Next morning David went across to the village shop to buy some
daily necessaries, and found a few newspapers lying on the counter.
He bought a _Debats_, seeing that there was a long critique of
the Salon in it, and hurried home with it to Elise. She tore it
open and rushed through the article, putting him aside that he
might not look over her. Her face blanched as she read, and at the
end she flung the paper from her, and tottering to a chair sat
there motionless, staring straight before her. David, beside
himself with alarm, and finding caresses of no avail, took up the
paper from the floor.
'Let it alone!' she said to him with a sudden imperious gesture.
'There is a whole paragraph about Breal--her fortune is made. _La
voilà lancée--arrivée!_ And of me, not a line, not a mention!
Three or four pupils of Taranne--all beginners--but _my_
name--nowhere! Ah, but no--it is too much!'
Her little foot beat the ground, a hurricane was rising within her.
David tried to laugh the matter off. 'The man who wrote the wretched
thing had been hurried--was an idiot, clearly, and what did one
man's opinion matter, even if it were paid for at so much a column?'
'_Mais, tais-toi, donc!_' she cried at last, turning upon him in a
fury. '_Can't_ you see that everything for an artist--especially a
woman--depends on the _protections_ she gets at the beginning?
How can a girl--helpless--without friends--make her way by herself?
Some one must hold out a hand, and for me it seems there is no
one--no one!'
The outburst seemed to his common sense to imply the most grotesque
oblivion of her success in the Salon, of Taranne's kindness--the
most grotesque sensitiveness to a few casual lines of print. But it
wrung his heart to see her agitation, her pale face, the
handkerchief she was twisting to shreds in her restless hands. He
came to plead with her--his passion lending him eloquence. Let her
but trust herself and her gift. She had the praise of those she
revered to go upon. How should the carelessness of a single critic
affect her? _Imbéciles!_--they would be all with her, at her
feet, some day. Let her despise them then and now! But his
extravagances only made her impatient.
'Nonsense!' she said, drawing her hand away from him; 'I am not made
of such superfine stuff--I never pretended to be! Do you think I
should be content to be an unknown genius? _Never!_--I must
have my fame counted out to me in good current coin, that all the
world may hear and see. It may be vulgar--I don't care! it is so.
_Ah, mon Dieu!_' and she began to pace the room with wild
steps, 'and it is my fault--my fault! If I were there on the spot, I
should be remembered--they would have to reckon with me--I could
keep my claim in sight. But I have thrown away everything--wasted
everything--_everything!_'
He stood with his back to the window, motionless, his hand on
the table, stooping a little forward, looking at her with a
passion of reproach and misery; it only angered her; she lost all
self-control, and in one mad moment she avenged on his poor heart
all the wounds and vexations of her vanity. _Why_ had he ever
persuaded her? _Why_ had he brought her away and hung a fresh
burden on her life which she could never bear? Why had he done her
this irreparable injury--taken all simplicity and directness of aim
from her--weakened her energies at their source? Her only
_milieu_ was art, and he had made her desert it; her only
power was the painter's power, and it was crippled, the fresh
spring of it was gone. It was because she felt on her the weight of
a responsibility, and a claim she was not made for. She was not
made for love--for love at least as he understood it. And he had
her word, and would hold her to it. It was madness for both of
them. It was stifling--killing her!
Then she sank on a chair, in a passion of desperate tears.
Suddenly, as she sat there, she heard a movement, and looking up
she saw David at the door. He turned upon her for an instant, with
a dignity so tragic, so true, and yet so young, that she was
perforce touched, arrested. She held out a trembling hand, made a
little cry. But he closed the door softly, and was gone. She half
raised herself, then fell back again.
'If he had beaten me,' she said to herself with a strange smile, 'I
could have loved him. _Mais!_'
She was all day alone. When he came back it was already evening;
the stars shone in the June sky, but the sunset light was still in
the street and on the upper windows of the little house. As he
opened the garden gate and shut it behind him, he saw the gleam of
a lamp behind the acacia, and a light figure beside it. He stood a
moment wrestling with himself, for he was wearied out, and felt as
if he could bear no more. Then he moved slowly on.
