THE VICOMTE DE CAYLUS.
It was after receiving the last of these letters that I hazarded a third
visit to Madame de Courcelles. This time, I ventured to present myself
at her door about midday, and was at once ushered upstairs into a
drawing-room looking out on the Rue Castellane.
Seeing her open work-table, with the empty chair and footstool beside
it, I thought at the first glance that I was alone in the room, when a
muttered "Sacr-r-r-re! Down, Bijou!" made me aware of a gentleman
extended at full length upon a sofa near the fireplace, and of a
vicious-looking Spitz crouched beneath it.
The gentleman lifted his head from the sofa-cusion; stared at me; bowed
carelessly; got upon his feet; and seizing the poker, lunged savagely at
the fire, as if he had a spite against it, and would have put it out,
if he could. This done, he yawned aloud, flung himself into the nearest
easy-chair, and rang the bell.
"More coals, Henri," he said, imperiously; "and--stop! a bottle of
Seltzer-water."
The servant hesitated.
"I don't think, Monsieur le Vicomte," he said, "that Madame has any
Seltzer-water in the house; but ..."
"Confound you!--you never have anything in the house at the moment one
wants it," interrupted the gentleman, irritably.
"I can send for some, if Monsieur le Vicomte desires it."
"Send for it, then; and remember, when I next ask for it, let there be
some at hand."
"Yes, Monsieur le Vicomte."
"And--Henri!"
"Yes, Monsieur le Vicomte."
"Bid them be quick. I hate to be kept waiting!"
The servant murmured his usual "Yes, Monsieur le Vicomte," and
disappeared; but with a look of such subdued dislike and impatience in
his face, as would scarcely have flattered Monsieur le Vicomte had he
chanced to surprise it.
In the meantime the dog had never ceased growling; whilst I, in default
of something better to do, turned over the leaves of an album, and took
advantage of a neighboring mirror to scrutinize the outward appearance
of this authoritative occupant of Madame de Courcelles' drawing-room.
He was a small, pallid, slender man of about thirty-five or seven years
of age, with delicate, effeminate features, and hair thickly sprinkled
with gray. His fingers, white and taper as a woman's, were covered with
rings. His dress was careless, but that of a gentleman. Glancing at him
even thus furtively, I could not help observing the worn lines about his
temples, the mingled languor and irritability of his every gesture; the
restless suspicion of his eye; the hard curves about his handsome mouth.
"_Mille tonnerres_!" said he, between his teeth "come out, Bijou--come
out, I say!"
The dog came out unwillingly, and changed the growl to a little whine
of apprehension. His master immediately dealt him a smart kick that sent
him crouching to the farther corner of the room, where he hid himself
under a chair.
"I'll teach you to make that noise," muttered he, as he drew his chair
closer to the fire, and bent over it, shiveringly. "A yelping brute,
that would be all the better for hanging."
Having sat thus for a few moments, he seemed to grow restless again,
and, pushing back his chair, rose, looked out of the window, took a turn
or two across the room, and paused at length to take a book from one of
the side-tables. As he did this, our eyes met in the looking-glass;
whereupon he turned hastily back to the window, and stood there
whistling till it occurred to him to ring the bell again.
"Monsieur rang?" said the footman, once more making his appearance at
the door.
"_Mort de ma vie_! yes. The Seltzer-water."
"I have sent for it, Monsieur le Vicomte."
"And it is not yet come?"
"Not yet, Monsieur le Vicomte."
He muttered something to himself, and dropped back into the chair before
the fire.
"Does Madame de Courcelles know that I am here?" he asked, as the
servant, after lingering a moment, was about to leave the room.
"I delivered Monsieur le Vicomte's message, and brought back Madame's
reply," said the man, "half an hour ago."
"True--I had forgotten it. You may go."
The footman closed the door noiselessly, and had no sooner done so than
he was recalled by another impatient peal.
"Here, Henri--have you told Madame de Courcelles that this gentleman is
also waiting to see her?"
"Yes, Monsieur le Vicomte."
"_Eh bien_?"
"And Madame said she should be down in a few moments."
"_Sacredie_! go back, then, and inquire if...."
"Madame is here."
As the footman moved back respectfully, Madame de Courcelles came into
the room. She was looking perhaps somewhat paler, but, to my thinking,
more charming than ever. Her dark hair was gathered closely round her
head in massive braids, displaying to their utmost advantage all the
delicate curves of her throat and chin; while her rich morning dress,
made of some dark material, and fastened at the throat by a round brooch
of dead gold, fell in loose and ample folds, like the drapery of a Roman
matron. Coming at once to meet me, she extended a cordial hand,
and said:--
"I had begun to despair of ever seeing you again. Why have you always
come when I was out?"
