AN INHARMONIOUS MUSICALE
The visitors referred to in the conversation between the two friends
arrived at the castle at an early hour, according to the custom in the
country, where they dine in the middle of the day. Gerfaut saw from his
chamber, where he had remained like Achilles under his tent, half a dozen
carriages drive one after another up the avenue, bringing the guests
announced by Marillac. Little by little the company scattered through
the gardens in groups; four or five young girls under Aline's escort
hurried to a swing, to which several good-natured young men attached
themselves, and among them Gerfaut recognized his Pylades. During this
time Madame de Bergenheim was doing the honors of the house to the
matrons, who thought this amusement too youthful for their age and
preferred a quiet walk through the park. Christian, on his side, was
explaining methods of improvements to gentlemen of agricultural and
industrial appearance, who seemed to listen to him with great interest.
Three or four others had taken possession of the billiard-table; while
the more venerable among the guests had remained in the parlor with
Mademoiselle de Corandeuil.
"Have you a pair of clean trousers?" asked Marillac, hastily entering
his friend's room as the first bell rang for dinner. An enormous green
stain upon one of his knees was all the explanation necessary on this
subject.
"You, lose no time," said Gerfaut, as he opened a drawer in his closet.
"Which of these rustic beauties has had the honor of seeing you on your
knees at her feet?"
"It was that confounded swing! Silly invention! To sacrifice one's self
to please little girls! If I am ever caught at it again I'll let you
know! Your selfish method is a better, one. By the way, Madame de
Bergenheim asked me, with a rather sly look, whether you were ill and
whether you would not come down to dinner?"
"Irony!"
"It: seemed like it. The lady smiled in a decidedly disagreeable manner.
I am not timid, but I would rather write a vaudeville in three acts than
to be obliged to make a declaration to her if she had that impish smile
on her lips. She has a way of protruding her under lip-ugh! do you know
you are terribly slender? Will you let me cut the band of your trousers?
I never could dance with my stomach compressed in this manner."
"What about this secret you were to reveal to me?" Gerfaut interrupted,
with a smile which seemed to denote perfect security.
Marillac looked at his friend with a grave countenance, then began to
laugh in an embarrassed manner.
"We will leave serious matters until to-morrow," he replied. "The
essential thing to-day is to make ourselves agreeable. Madame de
Bergenheim asked me a little while ago whether we would be kind enough to
sing a few duets? I accepted for us both. I do not suppose that the
inhabitants of this valley have often heard the duet from Mose with the
embellishments a la Tamburini:
Palpito a quello aspetto,
'Gemo nel suo dolor.'
Would you prefer that or the one from 'Il Barbiere'? although that is
out of date, now."
"Whatever pleases you, but do not split my head about it in advance.
I wish that music and dancing were at the bottom of the Moselle."
"With all my heart, but not the dinner. I gave a glance into the dining-
room; it promises to be very fine. Now, then, everybody has returned to
the house; to the table!"
The time has long since passed when Paris and the province formed two
regions almost foreign to each other. To-day, thanks to the rapidity of
communication, and the importations of all kinds which reach the centre
from the circumference without having time to spoil on the way, Paris and
the rest of France are only one immense body excited by the same
opinions, dressed in the same fashions, laughing at the same bon mot,
revolutionized by the same opinions.
Provincial customs have almost entirely lost their peculiarities; a
drawing-room filled with guests is the same everywhere. There are
sometimes exceptions, however. The company gathered at the Bergenheim
chateau was an example of one of those heterogeneous assemblies which the
most exclusive mistress of a mansion can not avoid if she wishes to be
neighborly, and in which a duchess may have on her right at the table the
village mayor, and the most elegant of ladies a corpulent justice of the
peace who believes he is making himself agreeable when he urges his fair
neighbor to frequent potations.
Madame de Bergenheim had discovered symptoms of haughty jealousy among
her country neighbors, always ready to feel themselves insulted and very
little qualified to make themselves agreeable in society. So she
resolved to extend a general invitation to all those whom she felt
obliged to receive, in order to relieve herself at once of a nuisance for
which no pleasure could prove an equivalent. This day was one of her
duty days.
Among these ladies, much more gorgeously than elegantly attired, these
healthy young girls with large arms, and feet shaped like flat-irons,
ponderous gentlemen strangled by their white cravats and puffed up in
their frock-coats, Gerfaut, whose nervous system had been singularly
irritated by his disappointment of the night before, felt ready to burst
with rage. He was seated at the table between two ladies, who seemed to
have exhausted, in their toilettes, every color in the solar spectrum,
and whose coquettish instincts were aroused by the proximity of a
celebrated writer. But their simperings were all lost; the one for whom
they were intended bore himself in a sulky way, which fortunately passed
for romantic melancholy; this rendered him still more interesting in the
eyes of his neighbor on the left, a plump blonde about twenty-five years
old, fresh and dimpled, who doted upon Lord Byron, a common pretension
among pretty, buxom women who adore false sentimentality.
