees with
indefinable curiosity. What was I to her? Then Charles’ baby laughter
rang out like a bird’s song in the silence. The tall, young man, with
the same fair hair, was dancing him in his arms, showering kisses upon
him, and the meaningless baby words of that “little language” which
rises to our lips when we play with children. The mother looked on
smiling, now and then, doubtless, putting in some low word that came
up from the heart, for her companion would stop short in his full
happiness, and the blue eyes that turned towards her were full of
glowing light and love and worship. Their voices, blending with the
child’s voice, reached me with a vague sense of a caress. The three
figures, charming in themselves, composed a lovely scene in a glorious
landscape, filling it with a pervasive unimaginable grace. A delicately
fair woman, radiant with smiles, a child of love, a young man with the
irresistible charm of youth, a cloudless sky; nothing was wanting in
nature to complete a perfect harmony for the delight of the soul. I
found myself smiling as if their happiness had been my own.
The clocks struck nine. The young man gave a tender embrace to his
companion, and went towards the tilbury which an old servant drove
slowly to meet him. The lady had grown grave and almost sad. The child’s
prattle sounded unchecked through the last farewell kisses. Then the
tilbury rolled away, and the lady stood motionless, listening to the
sound of the wheels, watching the little cloud of dust raised by its
passage along the road. Charles ran down the green pathway back to the
bridge to join his sister. I heard his silver voice calling to her.
“Why did you not come to say good-bye to my good friend?” cried he.
Helene looked up. Never surely did such hatred gleam from a child’s
eyes as from hers at that moment when she turned them on the brother who
stood beside her on the bank side. She gave him an angry push. Charles
lost his footing on the steep slope, stumbled over the roots of a tree,
and fell headlong forwards, dashing his forehead on the sharp-edged
stones of the embankment, and, covered with blood, disappeared over the
edge into the muddy river. The turbid water closed over a fair, bright
head with a shower of splashes; one sharp shriek after another rang in
my ears; then the sounds were stifled by the thick stream, and the poor
child sank with a dull sound as if a stone had been thrown into the
water. The accident had happened with more than lightning swiftness. I
sprang down the footpath, and Helene, stupefied with horror, shrieked
again and again:
“Mamma! mamma!”
The mother was there at my side. She had flown to the spot like a bird.
But neither a mother’s eyes nor mine could find the exact place where
the little one had gone under. There was a wide space of black hurrying
water, and below in the bed of the Bièvre ten feet of mud. There was
not the smallest possibility of saving the child. No one was stirring at
that hour on a Sunday morning, and there are neither barges nor anglers
on the Bièvre. There was not a creature in sight, not a pole to plumb
the filthy stream. What need was there for me to explain how the
ugly-looking accident had happened--accident or misfortune, whichever
it might be? Had Helene avenged her father? Her jealousy surely was
the sword of God. And yet when I looked at the mother I shivered. What
fearful ordeal awaited her when she should return to her husband, the
judge before whom she must stand all her days? And here with her was an
inseparable, incorruptible witness. A child’s forehead is transparent,
a child’s face hides no thoughts, and a lie, like a red flame set within
glows out red that colors even the eyes. But the unhappy woman had not
thought as yet of the punishment awaiting her at home; she was staring
into the Bièvre.
Such an event must inevitably send ghastly echoes through a woman’s
life, and here is one of the most terrible of the reverberations that
troubled Julie’s love from time to time.
Several years had gone by. The Marquis de Vandenesse wore mourning for
his father, and succeeded to his estates. One evening, therefore, after
dinner it happened that a notary was present in his house. This was
no pettifogging lawyer after Sterne’s pattern, but a very solid,
substantial notary of Paris, one of your estimable men who do a stupid
thing pompously, set down a foot heavily upon your private corn, and
then ask what in the world there is to cry out about? If, by accident,
they come to know the full extent of the enormity, “Upon my word,” cry
they, “I hadn’t a notion!” This was a well-intentioned ass, in short,
who could see nothing in life but deeds and documents.
Mme. de Aiglemont had been dining with M. de Vandenesse; her husband
had excused himself before dinner was over, for he was taking his two
children to the play. They were to go to some Boulevard theatre or
other, to the Ambigu-Comique or the Gaieté, sensational melodrama being
judged harmless here in Paris, and suitable pabulum for childhood,
because innocence is always triumphant in the fifth act. The boy and
girl had teased their father to be there before the curtain rose, so he
had left the table before dessert was served.
But the notary, the imperturbable notary, utterly incapable of asking
himself why Mme. d’Aiglemont should have allowed her husband and
children to go without her to the play, sat on as if he were screwed to
his chair. Dinner was over, dessert had been prolonged by discussion,
and coffee delayed. All these things consumed time, doubtless precious,
and drew impatient movements from that charming woman; she looked not
unlike a thoroughbred pawing the ground before a race; but the man of
law, to whom horses and women were equally unknown quantities, simply
thought the Marquise a very lively and sparkling personage. So enchanted
was he to be in the company of a woman of fashion and a political
celebrity, that he was exerting himself to shine in conversation,
and taking the lady’s forced smile for approbation, talked on with
unflagging spirit, till the Marquise was almost out of patience.
