DESPAIR
As Luc stood at the window of his modest bedroom the night of the
fête, he was thinking of two definite themes, curiously woven and
twisted into one strand of reflection.
The first theme was the diamond ring he had seen the Countess Carola
wearing. He wondered how she came by it, and he was rather vexed by
the thought that perhaps the page had never told his master it had
been refused, but kept and sold it secretly; for that it was the same
jewel he had held in his hand in the Governor’s house at Avignon that
was now in the possession of the Polish lady he did not, in his heart,
for a moment doubt.
The second theme, in no way connected, yet mingled, with the other,
was the man he had held that curious conversation with in the
fairylike pavilion at Versailles--a man with life strong within him,
yet tired of life, the most melancholy of spectacles, and one new to
Luc.
While men like this one and M. de Richelieu held the great places
of the land, perhaps M. de Biron was right in saying that penniless,
unsupported zeal would find no scope in Paris.
Perhaps, after all, Roland was dead at Roncesvalles, Charlemagne
buried, and all the peers perished, taking chivalry with them to their
graves.
The moon had long since set, and a vivid dawn was spreading above the
housetops of the little town.
Luc softly opened the window and looked out, up and down the bare,
silent little street, fresh and clean in the new light. Supposing it
was all a delusion, supposing glory always evaded him, vanished into
clouds of disappointment, supposing he was always met by the cold look
those blue eyes had turned on him last night?
Ah, well, in that case it would have been far better if he had died
with Hippolyte de Seytres in Prague or with Georges d’Espagnac among
the snow and darkness. And Carola--his highest thoughts had clung to
the vision of her very tenderly. But what did he know of her?
In the cold silence of the dawn he asked himself if he loved her,
if she was worthy to be loved; also what her eyes had said when she
raised them from the wallflower stalk she was turning about in her
long, expressive, smooth fingers.
He thought those eyes, so full of inspiration and courage and
eagerness, had said, “This is love--somewhere between us--shall we
find it or lose it?”
He trembled at the thought, which he had, till now, never dared
formulate; but he could not dismiss it. That look of hers had touched
his conception of her with fire. He now admitted to himself that
he had been stung keenly to see her wearing a jewel once in the
possession of M. de Richelieu; it caused him to think of the wretched
magician’s last words, addressed to the young Duke: “Beware of her
who comes from Bohemia!” He found himself wishing that she was neither
so wealthy nor so highly placed; yet it was no matter to him. If she
was worthy to be loved he could love her as Rudel loved the Lady of
Tripoli, and she need never know it even. He sternly checked his
thoughts. What did he know of her? She was a foreigner; her conduct
towards him had been always cold; and he--he had his place to find,
his way to make, his goal to achieve.
He closed the window and sat down rather wearily, resting his head
against the mullions. The little room was full of a melancholy light,
the furniture enveloped with heavy shadows. A large black crucifix
above the curtained bed showed distinct and gloomy; it recalled to
Luc the noble of the pavilion, with his horror of death, his distaste
of life, weighed down by the shadow of the Cross, blind to the roses,
yawning in the face of the moon.
He rose with a little shiver and began pacing up and down the room;
his old fierce yearning for his former life suddenly rushed over him.
He wanted to be away from all these people, out on the march again
with his beloved companions, Hippolyte and Georges.
He paused and clutched the back of a chair in his effort to control
this sudden passionate desire for the past, and fixed his eyes on the
square of lightening sky above the roofs that were slowly beginning to
take on colour and shape and shadow.
A decided but light knock at his door recalled him to commonplace
things. He glanced instinctively at the brass bracket clock near the
window; it was a little after three o’clock. He wondered who could be
rousing him at this hour, and almost persuaded himself that he had not
heard the knock, when it was repeated, firmly, twice.
The Marquis went to the door at once and opened it. Immediately
outside, half obscured by the dim shadows of the landing, was a young
man, fully dressed like himself.
“Your pardon, Monsieur,” he said at once, in an even, sweet voice;
“are you not an Abbé?”
“No,” answered Luc, greatly amazed.
“Ah, forgive me; I thought I had been told that an Abbé lodged here.”
He seemed slightly disappointed, but made no movement of leaving.
“Are you staying in this house, Monsieur?” asked Luc.
“Yes; I have the chambers opposite.” He glanced with a smile at Luc’s
blue velvet and black satins, court sword and powdered hair. “You have
not been sleeping either, I perceive,” he added.
“I was at the fête last night,” answered the Marquis, “and fell into
thought when I returned, and now it seems strange to go to bed by
daylight.”
The young man hesitated a moment, while Luc held the door courteously
open.
“Are you alone?” he asked at last.