Elise was sitting beside the lamp, her head bent over something
dark upon her lap. She had not heard the gate open, and she did not
hear his steps upon the grass. He came closer, and saw, to his
amazement, that she was busy with a coat of his--an old coat, in
the sleeve of which he had torn a great rent the day before, while
he was dragging her and himself through some underwood in the
forest. She--who loathed all womanly arts, who had often boasted to
him that she hardly knew how to use a needle!
In moving nearer, he brushed against the shrubs, and she heard him.
She turned her head, smiling. In the mingled light she looked like
a little white ghost, she was so pale and her eyes so heavy. When
she saw him, she raised her finger with a childish, aggrieved air,
and put it to her lips, rubbing it softly against them.
'It does prick so!' she said plaintively.
He came to sit beside her, his chest heaving.
'Why do you do that--for me?'
She shrugged her shoulders and worked on without speaking.
Presently she laid down her needle and surveyed him.
'Where have you been all day? Have you eaten nothing, poor friend?'
He tried to remember.
'I think not; I have been in the forest.'
A little quiver ran over her face; she pulled at her needle
violently and broke the thread.
'Finished!' she said, throwing down the coat and springing up.
'Don't tell your tailor who did it! I am for perfection in all
things--_abas l'amateur!_ Come in, it is supper-time past. I
will go and hurry Madame Pyat. _Tu dois avoir une faim de
loup_.'
He shook his head, smiling sadly.
'I tell you, you are hungry, you shall be hungry!' she cried,
suddenly flinging her arm round his neck, and nestling her fair
head against his shoulder. Her voice was half a sob.
'Oh, so I am!--so I am!' he said, with a wild emphasis, and would
have caught her to him. But she slipped away and ran before him to
the house, turning at the window with the sweetest, frankest
gesture to bid him follow.
They passed the evening close together, she on a stool leaning
against his knee, he reading aloud Alfred de Musset's _Nuit de
Mai_. At one moment she was all absorbed in the verse, carried
away by it; great battle-cry that it is! calling the artist from
the miseries of his own petty fate to the lordship of life and
nature as a whole; the next she had snatched the book out of his
hands and was correcting his accent, bidding him speak after her,
put his lips so. Never had she been so charming. It was the coaxing
charm of the softened child that cannot show its penitence enough.
Every now and then she fell to pouting because she could not move
him to gaiety. But in reality his sad and passive gentleness, the
mask of feelings which would otherwise have been altogether beyond
his control, served him with her better than any gaiety could have
done.
_Gaiety!_ it seemed to him his heart was broken.
At night, after a troubled sleep, he suddenly woke, and sprang up
in an agony. _Gone!_ was she gone already? For that was what
her sweet ways meant. Ah, he had known it all along!
Where was she? His wild eyes for a second or two saw nothing but
the landscape of his desolate dream. Then gradually the familiar
forms of the room emerged from the gloom, and there--against the
further wall--she lay, so still, so white, so gracious! Her
childish arm, bare to the elbow, was thrown round her head, her
soft waves of hair made a confusion on the pillow. After her long
day of emotion she was sleeping profoundly. Whatever cruel secret
her heart might hold, she was there still, his yet, for a few hours
and days. He was persuaded in his own mind that her penitence had
been the mere fruit of a compromise with herself, their month had
still eight days to run, then--_adieu!_ Art and liberty should
reclaim their own. Meanwhile why torment the poor boy, who must any
way take it hardly?
He lay there for long, raised upon his arm, his haggard look fixed
on the sleeping form which by-and-by the dawn illuminated. His life
was concentrated in that form, that light breath. He thought with
repulsion and loathing of all that had befallen him before he saw
her--with anguish and terror of those days and nights to come when
he should have lost her. For in the deep stillness of the rising
day there fell on him the strangest certainty of this loss. That
gift of tragic prescience which was in his blood had stirred in
him--he knew his fate. Perhaps the gift itself was but the fruit of
a rare power of self-vision, self-appraisement. He saw and cursed
his own timid and ignorant youth. How could he ever have hoped to
hold a creature of such complex needs and passions? In the pale
dawn he sounded the very depths of self-contempt.