The master of the house, in concert with the lady, had more than once
maintained an eloquent silence when the lawyer expected a civil reply;
but these significant pauses were employed by the talkative nuisance in
looking for anecdotes in the fire. M. de Vandenesse had recourse to
his watch; the charming Marquise tried the experiment of fastening her
bonnet strings, and made as if she would go. But she did not go, and the
notary, blind and deaf, and delighted with himself, was quite convinced
that his interesting conversational powers were sufficient to keep the
lady on the spot.
“I shall certainly have that woman for a client,” said he to himself.
Meanwhile the Marquise stood, putting on her gloves, twisting her
fingers, looking from the equally impatient Marquis de Vandenesse to the
lawyer, still pounding away. At every pause in the worthy man’s fire of
witticisms the charming pair heaved a sigh of relief, and their looks
said plainly, “At last! He is really going!”
Nothing of the kind. It was a nightmare which could only end in
exasperating the two impassioned creatures, on whom the lawyer had
something of the fascinating effect of a snake on a pair of birds;
before long they would be driven to cut him short.
The clever notary was giving them the history of the discreditable ways
in which one du Tillet (a stockbroker then much in favor) had laid
the foundations of his fortune; all the ins and outs of the whole
disgraceful business were accurately put before them; and the narrator
was in the very middle of his tale when M. de Vandenesse heard the clock
strike nine. Then it became clear to him that his legal adviser was very
emphatically an idiot who must be sent forthwith about his business. He
stopped him resolutely with a gesture.
“The tongs, my lord Marquis?” queried the notary, handing the object in
question to his client.
“No, monsieur, I am compelled to send you away. Mme. d’Aiglemont wishes
to join her children, and I shall have the honor of escorting her.”
“Nine o’clock already! Time goes like a shadow in pleasant company,”
said the man of law, who had talked on end for the past hour.
He looked for his hat, planted himself before the fire, with a
suppressed hiccough; and, without heeding the Marquise’s withering
glances, spoke once more to his impatient client:
“To sum up, my lord Marquis. Business before all things. To-morrow,
then, we must subpoena your brother; we will proceed to make out the
inventory, and faith, after that----”
So ill had the lawyer understood his instructions, that his impression
was the exact opposite to the one intended. It was a delicate matter,
and Vandenesse, in spite of himself, began to put the thick-headed
notary right. The discussion which followed took up a certain amount of
time.
“Listen,” the diplomatist said at last at a sign from the lady, “You are
puzzling my brains; come back to-morrow, and if the writ is not issued
by noon to-morrow, the days of grace will expire, and then--”
As he spoke, a carriage entered the courtyard. The poor woman turned
sharply away at the sound to hide the tears in her eyes. The Marquis
rang to give the servant orders to say that he was not at home; but
before the footman could answer the bell, the lady’s husband reappeared.
He had returned unexpectedly from the Gaieté, and held both children by
the hand. The little girl’s eyes were red; the boy was fretful and very
cross.
“What can have happened?” asked the Marquise.
“I will tell you by and by,” said the General, and catching a glimpse
through an open door of newspapers on the table in the adjoining
sitting-room, he went off. The Marquise, at the end of her patience,
flung herself down on the sofa in desperation. The notary, thinking it
incumbent upon him to be amiable with the children, spoke to the little
boy in an insinuating tone:
“Well, my little man, and what is there on at the theatre?”
“_The Valley of the Torrent_,” said Gustave sulkily.
“Upon my word and honor,” declared the notary, “authors nowadays are
half crazy. _The Valley of the Torrent_! Why not the Torrent of the
Valley? It is conceivable that a valley might be without a torrent in
it; now if they had said the Torrent of the Valley, that would have
been something clear, something precise, something definite and
comprehensible. But never mind that. Now, how is the drama to take place
in a torrent and in a valley? You will tell me that in these days the
principal attraction lies in the scenic effect, and the title is a
capital advertisement.--And did you enjoy it, my little friend?” he
continued, sitting down before the child.
When the notary pursued his inquiries as to the possibilities of a drama
in the bed of a torrent, the little girl turned slowly away and began to
cry. Her mother did not notice this in her intense annoyance.
“Oh! yes, monsieur, I enjoyed it very much,” said the child. “There is a
dear little boy in the play, and he was all alone in the world, because
his papa could not have been his real papa. And when he came to the top
of the bridge over the torrent, a big, naughty man with a beard, dressed
all in black, came and threw him into the water. And then Helene began
to sob and cry, and everybody scolded us, and father brought us away
quick, quick----”
M. de Vandenesse and the Marquise looked on in dull amazement, as if all
power to think or move had been suddenly paralyzed.
“Do be quiet, Gustave!” cried the General. “I told you that you were not
to talk about anything that happened at the play, and you have forgotten
what I said already.”
“Oh, my lord Marquis, your lordship must excuse him,” cried the notary.
“I ought not to have asked questions, but I had no idea--”
“He ought not to have answered them,” said the General, looking sternly
at the child.