With the exception of a bow when he entered the drawing-room, Octave had
not shown Madame de Bergenheim any attention. The cold, disdainful,
bored manner in which he patiently endured the pleasures of the day
exceeded even the privilege for boorish bearing willingly granted to
gentlemen of unquestionable talent. Clemence, on the contrary, seemed to
increase in amiability and liveliness. There was not one of her tiresome
guests to whom she did not address some pleasant remark, not one of those
vulgar, pretentious women to whom she was not gracious and attentive; one
would have said that she had a particular desire to be more attractive
than usual, and that her lover's sombre air added materially to her good
humor.
After dinner they retired to the drawing-room where coffee was served.
A sudden shower, whose drops pattered loudly against the windows,
rendered impossible all plans for amusement out of doors. Gerfaut soon
noticed a rather animated conversation taking place between Madame de
Bergenheim, who was somewhat embarrassed as to how to amuse her guests
for the remainder of the afternoon, and Marillac, who, with his
accustomed enthusiasm, had constituted himself master of ceremonies. A
moment later, the drawing-room door opened, and servants appeared bending
under the burden of an enormous grand piano which was placed between the
windows. At this sight, a tremor of delight ran through the group of
young girls, while Octave, who was standing in one corner near the
mantel, finished his Mocha with a still more melancholy air.
"Now, then!" said Marillac, who had been extremely busy during these
preparations, and had spread a dozen musical scores upon the top of the
piano, "it is agreed that we shall sing the duet from Mose. There are
two or three little boarding-school misses here whose mothers are dying
for them to show off. You understand that we must sacrifice ourselves to
encourage them. Besides, a duet for male voices is the thing to open a
concert with."
"A concert! has Madame de Bergenheim arranged to pasture us in this
sheepfold in order to make use of us this evening?" replied Gerfaut,
whose ill-humor increased every moment.
"Five or six pieces only, afterward they will have a dance. I have an
engagement with your diva; if you wish for a quadrille and have not yet
secured your number, I should advise you to ask her for it now, for there
are five or six dandies who seem to be terribly attentive to her. After
our duet I shall sing the trio from La Date Blanche, with those young
ladies who have eyes as round as a fish's, and apricot-colored gowns on--
those two over there in the corner, near that pretty blonde who sat
beside you at table and ogled you all the time. She had already bored me
to death! I do not know whether I shall be able to hit my low 'G' right
or not. I have a cataclysm of charlotte-russe in my stomach. Just
listen:
'A cette complaisance!--'"
Marillac leaned toward his friend and roared in his ear the note supposed
to be the "G" in question.
"Like an ophicleide," said Gerfaut, who could not help laughing at the
importance the artist attached to his display of talent.
"In that case I shall risk my great run at the end of the first solo.
Two octaves from 'E' to 'E'! Zuchelli was good enough to give me a few
points as to the time, and I do it rather nicely."
"Madame would like to speak to Monsieur," said a servant, who interrupted
him in the midst of his sentence.
"Dolce, soave amor," warbled the artist, softly, as he responded to the
call from the lady of the house, trying to fix in his mind that run,
which he regarded as one of the most beautiful flowers in his musical
crown.
Everybody was seated, Madame de Bergenheim sat at the piano and Marillac
stood behind her. The artist selected one of the scores, spread it out
on the rack, turned down the corners so that during the execution he
might not be stopped by some refractory leaf, coughed in his deep bass
voice, placed himself in such a manner as to show the side of his head
which he thought would produce the best effect upon the audience, then
gave a knowing nod to Gerfaut, who still stood gloomy and isolated in a
far corner.
"We trespass upon your kindness too much, Monsieur," said Madame de
Bergenheim to him, when he had responded to this mute invitation; and as
she struck a few chords, she raised her dark, brown eyes to his. It was
the first glance she had given him that day; from coquetry, perhaps, or
because sorrow for her lover had softened her heart, or because she felt
remorse for the extreme harshness of her note the night before, we must
admit that this glance had nothing very discouraging in it. Octave
bowed, and spoke a few words as coldly polite as he would have spoken to
a woman sixty years of age.
Madame de Bergenheim lowered her eyes and endeavored to smile
disdainfully, as she struck the first bars of the duet.