But when the day was up and Elise was chattering and flitting about
the house as usual without a word of discord or parting, how was it
possible to avoid reaction, the re-birth of hope? She talked of
painting again, and that alone, after these long days of sullen
alienation from her art, was enough to bring the brightness back to
their little _menage_ and to dull that strange second sight of
David's. He helped her to set her palette, to choose a new canvas;
he packed her charcoals, he beguiled some cold meat and bread out
of Madame, and then before the heat they set out together for the
Bas Breau.
Just as they started he searched his pockets for a knife of hers
which was missing, and thrusting his hand into a breast pocket
which he seldom used, he brought out some papers at which he stared
in bewilderment.
Then a shock went through him; for there was Mr. Gurney's letter,
the letter in which the cheque for 600 _pounds_ had been enclosed,
and there was also that faded scrap of Sandy's writing which
contained the father's last injunction to his son. As he held the
papers he remembered--what he had forgotten for weeks--that on the
morning of his leaving Manchester he had put them carefully into
this breast pocket, not liking to leave things so interesting to
him behind him, out of his reach. Never had he given a thought to
them since! He looked down at them, half ashamed, and his eye
caught the words:--'_I lay it on him now I'm dying to look after
her. She's not like other children; she'll want it. Let him see her
married to a decent man, and give her what's honestly hers. I trust
it to him. That little lad_--' and then came the fold of the
sheet.
'I have found the knife,' cried Elise from the gate. 'Be quick!'
He pushed the papers back and joined her. The day was already hot,
and they hurried along the burning street into the shade of the
forest. Once in the Bas Breau Elise was not long in finding a
subject, fell upon a promising one indeed almost at once, and was
soon at work. This time there were to be no figures, unless indeed
it might be a dim pair of woodcutters in the middle distance, and
the whole picture was to be an impressionist dream of early summer,
finished entirely out of doors, as rapidly and cleanly as possible.
David lay on the ground under the blasted oak and watched her, as
she sat on her camp-stool, bending forward, looking now up, now
down, using her charcoal in bold energetic strokes, her lip
compressed, her brow knit over some point of composition. The
little figure in its pink cotton was so daintily pretty, so full of
interest and wilful charm, it might well have filled a lover's eye
and chained his thoughts. But David was restless and at times
absent.
'Tell me what you know of that man Montjoie?' he asked her at last,
abruptly. 'I know you disliked him.'
She paused, astonished.
'Why do you ask? Dislike--I _detest and despise_ him. I told
you so.'
'But what do you know of him?' he persisted.
'No good!' she said quickly, going back to her work. Then a light
broke upon her, and she turned on her stool, her two hands on her
knees.
'_Tiens!_--you are thinking of your sister. You have had news
of her?'
A conscious half-remorseful look rose into her face.
'No, I have had no news. I ought to have had a letter. I wrote, you
remember, that first day here. Perhaps Louie has gone home already,'
he said, with constraint. 'Tell me anyway what you know.'
'Oh, he!--well, there is only one word for him--he is a
_brute_ I' said Elise, drawing vigorously, her colour rising.
'Any woman will tell you that. Oh, he has plenty of talent,--he
might be anything. Carpeaux took him up at one time, got him
commissions. Five or six years ago there was quite a noise about
him for two or three Salons. Then people began to drop him. I
believe he was the most mean, ungrateful animal towards those who
had been kind to him. He drinks besides--he is over head and ears
in debt, always wanting money, borrowing here and there, then
locking his door for weeks, making believe to be out of town--only
going out at night. As for his ways with women'--she shrugged her
shoulders--'Was your sister still sitting to him when we left, or
was it at an end? Hasn't your sister been sitting to him for his
statue?'
She paused again and studied him with her shrewd, bright eyes.
He coloured angrily.
'I believe so--I tried to stop it--it was no use.'
She laughed out.
'No--I imagine she does what she wants to do. Well, we all do,
_mon ami!_ After all'--and she shrugged her shoulders again--
'I suppose she can do what I did?'
''What _you_ did!'
She went on drawing in sharp deliberate strokes; her breath came
fast.
'He met me on the stairs one night--it was just after I had taken
the _atelier_. I knew no one in the house--I was quite defenceless
there. He insulted me--I had a little walking-stick in my hand,
my cousin had given me--I struck him with it across the face twice,
three times--if you look close you will see the mark. You may
imagine he tells fine stories of me when he gets the chance.