It seemed that the Marquise and the master of the house both perfectly
understood why the children had come back so suddenly. Mme. d’Aiglemont
looked at her daughter, and rose as if to go to her, but a terrible
convulsion passed over her face, and all that could be read in it was
relentless severity.
“That will do, Helene,” she said. “Go into the other room, and leave off
crying.”
“What can she have done, poor child!” asked the notary, thinking to
appease the mother’s anger and to stop Helene’s tears at one stroke. “So
pretty as she is, she must be as good as can be; never anything but a
joy to her mother, I will be bound. Isn’t that so, my little girl?”
Helene cowered, looked at her mother, dried her eyes, struggled for
composure, and took refuge in the next room.
“And you, madame, are too good a mother not to love all your children
alike. You are too good a woman, besides, to have any of those
lamentable preferences which have such fatal effects, as we lawyers have
only too much reason to know. Society goes through our hands; we see its
passions in that most revolting form, greed. Here it is the mother of a
family trying to disinherit her husband’s children to enrich the others
whom she loves better; or it is the husband who tries to leave all his
property to the child who has done his best to earn his mother’s hatred.
And then begin quarrels, and fears, and deeds, and defeasances, and sham
sales, and trusts, and all the rest of it; a pretty mess, in fact, it
is pitiable, upon my honor, pitiable! There are fathers that will spend
their whole lives in cheating their children and robbing their wives.
Yes, robbing is the only word for it. We were talking of tragedy; oh!
I can assure you of this that if we were at liberty to tell the real
reasons of some donations that I know of, our modern dramatists would
have the material for some sensational _bourgeois_ dramas. How the wife
manages to get her way, as she invariably does, I cannot think; for in
spite of appearances, and in spite of their weakness, it is always the
women who carry the day. Ah! by the way, they don’t take _me_ in. I
always know the reason at the bottom of those predilections which the
world politely styles ‘unaccountable.’ But in justice to the husbands, I
must say that _they_ never discover anything. You will tell me that this
is a merciful dispens--”
Helene had come back to the drawing-room with her father, and was
listening attentively. So well did she understand all that was said,
that she gave her mother a frightened glance, feeling, with a child’s
quick instinct, that these remarks would aggravate the punishment
hanging over her. The Marquise turned her white face to Vandenesse; and,
with terror in her eyes, indicated her husband, who stood with his eyes
fixed absently on the flower pattern of the carpet. The diplomatist,
accomplished man of the world though he was, could no longer contain his
wrath, he gave the man of law a withering glance.
“Step this way, sir,” he said, and he went hurriedly to the door of the
ante-chamber; the notary left his sentence half finished, and followed,
quaking, and the husband and wife were left together.
“Now, sir” said the Marquise de Vandenesse--he banged the drawing-room
door, and spoke with concentrated rage--“ever since dinner you have done
nothing but make blunders and talk folly. For heaven’s sake, go. You
will make the most frightful mischief before you have done. If you are
a clever man in your profession, keep to your profession; and if by any
chance you should go into society, endeavor to be more circumspect.”
With that he went back to the drawing-room, and did not even wish
the notary good-evening. For a moment that worthy stood dumfounded,
bewildered, utterly at a loss. Then, when the buzzing in his ears
subsided, he thought he heard someone moaning in the next room.
Footsteps came and went, and bells were violently rung. He was by no
means anxious to meet the Marquis again, and found the use of his
legs to make good his escape, only to run against a hurrying crowd of
servants at the door.
“Just the way of all these grand folk,” said he to himself outside in
the street as he looked about for a cab. “They lead you on to talk with
compliments, and you think you are amusing them. Not a bit of it. They
treat you insolently; put you at a distance; even put you out at the
door without scruple. After all, I talked very cleverly, I said nothing
but what was sensible, well turned, and discreet; and, upon my word, he
advises me to be more circumspect in future. I will take good care
of that! Eh! the mischief take it! I am a notary and a member of my
chamber!--Pshaw! it was an ambassador’s fit of temper, nothing is sacred
for people of that kind. To-morrow he shall explain what he meant by
saying that I had done nothing but blunder and talk nonsense in his
house. I will ask him for an explanation--that is, I will ask him
to explain my mistake. After all is done and said, I am in the wrong
perhaps---- Upon my word, it is very good of me to cudgel my brains like
this. What business is it of mine?”
So the notary went home and laid the enigma before his spouse, with a
complete account of the evening’s events related in sequence.
And she replied, “My dear Crottat, His Excellency was perfectly right
when he said that you had done nothing but blunder and talk folly.”
“Why?”
“My dear, if I told you why, it would not prevent you from doing the
same thing somewhere else to-morrow. I tell you again--talk of nothing
but business when you go out; that is my advice to you.”
“If you will not tell me, I shall ask him to-morrow--”
“Why, dear me! the veriest noodle is careful to hide a thing of that
kind, and do you suppose that an ambassador will tell you about
it? Really, Crottat, I have never known you so utterly devoid of
common-sense.”
“Thank you, my dear.”