The concert began. Gerfaut had a sweet, clear, tenor voice which he used
skilfully, gliding over dangerous passages, skipping too difficult ones
which he thought beyond his execution, singing, in fact, with the
prudence of an amateur who can not spend his time studying runs and
chromatic passages four hours daily. He sang his solo with a simplicity
bordering upon negligence, and even substituted for the rather
complicated passage at the end a more than modest ending.
Clemence, for whom he had often sung, putting his whole soul into the
performance, was vexed with this affectation of indifference. It seemed
to her as if he ought, for her sake, to make more of an effort in her
drawing-room, whatever might be their private quarrel; she felt it was a
consideration due to her and to which his numerous homages had accustomed
her. She entered this new grievance in a double-entry book, which a
woman always devotes to the slightest actions of the man who pays court
to her.
Marillac, on the contrary, was grateful to his friend for this
indifference of execution, for he saw in it an occasion to shine at his
expense. He began his solo 'E il ciel per noi sereno,' with an unusual
tension of the larynx, roaring out his low notes. Except for the
extension being a little irregular and unconnected, he did not acquit
himself very badly in the first part. When he reached his final run,
he took a long breath, as if it devolved upon him to set in motion all
the windmills in Montmartre, and started with a majestic fury; the first
forty notes, while they did not resemble Mademoiselle Grisi's pearly
tones, ascended and descended without any notable accident; but at the
last stages of the descent, the singer's breath and voice failed him at
the same moment, the "A" came out weak, the "G" was stifled, the "F"
resembled the buzzing of a bee, and the "E" was absent!
Zuchelli's run was like one of those Gothic staircases which show an
almost complete state of preservation upon the upper floor, but whose
base, worn by time, leaves a solution of continuity between the ground
and the last step.
Madame de Bergenheim waited the conclusion of this dangerous run, not
thinking to strike the final chord; the only sound heard was the rustling
of the dilettante's beard, as his chin sought his voice in vain in the
depths of his satin cravat, accompanied by applause from a benevolent old
lady who had judged of the merit of the execution by the desperate
contortions of the singer.
"D--n that charlotte-russe!" growled the artist, whose face was as red
as a lobster.
The rest of the duet was sung without any new incident, and gave general
satisfaction.
"Madame, your piano is half a tone too low," said the basso, with a
reproachful accent.
"That is true," replied Clemence, who could not restrain a smile; "I have
so little voice that I am obliged to have my piano tuned to suit it. You
can well afford to pardon me for my selfishness, for you sang like an
angel."
Marillac bowed, partly consoled by this compliment, but thinking to
himself that a hostess's first duty was to have her piano in tune, and
not to expose a bass singer to the danger of imperilling his low "E"
before an audience of forty.
"Madame, can I be of any more service to you?" asked Gerfaut, as he
leaned toward Madame de Bergenheim, with one of his coldest smiles.
"I do not wish to impose further upon your kindness, Monsieur," said she,
in a voice which showed her secret displeasure.
The poet bowed and walked away.
Then Clemence, upon general request, sang a romance with more taste than
brilliancy, and more method than expression. It seemed as if Octave's
icy manner had reacted upon her, in spite of the efforts she had made at
first to maintain a cheerful air. A singular oppression overcame her;
once or twice she feared her voice would fail her entirely. When she
finished, the compliments and applause with which she was overwhlemed
seemed so insupportable to her that it was with difficulty she could
restrain herself from leaving the room. While exasperated by her
weakness, she could not help casting a glance in Octave's direction.
She could not catch his eye, however, as he was busy talking with Aline.
She felt so lonely and deserted at this moment, and longed so for this
glance which she could not obtain, that tears of vexation filled her
eyes.
"I was wrong to write him as I did," thought she; "but if he really loved
me, he would not so quickly resign himself to obeying me!"
A woman in a drawing-room resembles a soldier on a breastwork; self-
abnegation is the first of her duties; however much she may suffer, she
must present as calm and serene a countenance as a warrior in the hour of
danger, and fall, if necessary, upon the spot, with death in her heart
and a smile upon her lips. In order to obey this unwritten law, Madame
de Bergenheim, after a slight interruption, seated herself at the piano
to accompany three or four young girls who were each to sing in turn the
songs that they had been drilled on for six months.