"Madame," I said, bending low over the slender fingers, that seemed to
linger kindly in my own, "I have been undeservedly unfortunate."
"Remember for the future," she said, "that I am always at home till
midday, and after five."
Then, turning to her other visitor, she said:--
"_Mon cousin_, allow me to present my friend. Monsieur
Arbuthnot--Monsieur le Vicomte Adrien de Caylus."
I had suspected as much already. Who but he would have dared to assume
these airs of insolence? Who but her suitor and my friend's rival? I had
disliked him at first sight, and now I detested him. Whether it was that
my aversion showed itself in my face, or that Madame de Courcelles's
cordial welcome of myself annoyed him, I know not; but his bow was even
cooler than my own.
"I have been waiting to see you, Helène," said he, looking at his watch,
"for nearly three-quarters of an hour."
"I sent you word, _mon cousin_, that I was finishing a letter for the
foreign post," said Madame de Courcelles, coldly, "and that I could not
come sooner."
Monsieur de Caylus bit his lip and cast an impatient glance in my
direction.
"Can you spare me a few moments alone, Helène?" he said.
"Alone, _mon cousin_?"
"Yes, upon a matter of business."
Madame de Courcelles sighed.
"If Monsieur Arbuthnot will be so indulgent as to excuse me for five
minutes," she replied. "This way, _mon cousin_."
So saying, she lifted a dark green curtain, beneath which they passed to
a farther room out of sight and hearing.
They remained a long time away. So long, that I grew weary of waiting,
and, having turned over all the illustrated books upon the table, and
examined every painting on the walls, turned to the window, as the
idler's last resource, and watched the passers-by.
What endless entertainment in the life-tide of a Paris street, even
though but a branch from one of the greater arteries! What color--what
character--what animation--what variety! Every third or fourth man is a
blue-bloused artisan; every tenth, a soldier in a showy uniform. Then
comes the grisette in her white cap; and the lemonade-vender with his
fantastic pagoda, slung like a peep-show across his shoulders; and the
peasant woman from Normandy, with her high-crowned head-dress; and the
abbé, all in black, with his shovel-hat pulled low over his eyes; and
the mountebank selling pencils and lucifer-matches to the music of a
hurdy-gurdy; and the gendarme, who is the terror of street urchins; and
the gamin, who is the torment of the gendarme; and the water-carrier,
with his cart and his cracked bugle; and the elegant ladies and
gentlemen, who look in at shop windows and hire seats at two sous each
in the Champs Elysées; and, of course, the English tourist reading
"Galignani's Guide" as he goes along. Then, perhaps, a regiment marches
past with colors flying and trumpets braying; or a fantastic-looking
funeral goes by, with a hearse like a four-post bed hung with black
velvet and silver; or the peripatetic showman with his company of white
rats establishes himself on the pavement opposite, till admonished to
move on by the sergent de ville. What an ever-shifting panorama! What a
kaleidoscope of color and character! What a study for the humorist, the
painter, the poet!
Thinking thus, and watching the overflowing current as it hurried on
below, I became aware of a smart cab drawn by a showy chestnut, which
dashed round the corner of the street and came down the Rue Castellane
at a pace that caused every head to turn as it went by. Almost before I
had time to do more than observe that it was driven by a moustachioed
and lavender-kidded gentleman, it drew up before the house, and a trim
tiger jumped down, and thundered at the door. At that moment, the
gentleman, taking advantage of the pause to light a cigar, looked up,
and I recognised the black moustache and sinister countenance of
Monsieur de Simoncourt.
"A gentleman for Monsieur le Vicomte," said the servant, drawing back
the green curtain and opening a vista into the room beyond.
"Ask him to come upstairs," said the voice of De Caylus from within.
"I have done so, Monsieur; but he prefers to wait in the cabriolet."
"Pshaw!--confound it!--say that I'm coming."
The servant withdrew.
I then heard the words "perfectly safe investment--present
convenience--unexpected demand," rapidly uttered by Monsieur de Caylus;
and then they both came back; he looked flushed and angry--she calm
as ever.
"Then I shall call on you again to-morrow, Helène," said he, plucking
nervously at his glove. "You will have had time to reflect. You will see
matters differently."
