A small servant answered, a boy of eighteen with awkward mien and clumsy
hands. I wrote in pencil on my card a gallant compliment to the actress,
begging her to receive me. Perhaps, if she knew my name, she would open
her door to me.
The little valet took it in, and then came back, asking me to
follow him. He led me to a neat and decorous salon, furnished in the
Louis-Philippe style, with stiff and heavy furniture, from which a
little maid of sixteen, slender but not pretty, took off the covers in
my honor.
Then I was left alone.
On the walls hung three portraits, that of the actress in one of her
roles, that of the poet in his close-fitting greatcoat and the ruffled
shirt then in style, and that of the musician seated at a piano.
She, blond, charming, but affected, according to the fashion of her
day, was smiling, with her pretty mouth and blue eyes; the painting was
careful, fine, elegant, but lifeless.
Those faces seemed to be already looking upon posterity.
The whole place had the air of a bygone time, of days that were done and
men who had vanished.
A door opened and a little woman entered, old, very old, very small,
with white hair and white eyebrows, a veritable white mouse, and as
quick and furtive of movement.
She held out her hand to me, saying in a voice still fresh, sonorous and
vibrant:
“Thank you, monsieur. How kind it is of the men of to-day to remember
the women of yesterday! Sit down.”
I told her that her house had attracted me, that I had inquired for
the proprietor's name, and that, on learning it, I could not resist the
desire to ring her bell.
“This gives me all the more pleasure, monsieur,” she replied, “as it
is the first time that such a thing has happened. When I received your
card, with the gracious note, I trembled as if an old friend who had
disappeared for twenty years had been announced to me. I am like a dead
body, whom no one remembers, of whom no one will think until the day
when I shall actually die; then the newspapers will mention Julie Romain
for three days, relating anecdotes and details of my life, reviving
memories, and praising me greatly. Then all will be over with me.”
After a few moments of silence, she continued:
“And this will not be so very long now. In a few months, in a few days,
nothing will remain but a little skeleton of this little woman who is
now alive.”
She raised her eyes toward her portrait, which smiled down upon this
caricature of herself; then she looked at those of the two men, the
disdainful poet and the inspired musician, who seemed to say: “What does
this ruin want of us?”
An indefinable, poignant, irresistible sadness overwhelmed my heart,
the sadness of existences that have had their day, but who are still
debating with their memories, like a person drowning in deep water.
From my seat I could see on the highroad the handsome carriages that
were whirling from Nice to Monaco; inside them I saw young, pretty,
rich and happy women and smiling, satisfied men. Following my eye, she
understood my thought and murmured with a smile of resignation:
“One cannot both be and have been.”
“How beautiful life must have been for you!” I said.
She heaved a great sigh.
“Beautiful and sweet! And for that reason I regret it so much.”
I saw that she was disposed to talk of herself, so I began to question
her, gently and discreetly, as one might touch bruised flesh.
She spoke of her successes, her intoxications and her friends, of her
whole triumphant existence.
“Was it on the stage that you found your most intense joys, your true
happiness?” I asked.
“Oh, no!” she replied quickly.
I smiled; then, raising her eyes to the two portraits, she said, with a
sad glance:
“It was with them.”
“Which one?” I could not help asking.
“Both. I even confuse them up a little now in my old woman's memory, and
then I feel remorse.”
“Then, madame, your acknowledgment is not to them, but to Love itself.
They were merely its interpreters.”
“That is possible. But what interpreters!”
“Are you sure that you have not been, or that you might not have been,
loved as well or better by a simple man, but not a great man, who would
have offered to you his whole life and heart, all his thoughts, all
his days, his whole being, while these gave you two redoubtable rivals,
Music and Poetry?”
“No, monsieur, no!” she exclaimed emphatically, with that still youthful
voice, which caused the soul to vibrate. “Another one might perhaps have
loved me more, but he would not have loved me as these did. Ah! those
two sang to me of the music of love as no one else in the world could
have sung of it. How they intoxicated me! Could any other man express
what they knew so well how to express in tones and in words? Is it
enough merely to love if one cannot put all the poetry and all the
music of heaven and earth into love? And they knew how to make a woman
delirious with songs and with words. Yes, perhaps there was more of
illusion than of reality in our passion; but these illusions lift you
into the clouds, while realities always leave you trailing in the dust.
If others have loved me more, through these two I have understood, felt
and worshipped love.”
Suddenly she began to weep.
She wept silently, shedding tears of despair.
I pretended not to see, looking off into the distance. She resumed,
after a few minutes:
“You see, monsieur, with nearly every one the heart ages with the body.
But this has not happened with me. My body is sixty-nine years old,
while my poor heart is only twenty. And that is the reason why I live
all alone, with my flowers and my dreams.”
There was a long silence between us. She grew calmer and continued,
smiling:
“How you would laugh at me, if you knew, if you knew how I pass my
evenings, when the weather is fine. I am ashamed and I pity myself at
the same time.”
Beg as I might, she would not tell me what she did. Then I rose to
leave.
“Already!” she exclaimed.
And as I said that I wished to dine at Monte Carlo, she asked timidly:
“Will you not dine with me? It would give me a great deal of pleasure.”
I accepted at once. She rang, delighted, and after giving some orders to
the little maid she took me over her house.
A kind of glass-enclosed veranda, filled with shrubs, opened into the
dining-room, revealing at the farther end the long avenue of orange
trees extending to the foot of the mountain. A low seat, hidden by
plants, indicated that the old actress often came there to sit down.
Then we went into the garden, to look at the flowers. Evening fell
softly, one of those calm, moist evenings when the earth breathes forth
all her perfumes. Daylight was almost gone when we sat down at table.
The dinner was good and it lasted a long time, and we became intimate
friends, she and I, when she understood what a profound sympathy she
had aroused in my heart. She had taken two thimblefuls of wine, as the
phrase goes, and had grown more confiding and expansive.
“Come, let us look at the moon,” she said. “I adore the good moon. She
has been the witness of my most intense joys. It seems to me that all my
memories are there, and that I need only look at her to bring them all
back to me. And even--some times--in the evening--I offer to myself a
pretty play--yes, pretty--if you only knew! But no, you would laugh at
me. I cannot--I dare not--no, no--really--no.”