Marillac, who had gone to strengthen his stomach with a glass of rum,
atoned for his little mishap, in the trio from La Dame Blanche, and
everything went smoothly. Finally, to close this concert (may heaven
preserve us from all exhibitions of this kind!), Aline was led to the
piano by her brother, who, like all people who are not musical, could not
understand why one should study music for years if not from love for the
art. Christian was fond of his little sister and very proud of her
talents. The poor child, whose courage had all disappeared, sang in a
fresh, trembling little voice, a romance revised and corrected at her
boarding-school. The word love had been replaced by that of friendship,
and to repair this slight fault of prosody, the extra syllable
disappeared in a hiatus which would have made Boileau's blond wig stand
on end. But the Sacred Heart has a system of versification of its own
which, rather than allow the dangerous expression to be used, let ultra-
modesty destroy poetry!
This sample of sacred music was the final number of the concert; after
that, they began dancing, and Gerfaut invited Aline. Whether because he
wished to struggle against his ill-humor, or from kindness of heart
because he understood her emotion, he began to talk with the young girl,
who was still blushing at her success. Among his talents, Octave
possessed in a peculiar degree that of adapting his conversation to the
age, position, and character of his companions. Aline listened with
unconcealed pleasure to her partner's words; the elasticity of her step
and a sort of general trembling made her seem like a flower swaying to
the breeze, and revealed the pleasure which his conversation gave her.
Every time her eyes met Octave's penetrating glance they fell, out of
instinctive modesty. Each word, however indifferent it might be, rang in
her ears sweet and melodious; each contact with his hand seemed to her
like a tender pressure.
Gerfaut experienced a feeling of melancholy as he noticed how this fresh,
innocent rose brightened up at each word he uttered, and he thought:
"She would love me as I want to be loved, with all her heart, mind, and
soul. She would kneel before my love as before an altar, while this
coquette--"
He glanced in the direction where Madame de Bergenheim was dancing with
Marillac, and met her gaze fixed full upon him. The glance which he
received was rapid, displeased, and imperious. It signified clearly:
"I forbid you to speak thus to your partner."
Octave, at that moment; was not disposed to obedience. After glancing
over the quadrille, as if it were by mere chance that his eyes had met
Clemence's, he turned toward Aline and redoubled his amiability:
A moment later, he received, not directly, but through the medium of the
mirror--that so often indiscreet confidant--a second glance more sombre
and threatening than before.
"Very good," said he, to himself, as he led the young girl to her seat;
"we are jealous. That alters the situation. I know now where the
ramparts are the weakest and where to begin my attack."
No other incident marked the day. The guests left at nightfall, and the
society was reduced to the usual members of the household. Octave
entered his room after supper, humming an Italian air, evidently in such
good spirits that his friend was quite surprised.
"I give it up, I can not understand your conduct," said the latter; "you
have been as solemn as an owl all day, and now here you are as gay as a
lark; have you had an understanding?"
"I am more vexed than ever."
"And you enjoy being so?"
"Very much."
"Ah! you are playing 'who loses wins!'"
"Not exactly; but as my good sentiments lead to nothing, I hope to
conduct myself in such a disagreeable way as to force this capricious
creature to adore me."
"The devil! that is clever. Besides, it is a system as good as any
other. Women are such extraordinary creatures!"
"Woman," said Octave, "resembles a pendulum, whose movement is a
continual reaction; when it moves to the right, it has to go to the left
in order to return to the right again, and so on. Suppose virtue is on
one side and love on the other, and the feminine balance between them,
the odds are that, having moved to the right in a violent manner, it will
return none the less energetically to the left; for the longer a
vibration has been, the greater play the contrary vibration has. In
order to hasten the action of this pendulum I am about to attach to it--
to act as extra balance-weight--a little anguish which I ought to have
employed sooner."
"Why make her suffer, since you believe that she loves you?"
"Why? Because she drives me to it. Do you fancy that I torture her
willingly; that I take pleasure in seeing her cheeks grow pale from
insomnia and her eyes show traces of tears? I love her, I tell you;
I suffer and weep with her. But I love her, and I must make sure of her
love. If she will leave but a road full of brambles and sharp stones for
me to reach her, must I give up the struggle just because I run the risk
by taking her with me, of wounding her charming feet? I will cure them
with my kisses!"
"Listen to me! I am not in love; I am an artist. If I have some
peculiar ideas, it is not my fault. And you, in your character of docile
lover, have you decided to yield?"
"Morally."
"Very well! after all, you are right. The science of love resembles
those old signs upon which one reads: 'Here, hair is dressed according to
one's fancy.' If this angel wishes her hair pulled, do it for her."
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
I believed it all; one is so happy to believe!
It is a terrible step for a woman to take, from No to Yes
Lady who requires urging, although she is dying to sing
Let them laugh that win!
Let ultra-modesty destroy poetry
Misfortunes never come single
No woman is unattainable, except when she loves another
These are things that one admits only to himself
Topics that occupy people who meet for the first time
You are playing 'who loses wins!'