_Oh! je m'en fiche!_'
The scorn of the last gesture was unmeasured.
'_Canaille!_' said David, between his teeth. 'If you had told
me this!'
Her expression changed and softened.
'You asked me no questions after that quarrel we had in the Louvre,'
she said, excusing herself. 'You will understand it is not a
reminiscence one is exactly proud of; I did speak to Madame Cervin
once--'
David said nothing, but sat staring before him into the far vistas
of the wood. It seemed strange that so great a smart and fear as
had possessed him since yesterday, should allow of any lesser smart
within or near it. Yet that scrap of tremulous writing weighed
heavy. _Where_ was Louie; why had she not written? So far he
had turned impatiently away from the thought of her, reiterating
that he had done his best, that she had chosen her own path. Now in
this fragrant quiet of the forest the quick vision of some
irretrievable wreck presented itself to him; he thought of Mr.
Ancrum--of John--and a cold shudder ran through him. In it spoke
the conscience of a lifetime.
Elise meanwhile laid aside her charcoal, began to dash in some
paint, drew back presently to look at it from a distance, and then,
glancing aside, suddenly threw down her brushes, and ran up to
David.
She sat down beside him, and with a coaxing, childish gesture, drew
his arm about her.
'_Tu me fais pitie, mon ami!_' she said, looking up into his
face. 'Is it your sister? Go and find her--I will wait for you.'
He turned upon her, his black eyes all passion, his lips struggling
with speech.
'My place is here,' he said. 'My life is here!'
Then, as she was silent, not knowing in her agitation what to say,
he broke out:
'What was in your mind yesterday, Elise? what is there to-day?
There is something--something I _will_ know.'
She was frightened by his look. Never did fear and grief speak more
plainly from a human face. The great deep within had broken up.
'I was sorry,' she said, trembling, 'sorry to have hurt you. I
wanted to make up.'
He flung her hand away from him with an impatient gesture.
'There was more than that!' he said violently; 'will you be like all
the rest--betray me without a sign?'
'David!'
She bit her lip proudly. Then the tears welled up into her grey
eyes, and she looked round at him--hesitated--began and stopped
again--then broke into irrevocable confession.
'David!--Monsieur David!--how can it go on? _Voyons_--I said
to myself yesterday--I am torturing him and myself--I cannot make
him happy--it is not in me--not in my destiny. It must end--it
must,--it _must_, for both our sakes. But then first,--first--'
'Be quiet!' he said, laying an iron hand on her arm. 'I knew it all.'
And he turned away from her, covering his face.
This time she made no attempt to caress him. She clasped her hands
round her knees and remained quite still, gazing--yet seeing
nothing--into the green depths which five minutes before had been
to her a torturing ecstasy of colour and light. The tears which had
been gathering fell, the delicate lip quivered.
Struck by her silence at last, he looked up--watched her a
moment--then he dragged himself up to her and knelt beside her.
'Have I made you so miserable?' he said, under his breath.
'It is--it is--the irreparableness of it all,' she answered, half
sobbing. 'No undoing it ever, and how a woman glides into it, how
lightly, knowing so little!--thinking herself so wise! And if she
has deceived herself, if she is not made for love, if she has given
herself for so little--for an illusion--for a dream that breaks and
must break--how dare the _man_ reproach her, after all?'
She raised her burning eyes to him. The resentment in them seemed
to be more than individual, it was the resentment of the woman, of
her sex.
She stabbed him to the heart by what she said--by what she left
unsaid. He took her little cold hand, put it to his lips--tried to
speak.
'Don't,' she said, drawing it away and hiding her face on her
knees. 'Don't say anything. It is not you, it is God and Nature that
I accuse.'
Strange, bitter word!--word of revolt! He lay on his face beside
her for many minutes afterwards, tasting the bitterness of it,
revolving those other words she had said--_'an illusion--a dream
that breaks--must break.'_ Then he made a last effort. He came
close to her, laid his arm timidly round her shoulders, bent his
cheek to hers.
'Elise, listen to me a little. You say the debt is on my side--that
is true--true--a thousand times true! I only ask you, _implore_ you,
to let me pay it. Let it be as you please--on what terms you
please--servant or lover. All I pray for is to pay that debt,
with my life, my heart.'