Madame Courcelles shook her head.
"Reflection will not change my opinion," she said gently.
"Well, shall I send Lejeune to you? He acts as solicitor to the company,
and ..."
"_Mon cousin_" interposed the lady, "I have already given you my
decision--why pursue the question further? I do not wish to see
Monsieur Lejeune, and I have no speculative tastes whatever."
Monsieur de Caylus, with a suppressed exclamation that sounded like a
curse, rent his glove right in two, and then, as if annoyed at the
self-betrayal, crushed up the fragments in his hand, and
laughed uneasily.
"All women are alike," he said, with an impatient shrug. "They know
nothing of the world, and place no faith in those who are competent to
advise them. I had given you credit, my charming cousin, for
broader views."
Madame de Courcelles smiled without replying, and caressed the little
dog, which had come out from under the sofa to fondle round her.
"Poor Bijou!" said she. "Pretty Bijou! Do you take good care of him,
_mon cousin_?"
"Upon my soul, not I," returned De Caylus, carelessly. "Lecroix feeds
him, I believe, and superintends his general education."
"Who is Lecroix?"
"My valet, courier, body-guard, letter-carrier, and general _factotum_.
A useful vagabond, without whom I should scarcely know my right hand
from my left!"
"Poor Bijou! I fear, then, your chance of being remembered is small
indeed!" said Madame de Courcelles, compassionately.
But Monsieur le Vicomte only whistled to the dog; bowed haughtily to me;
kissed, with an air of easy familiarity, before which she evidently
recoiled, first the hand and then the cheek of his beautiful cousin, and
so left the room. The next moment I saw him spring into the cabriolet,
take his place beside Monsieur de Simoncourt, and drive away, with Bijou
following at a pace that might almost have tried a greyhound.
"My cousin, De Caylus, has lately returned from Algiers on leave of
absence," said Madame de Courcelles, after a few moments of awkward
silence, during which I had not known what to say. "You have heard of
him, perhaps?"
"Yes, Madame, I have heard of Monsieur de Caylus."
"From Captain Dalrymple?
"From Captain Dalrymple, Madame; and in society."
"He is a brave officer," she said, hesitatingly, "and has greatly
distinguished himself in this last campaign."
"So I have heard, Madame."
She looked at me, as if she would fain read how much or how little
Dalrymple had told me.
"You are Captain Dalrymple's friend, Mr. Arbuthnot," she said,
presently, "and I know you have his confidence. You are probably aware
that my present position with regard to Monsieur de Caylus is not only
very painful, but also very difficult."
"Madame, I know it."
"But it is a position of which I have the command, and which no one
understands so well as myself. To attempt to help me, would be to add to
my embarrassments. For this reason it is well that Captain Dalrymple is
not here. His presence just now in Paris could do no good--on the
contrary, would be certain to do harm. Do you follow my meaning,
Monsieur Arbuthnot?"
"I understand what you say, Madame; but...."
"But you do not quite understand why I say it? _Eh bien_, Monsieur, when
you write to Captain Dalrymple.... for you write sometimes, do you not?"
"Often, Madame."
"Then, when you write, say nothing that may add to his anxieties. If you
have reason at any time to suppose that I am importuned to do this or
that; that I am annoyed; that I have my own battle to fight--still, for
his sake as well as for mine, be silent. It _is_ my own battle, and I
know how to fight it."
"Alas! Madame...."
She smiled sadly.
"Nay," she said, "I have more courage than you would suppose; more
courage and more will. I am fully capable of bearing my own burdens; and
Captain Dalrymple has already enough of his own. Now tell me something
of yourself. You are here, I think, to study medicine. Are you greatly
devoted to your work? Have you many friends?"
"I study, Madame--not always very regularly; and I have one friend."
"An Englishman?"
"No, Madame--a German."
"A fellow-student, I presume."
"No, Madame--an artist."
"And you are very happy here?"
"I have occupations and amusements; therefore, if to be neither idle nor
dull is to be happy. I suppose I am happy."
"Nay," she said quickly, "be sure of it. Do not doubt it. Who asks more
from Fate courts his own destruction."
"But it would be difficult, Madame, to go through life without desiring
something better, something higher--without ambition, for
instance--without love."
"Ambition and love!" she repeated, smiling sadly. "There speaks the man.
Ambition first--the aim and end of life; love next--the pleasant adjunct
to success! Ah, beware of both."