“I have my servant--he is asleep in the other chamber.”
Again the other hesitated, then said with a kind of wistful
earnestness--
“Monsieur, would you come to my room and keep me company a little
while? I thought if you had been a priest I could have asked this
in the name of God. As it is, may I ask it in the name of our common
youth, our common humanity?”
“I have no reason in the world for refusing,” answered the Marquis;
“but if you require a priest, shall I not go for one? There is, I
think, a convent near by.”
The young man shook his head.
“No, if you will come, Monsieur--just for a little while.”
Luc closed his own door and followed the other across the landing into
the room opposite.
He found it was much larger than his own and rather gloomily
furnished. The house was old, and the floor was sloping in this room
and the two windows with the deep sills had slightly sunk; the walls
were panelled in black waxed oak, and the ceiling was low and beamed.
A heavy bed, with dark blue brocade curtains drawn closely round
it, stood in one corner, and near it hung a long mirror in a thick
tortoiseshell frame; in the murky depths of the greenish glass the
rest of the chamber was reflected.
A brass hand-lamp and an hour-glass stood on a circular worm-eaten oak
table between the windows, from which the sombre tapestry curtains had
been looped back.
Hanging on the wall above this table was a black crucifix similar to
that which the Marquis had in his own apartment.
The few chairs were large and worn, with sunken seats and arms
polished with much use. The occupier of this ordinary, yet gloomy,
apartment offered one of these chairs to the Marquis and took one
himself, seating himself with his back to the light and his face
towards Luc.
The light, though increasing every moment, was still grey and
colourless, and only entered with difficulty through the deep-set
small windows.
Luc looked keenly at the stranger.
He saw a man of no more than his own age, of the appearance of a
well-bred gentleman, dressed in a worn suit of dark red corded
tabinet, with a plain muslin shirt ruffled at the neck and wrists; he
wore a simple sword, ornamented by a bunch of steel tassels hanging
from the scabbard, and a lady’s handkerchief, deeply bordered with
lace, beneath the black band of his neck ribbon.
Owing to the way in which he sat and his attitude, with his head
slightly bent, Luc could not clearly distinguish his features; but his
hair, which was a bright brown, inclined to reddish, and gathered into
a club, was full in the meagre light of the window.
“In what way can I serve you, Monsieur?” asked the Marquis. He was
slightly interested, slightly diverted, but weary mentally and languid
after his sleepless night. His pure, proud face was thrown up by the
strengthening dawn against the old black chair in which he sat, and
his deep grey eyes rested on the other with perfect courtesy and
perfect serenity.
“I am the Marquis de Vauvenargues, formerly of the _régiment du roi_,”
he said.
The young man moved suddenly, looped the curtain yet farther back, and
pulled his chair round so that the light fell over his face; it was
like taking a mask from his features, so suddenly were countenance and
personality revealed.
He had, as the Marquis noticed with a slight sense of horror,
something of the look of Georges d’Espagnac in his fair, regular
outline; but his expression was one of hopeless despair, keen
wretchedness, and bitter self-contempt. His light brown eyes were sunk
and shadowed, his mouth strained, his cheeks hollow; over his whole
face was a bluish tinge that contrasted with the bright colour of his
hair. This might have been caused by the chill, hard light of the
dawn, or the effect of ill-health. Whatever the reason of it, it gave
him a peculiar, ghastly appearance.
Luc sat forward in his chair; for the second time within a few
hours he was looking at an expression of absolute despair on a
young, fair face. He compared the two countenances--the seen and the
remembered--and there was this great difference in them, that, whereas
the noble in the pavilion had revealed the bitter languor of satiety,
the faded distaste of life caused by unending pleasure and cloying
luxury, this man looked like one who had burnt out his soul in some
useless endeavour, and was now on the verge of uttermost failure.
“Monsieur,” said the Marquis, not without a tremor in his tone, “why
did you ask my company?”
“Ah,” replied the other, in a voice that had retained more of its
youth and freshness than his face, “you are afraid that I am about to
disturb your tranquillity by some recital of grief; but you need not
be. And besides,” he added, “you are as serene as a very old monk who
has never left his cloister--I can see it in your eyes.”
“Not so serene,” replied Luc, “that I am not troubled by the sight of
despair, and I have looked on it before this night.”
“Very well, Monsieur,” was the answer: “return to your room and forget
I ever broke in upon your meditations.”
“Who are you?” asked Luc.
“A painter--perhaps a poet.”
“What have you done with your life,” asked the Marquis, “that at your
age you seem so hopeless?”
The painter smiled bitterly.
“I have wasted all my years in the quest of glory.”
Luc felt the blood beating at his heart.
“And you have found----?” he questioned half fearfully.