She shook her head softly, her face still hidden.
'When I am with you,' she said, as though the words were wrung out
of her, 'I must be a woman. You agitate me, you divide my mind, and
my force goes. There are both capacities in me, and one destroys
the other. And I want--I _want_ my art!'
She threw back her head with a superb gesture. But he did not
flinch.
'You shall have it,' he said passionately, 'have it abundantly. Do
you think I want to keep you for ever loitering here? Do you think
I don't know what ambition and will mean? that I am only fit for
kissing?'
He stopped almost with a smile, thinking of that harsh struggle to
know and to have, in which his youth had been so far consumed night
and day. Then words rushed upon him again, and he went on with a
growing power and freedom.
'I never looked at a woman till I saw you!--never had a whim, a
caprice. I have eaten my heart out with the struggle first for
bread, then for knowledge. But when you came across me, then the
world was all made new, and I became a new creature, your creature.'
He touched her face with a quick, tender hand, laid it against his
breast, and spoke so, bending piteously down to her, within reach
of her quivering mouth, her moist eyes:--
'Tell me this, Elise--answer me this! How can there be great art, great
knowledge, only from the brain,--without passion, without experience?
You and I have been _living_ what Musset, what Hugo, what Shakespeare
wrote,' and he struck the little volume of Musset beside him. 'Is not
that worth a summer month? not worth the artist's while? But it is
nearly gone. You can't wonder that I count the moments of it like a
miser! I have had a _hard_ life, and this has transfigured it. Whatever
happens now in time or eternity, this month is to the good--for me and
for you, Elise!--yes, for you, too! But when it is over,--see if I hold
you back! We will work together--climb--wrestle, together. And on what
terms you please,--mind that,--only dictate them. I deny your
"illusion," your "dream that breaks." You _have_ been happy! I dare to
tell you so. But part now,--shirk our common destiny,--and you will
indeed have given all for nothing, while I--'
His voice sank. She shook her head again, but as she drew herself
gently away she was stabbed by the haggardness of the countenance,
the pleading pathos of the eyes. His gust of speech had shaken her
too--revealed new points in him. She bent forward quickly and laid
her soft lips to his, for one light swift moment.
'Poor boy!' she murmured, 'poor poet!'
'Ah, that was enough!' he said, the colour flooding his cheeks.'
That healed--that made all good. Will you hide nothing from me,
Elise--will you promise?'
'Anything,' she said with a curious accent, 'anything--if you will
but let me paint.'
He sprang up, and put her things in order for her. They stood
looking at the sketch, neither seeing much of it.
'I must have some more cobalt,' she said wearily, 'Look, my tube is
nearly done.'
Yes, that was certain. He must get some more for her. Where could
it be got? No nearer than Fontainebleau, alas! where there was a
shop which provided all the artists of the neighbourhood. He was
eagerly ready to go--it would take him no time.
'It will take you between two and three hours, sir, in this heat.
But oh, I am so tired, I will just creep into the fern there while
you are away, and go to sleep. Give me that book and that shawl.'
He made a place for her between the spurs of a great oak-root,
tearing the brambles away. She nestled into it, with a sigh of
satisfaction. 'Divine! Take your food--I want nothing but the air
and sleep. _Adieu, adieu!_'
He stood gazing down upon her, his face all tender lingering and
remorse. How white she was, how fragile, how shaken by this storm
of feeling he had forced upon her! How could he leave her?
But she waved him away impatiently, and he went at last, going
first back to the village to fetch his purse which was not in his
pocket.
As he came out of their little garden gate, turning again towards
the forest which he must cross in order to get to Fontainebleau, he
became aware of a group of men standing in front of the inn. Two of
them were the landscape artists already slightly known to him, who
saluted him as he came near. The other was a tall fine-looking man,
with longish grizzled hair, a dark commanding eye, the rosette of
the Legion of Honour at his buttonhole, and a general look of
irritable power. He wore a wide straw hat and holland overcoat, and
beside him on the bench lay some artist's paraphernalia.
All three eyed David as he passed, and he was no sooner a few yards
away than they were looking after him and talking, the new-comer
asking questions, the others replying.