"But without either, life would be a desert."
"Life _is_ a desert," she replied, bitterly. "Ambition is its mirage,
ever beckoning, ever receding--love its Dead Sea fruit, fair without and
dust within. You look surprised. You did not expect such gloomy theories
from me--yet I am no cynic. I have lived; I have suffered; I am a
woman--_voilà tout_. When you are a few years older, and have trodden
some of the flinty ways of life, you will see the world as I see it."
"It may be so, Madame; but if life is indeed a desert, it is, at all
events, some satisfaction to know that the dwellers in tents become
enamored of their lot, and, content with what the desert has to give,
desire no other. It is only the neophyte who rides after the mirage and
thirsts for the Dead Sea apple."
She smiled again.
"Ah!" she said, "the gifts of the desert are two-fold, and what one gets
depends on what one seeks. For some the wilderness has gifts of
resignation, meditation, peace; for others it has the horse, the tent,
the pipe, the gun, the chase of the panther and antelope. But to go back
to yourself. Life, you say, would be barren without ambition and love.
What is your ambition?"
"Nay, Madame, that is more than I can tell you--more than I know
myself."
"Your profession...."
"If ever I dream dreams, Madame," I interrupted quickly, "my profession
has no share in them. It is a profession I do not love, and which I hope
some day to abandon."
"Your dreams, then?"
I shook my head.
"Vague--unsubstantial--illusory--forgotten as soon as dreamt! How can I
analyze them? How can I describe them? In childhood one says--'I should
like to be a soldier, and conquer the world;' or 'I should like to be a
sailor, and discover new Continents;' or 'I should like to be a poet,
and wear a laurel wreath, like Petrarch and Dante;' but as one gets
older and wiser (conscious, perhaps, of certain latent energies, and
weary of certain present difficulties and restraints), one can only
wait, as best one may, and watch for the rising of that tide whose flood
leads on to fortune."
With this I rose to take my leave. Madame de Courcelles smiled and put
out her hand.
"Come often," she said; "and come at the hours when I am at home. I
shall always be glad to see you. Above all, remember my caution--not a
word to Captain Dalrymple, either now or at any other time."
"Madame, you may rely upon me. One thing I ask, however, as the reward
of my discretion."
"And that one thing?"
"Permission, Madame, to serve you in any capacity, however humble--in
any strait where a brother might interfere, or a faithful retainer lay
down his life in your service."
With a sweet earnestness that made my heart beat and my cheeks glow, she
thanked and promised me.
"I shall look upon you henceforth," she said, "as my knight _sans peur
et sans reproche_."
Heaven knows that not all the lessons of all the moralists that ever
wrote or preached since the world began, could just then have done me
half such good service as did those simple words. They came at the
moment when I most needed them--when I had almost lost my taste for
society, and was sliding day by day into habits of more confirmed
idleness and Bohemianism. They roused me. They made a man of me. They
recalled me to higher aims, "purer manners, nobler laws." They clothed
me, so to speak, in the _toga virilis_ of a generous devotion. They made
me long to prove myself "_sans peur_," to merit the "_sans reproche."_
They marked an era in my life never to be forgotten or effaced.
Let it not be thought for one moment that I loved her--or fancied I
loved her. No, not so far as one heart-beat would carry me; but I was
proud to possess her confidence and her friendship. Was she not
Dalrymple's wife, and had not he asked me to watch over and protect her?
Nay, had she not called me her knight and accepted my fealty?
Nothing perhaps, is so invaluable to a young man on entering life as the
friendship of a pure-minded and highly-cultivated woman who, removed too
far above him to be regarded with passion, is yet beautiful enough to
engage his admiration; whose good opinion becomes the measure of his own
self-respect; and whose confidence is a sacred trust only to be parted
from with loss of life or honor.
Such an influence upon myself at this time was the friendship of Madame
de Courcelles. I went out from her presence that morning morally
stronger than before, and at each repetition of my visit I found her
influence strengthen and increase. Sometimes I met Monsieur de Caylus,
on which occasions my stay was ever of the briefest; but I most
frequently found her alone, and then our talk was of books, of art, of
culture, of all those high and stirring things that alike move the
sympathies of the educated woman and rouse the enthusiasm of the young
man. She became interested in me; at first for Dalrymple's sake, and
by-and-by, however little I deserved it, for my own--and she showed
that interest in many ways inexpressibly valuable to me then and
thenceforth. She took pains to educate my taste; opened to me hitherto
unknown avenues of study; led me to explore "fresh fields and pastures
new," to which, but for her help, I might not have found my way for many
a year to come. My reading, till now, had been almost wholly English or
classical; she sent me to the old French literature--to the _Chansons de
Geste_; to the metrical romances of the Trouvères; to the Chronicles of
Froissart, Monstrelet, and Philip de Comines, and to the poets and
dramatists that immediately succeeded them.