“I have found that there is no such thing as glory on earth. And I
have no belief in any heaven.”
As he spoke these words his face took on another tinge of pallor and a
certain rigidity came over his features, giving them a look of death.
“You are unfortunate,” said Luc; “but you cannot say glory is not
there because you have not achieved it with a paint-brush and a few
yards of canvas.”
The painter broke into long and harsh laughter.
“That is good, very good!” he cried. “And you still believe in it,
though you have failed to gain it with your sword and your cannon and
all your noisy details of war?”
The Marquis rose and paced up and down the waxed, uneven floor. The
painter’s laughter ended suddenly.
“If you could question the god, the creature, the beast who made me,”
he said fiercely, “you would see that I commenced my life searching
for the ideal--the ideal love, the ideal work, the ideal reward at
the end of it; and though my heart was pure, my courage high, and my
industry enormous, I failed in everything--the world played me false
every time, every time; and now I am a moral bankrupt, who does not
even possess the asset of hope.”
“You have had terrible experiences, to make you speak like this,”
answered the Marquis, in a moved tone.
“I have had all experiences, and I have found out that glory is only
the lure used to beguile us to our wretched, our solitary ends.”
“I think,” said Luc, “you never discovered the true meaning of it.”
The painter lifted eyes in which there gleamed the feeble remains of
what had once been the noble fires of enthusiasm and ambition.
“I understand the meaning very well,” he replied; then he rose from
his chair and stood looking out at the neat quiet street.
Luc was silent. Tremendous thoughts assailed him--why could he not
bring comfort down from the clouds to console this man?--why could
he not lend him a spark from his own fire to rekindle the desire for
glory in his breast?
Presently he said--
“Monsieur, you are still so young.” The words sounded commonplace even
to himself, and the artist made no answer.
“I should like to see your pictures,” said the Marquis. Now the light
was strengthening, he observed a pile of canvases standing against the
wall by the side of the bed.
The painter answered without turning his head--
“I painted a picture once that Watteau, or Boucher, or Fragonard might
have been pleased to sign. It was a portrait of the woman I loved.”
“Where is it now?” asked Luc.
“In her house, I think. I found her in the gutters of St. Antoine--she
left me in a silk dress I had starved myself to buy, I never succeeded
after that, and as I went down she went up, and now you will find very
high personages indeed at her little suppers. She is now, I believe, a
spy among the Courts of Europe--and once she was my inspiration,” he
added, in a dry tone.
The sordidness of this disgusted Luc.
“It is weakness to pin your fortunes to the skirts of a woman,” he
said.
The painter looked at him.
“Are _you_ going your way uncheered by any thought of any woman? Can
you manage without laying your ambitions at some one’s feet?”
Luc flushed.
“I have never met the woman who could break my heart,” he answered.
“Yet----” added the painter. “As for my picture,” he continued, “I
took her, for some reason, as Bellona, with the hounds in leash and
her drapery carried by a light wind. The drapery was very well put in.”
The daylight was now full in the sombre room, and the dark furniture
stood out clear against the shining walls; it fully revealed, too,
the young artist, and showed that his peculiar pallor was no trick of
light, but the colour of his face.
Luc watched him keenly. There seemed a wildness in his words, in his
expression, in his action in asking for the company of a stranger,
that made Luc think that perhaps some anguish had sent him out of his
wits; but even while he was thinking this, and wondering what comfort
he could offer, the painter turned in a perfectly composed manner, and
raising the hour-glass from the table between the windows, looked at
it with a smile.
The sand had nearly run through.
“Now I will keep you no longer, Monsieur,” he said, in an even
voice. “And if you wish to see my pictures--there is one I should
like to show you, a little later in the morning; it is not yet quite
completed.”
Luc could see no brushes, paints, or easel in the plain bedchamber,
nor any sign that the painter could finish any canvas; again he
thought he detected a wildness in the man’s speech.
“I shall be glad to see you again,” he said. “I fear this visit,
Monsieur, has been of little use; but since you would give me no
confidence, I could give you no consolation.”
The painter smiled; he was still looking at the hour-glass.
“Where there is no hope, how can there be any consolation?” he
replied. “You have rendered me all the service I required--half an
hour’s company.”
He set down the hour-glass, went to the door and opened it.
“You are searching for glory, are you not, Monsieur?” he asked, as Luc
passed him. “Well, the word is a lie; there is no such thing--it is
all a cloud of delusion; and when you have pierced the cloud, you find
there is nothing there but the blankness of despair.”
“No!” cried Luc, with energy. “No!”
The painter shook his head in contradiction with a ghastly smile and
closed the door on the Marquis, who heard immediately the bolts being
slipped into place.