'Oh, it is she!' said the stranger impatiently, throwing away his
cigar. 'Auguste's description leaves me no doubt of it, and the
woman at the house in the Rue Chantal where I had the caprice to
inquire one day, when she had been three weeks away, told me they
were here. It is annoying. Something might have been made of her.
Now it is finished. A handsome lad all the same!--of a rare type.
_Non!--je me suis trompé--en devenant femme, elle n'a pas cesse
d'être artiste!_'
The others laughed. Then they all took up their various equipments,
and strolled off smoking to the forest. The man from Paris was
engaged upon a large historical canvas representing an incident
in the life of Diane de Poitiers. The incident had Diane's forest
for a setting, but his trees did not satisfy him, he had come down
to make a few fresh studies on the spot.
David walked his four miles to Fontainebleau, bought his cobalt,
and set his face homewards about three o'clock. When he was halfway
home, he turned aside into a tangle of young beech wood, parted the
branches, and found a shady corner where he could rest and think.
The sun was very hot, the high road was scorched by it. But it was
not heat or fatigue that had made him pause.
So far he had walked in a tumult of conflicting ideas, emotions,
terrors, torn now by this memory, now by that--his mind traversed
by one project after another. But now that he was so near to
meeting her again, though he pined for her, he suddenly and
pitifully felt the need for some greater firmness of mind and will.
Let him pause and think! Where _was_ he with her?--what were
his real, tangible hopes and fears? Life and death depended for him
on these days--these few vanishing days. And he was like one of the
last year's leaves before him, whirled helpless and will-less in
the dust-storm of the road!
He had sat there an unnoticed time when the sound of some heavy
carriage approaching roused him. From his green covert he could see
all that passed, and instinctively he looked up. It was the
Barbizon _diligence_ going in to meet the five o'clock train
at Fontainebleau, a train which in these lengthening days very
often brought guests to the inn. The _correspondance_ had been
only begun during the last week, and to the dwellers at Barbizon
the afternoon _diligence_ had still the interest of novelty.
With the perception of habit David noticed that there was no one
outside; but though the rough blinds were most of them drawn down
he thought he perceived some one inside--a lady. Strange that
anyone should prefer the stifling _interieur_ who could mount
beside the driver with a parasol!
The omnibus clattered past, and with the renewal of the woodland
silence his mind plunged heavily once more into the agonised
balancing of hope and fear. But in the end he sprang up with a
renewed alertness of eye and step.
_Despair?_ Impossible!--so long as one had one's love still in
one's arms--could still plead one's cause, hand to hand, lip to
lip. He strode homewards--running sometimes--the phrases of a new
and richer eloquence crowding to his lips.
About a mile from Barbizon, the path to the Bas Breau diverges to
the right. He sped along it, leaping the brambles in his path. Soon
he was on the edge of the great avenue itself, looking across it
for that spot of colour among the green made by her light dress.
But there was no dress, and as he came up to the tree where he had
left her, he saw to his stupefaction that there was no one
there--nothing, no sign of her but the bracken and brambles he had
beaten down for her some three hours before, and the trodden grass
where her easel had been. Something showed on the ground. He
stooped and noticed the empty cobalt-tube of the morning.
Of course she had grown tired of waiting and had gone home. But a
great terror seized him. He turned and ran along the path they had
traversed in the morning making for the road; past the inn which
seemed to have been struck to sleep by the sun, past Millet's
studio on the left, to the little overgrown door in the brick wall.
No one in the garden, no one in the little _salon_, no one upstairs;
Madame Pyat was away for the day, nursing a daughter-in-law. In all
the house and garden there was not a sound or sign of life but the
cat asleep on the stone step of the kitchen, and the bees humming
in the acacias.
'Elise!' he called, inside and out, knowing already, poor fellow,
in his wild despair that there could be no answer--that all was
over.
But there was an answer. Elise was no untaught heroine. She played
her part through. There was her letter, propped up against the gilt
clock on the sham marble _cheminee_.
He found it and tore it open.