These books opened a new world to me; and, having daily access to two
fine public libraries, I plunged at once into a course of new and
delightful reading, ranging over all that fertile tract of song and
history that begins far away in the morning land of mediæval romance,
and leads on, century after century, to the new era that began with the
Revolution.
With what avidity I devoured those picturesque old chronicles--those
autobiographies--those poems, and satires, and plays that I now read for
the first time! What evenings I spent with St. Simon, and De Thou, and
Charlotte de Bavière! How I relished Voltaire! How I laughed over
Molière! How I revelled in Montaigne! Most of all, however, I loved the
quaint lore of the earlier literature:--
"Old legends of the monkish page,
Traditions of the saint and sage,
Tales that have the rime of age,
And Chronicles of Eld."
Nor was this all. I had hitherto loved art as a child or a savage might
love it, ignorantly, half-blindly, without any knowledge of its
principles, its purposes, or its history. But Madame de Courcelles put
into my hands certain books that opened my eyes to a thousand wonders
unseen before. The works of Vasari, Nibby, Winkelman and Lessing, the
aesthetic writings of Goethe and the Schlegels, awakened in me, one
after the other, fresher and deeper revelations of beauty.
I wandered through the galleries of the Louvre like one newly gifted
with sight. I haunted the Venus of Milo and the Diane Chasseresse like
another Pygmalion. The more I admired, the more I found to admire. The
more I comprehended, the more I found there remained for me to
comprehend. I recognised in art the Sphinx whose enigma is never solved.
I learned, for the first time, that poetry may be committed to
imperishable marble, and steeped in unfading colors. By degrees, as I
followed in the footsteps of great thinkers, my insight became keener
and my perceptions more refined. The symbolism of art evolved itself, as
it were, from below the surface; and instead of beholding in paintings
and statues mere studies of outward beauty, I came to know them as
exponents of thought--as efforts after ideal truth--as aspirations
which, because of their divineness, can never be wholly expressed; but
whose suggestiveness is more eloquent than all the eloquence of words.
Thus a great change came upon my life--imperceptibly at first, and by
gradual degrees; but deeply and surely. To apply myself to the study of
medicine became daily more difficult and more distasteful to me. The
boisterous pleasures of the Quartier Latin lost their charm for me. Day
by day I gave myself up more and more passionately to the cultivation of
my taste for poetry and art. I filled my little sitting-room with casts
after the antique. I bought some good engravings for my walls, and hung
up a copy of the Madonna di San Sisto above the table at which I wrote
and read. All day long, wherever I might be--at the hospital, in the
lecture-room, in the laboratory--I kept looking longingly forward to the
quiet evening by-and-by when, with shaded lamp and curtained window, I
should again take up the studies of the night before.
Thus new aims opened out before me, and my thoughts flowed into channels
ever wider and deeper. Already the first effervescence of youth seemed
to have died off the surface of my life, as the "beaded bubbles" die off
the surface of champagne. I had tried society, and wearied of it. I had
tried Bohemia, and found it almost as empty as the Chaussée d'Autin.
And now that life which from boyhood I had ever looked upon as the
happiest on earth, the life of the student, was mine. Could I have
devoted it wholly and undividedly to those pursuits which were fast
becoming to me as the life of my life, I would not have exchanged my lot
for all the wealth of the Rothschilds. Somewhat indolent, perhaps, by
nature, indifferent to achieve, ambitious only to acquire, I asked
nothing better than a life given up to the worship of all that is
beautiful in art, to the acquisition of knowledge, and to the
development of taste. Would the time ever come when I might realize my
dream? Ah! who could tell? In the meanwhile ... well, in the meanwhile,
here was Paris--here were books, museums, galleries, schools, golden
opportunities which, once past, might never come again. So I reasoned;
so time went on; so I lived, plodding on by day in the École de
Médecine, but, when evening came, resuming my studies at the leaf turned
down the night before, and, like the visionary in "The Pilgrims of the
Rhine," taking up my dream-life at the point where I had been
last awakened.
* * * * *