'You will curse me, but after a time you will forgive. I
_could_ not go on. Taranne found me in the forest, just half
an hour after you left me. I looked up and saw him coming across
the grass. He did not see me at first, he was looking about for a
subject. I would have escaped, but there was no way. Then at last
he saw me. He did not attack me, he did not persuade me, he only
took for granted it was all over,--my Art! I must know best, of
course; but he was sorry, for I had a gift. Had I seen the notice
of my portrait in the "Temps," or the little mention in the "Figaro"?
Oh, yes, Breal had been very successful, and deserved to be. It
was a brave soul, devoted to art, and art had rewarded her.
'Then I showed him my sketch, trembling--to stop his talk--every
word he said stabbed me. And he shrugged his shoulders quickly;
then, as though recollecting himself, he put on a civil face all in
a moment, and paid me compliments. To an amateur he is always
civil. I was all white and shaking by this time. He turned to go
away, and then I broke down. I burst into tears--I said I was
coming back to the _atelier_--what did he mean by taking such
a cruel, such an insolent tone with me? He would not be moved from
his polite manner. He said he was glad to hear it; mademoiselle
would be welcome; but just as though we were complete strangers.
_He_ who has befriended me, and taught me, and scolded me
since I was fourteen! I could not bear it. I caught him by the arm.
I told him he _should_ tell me all he thought. Had I really
talent?--a future?
'Then he broke out in a torrent--he made me afraid of him--yet I
adored him! He said I had more talent than any other pupil he had
ever had; that I had been his hope and interest for six years; that
he had taught me for nothing--befriended me--worked for me, behind
the scenes, at the Salon; and all because he knew that I must rise,
must win myself a name, that when I had got the necessary technique
I should make one of the poetical impressionist painters, who are
in the movement, who sway the public taste. But I must give
_all_ myself--my days and nights--my thoughts, and brain, and
nerves. Other people might have adventures and paint the better.
Not I,--I was too highly strung--for me it was ruin. _"C'est un
maitre sevire--l'Art,_" he said, looking like a god. "_Avec
celui-là on ne transige pas. Ah! Dieu, je le connais, moi!_" I
don't know what he meant; but there has been a tragedy in his life;
all the world knows that.
'Then suddenly he took another tone, called me _pauvre
enfant_, and apologised. Why should I be disturbed? I had chosen
for my own happiness, no doubt. What was fame or the high steeps of
art compared even with an _amour de jeunesse?_ He had seen
you, he said,--_une tête superbe--des epaules de lion!_ I was
a woman; a young handsome lover was worth more to me, naturally,
than the drudgeries of art. A few years hence, when the pulse was
calmer, it might have been all very well. Well! I must forgive him;
he was my old friend. Then he wrung my hand, and left me.
'Oh, David, David, I must go! I _must._ My life is imprisoned
here with you--it beats its bars. Why did I ever let you persuade
me--move me? And I should let you do it again. When you are there I
am weak. I am no cruel adventuress, I can't look at you and torture
you. But what I feel for you is not love--no, no, it is not, poor
boy! Who was it said "A love which can be tamed is no love"? But in
three days--a week--mine had grown tame--it had no fears left. I am
older than you, not in years, _mais dans l'âme_--there is what
parts us.
'Oh! I must go--and you must not try to find me. I shall be quite
safe, but with people you know nothing about. I shall write to
Madame Pyat for my things. You need have no trouble.
'Very likely I shall pass you on the way, for if I hurry I can
catch the _diligence_. But you will not see me. Oh, David, I
put my arms round you! I press my face against you. I ask you to
forgive me, to forget me, to work out your own life as I work out
mine. It will soon be a dream--this little house--these summer
days! I have kissed the chair you sat in last night, the book you
read to me. _C'est déjà fini! Adieu! adieu!'_
He sat for long in a sort of stupor. Then that maddening thought
seized him, stung him into life, that she had actually passed him,
that he had seen her, not knowing. That little indistinct figure in
the _interieur_, that was she.
He sprang up, in a blind anguish. Pursuit! the _diligence_ was
slow, the trains doubtful, he might overtake her yet. He dashed
into the street, and into the Fontainebleau road. After he had run
nearly a mile, he plunged into a path which he believed was a short
cut. It led through a young and dense oak wood. He rushed on,
seeing nothing, bruising himself and stumbling. At last a
projecting branch struck him violently on the temple. He staggered,
put up a feeble hand, sank on the grass against a trunk, and
fainted.