Sentiment and Passion.
Two months later, Frederick, having debarked one morning in the Rue
Coq-Héron, immediately thought of paying his great visit.
Chance came to his aid. Père Roque had brought him a roll of papers and
requested him to deliver them up himself to M. Dambreuse; and the worthy
man accompanied the package with an open letter of introduction in
behalf of his young fellow-countryman.
Madame Moreau appeared surprised at this proceeding. Frederick concealed
the delight that it gave him.
M. Dambreuse's real name was the Count d'Ambreuse; but since 1825,
gradually abandoning his title of nobility and his party, he had turned
his attention to business; and with his ears open in every office, his
hand in every enterprise, on the watch for every opportunity, as subtle
as a Greek and as laborious as a native of Auvergne, he had amassed a
fortune which might be called considerable. Furthermore, he was an
officer of the Legion of Honour, a member of the General Council of the
Aube, a deputy, and one of these days would be a peer of France.
However, affable as he was in other respects, he wearied the Minister
by his continual applications for relief, for crosses, and licences for
tobacconists' shops; and in his complaints against authority he was
inclined to join the Left Centre.
His wife, the pretty Madame Dambreuse, of whom mention was made in the
fashion journals, presided at charitable assemblies. By wheedling the
duchesses, she appeased the rancours of the aristocratic faubourg, and
led the residents to believe that M. Dambreuse might yet repent and
render them some services.
The young man was agitated when he called on them.
"I should have done better to take my dress-coat with me. No doubt they
will give me an invitation to next week's ball. What will they say to
me?"
His self-confidence returned when he reflected that M. Dambreuse was
only a person of the middle class, and he sprang out of the cab briskly
on the pavement of the Rue d'Anjou.
When he had pushed forward one of the two gateways he crossed the
courtyard, mounted the steps in front of the house, and entered a
vestibule paved with coloured marble. A straight double staircase, with
red carpet, fastened with copper rods, rested against the high walls of
shining stucco. At the end of the stairs there was a banana-tree, whose
wide leaves fell down over the velvet of the baluster. Two bronze
candelabra, with porcelain globes, hung from little chains; the
atmosphere was heavy with the fumes exhaled by the vent-holes of the
hot-air stoves; and all that could be heard was the ticking of a big
clock fixed at the other end of the vestibule, under a suit of armour.
A bell rang; a valet made his appearance, and introduced Frederick into
a little apartment, where one could observe two strong boxes, with
pigeon-holes filled with pieces of pasteboard. In the centre of it, M.
Dambreuse was writing at a roll-top desk.
He ran his eye over Père Roque's letter, tore open the canvas in which
the papers had been wrapped, and examined them.
At some distance, he presented the appearance of being still young,
owing to his slight figure. But his thin white hair, his feeble limbs,
and, above all, the extraordinary pallor of his face, betrayed a
shattered constitution. There was an expression of pitiless energy in
his sea-green eyes, colder than eyes of glass. His cheek-bones
projected, and his finger-joints were knotted.
At length, he arose and addressed to the young man a few questions with
regard to persons of their acquaintance at Nogent and also with regard
to his studies, and then dismissed him with a bow. Frederick went out
through another lobby, and found himself at the lower end of the
courtyard near the coach-house.
A blue brougham, to which a black horse was yoked, stood in front of the
steps before the house. The carriage door flew open, a lady sprang in,
and the vehicle, with a rumbling noise, went rolling along the gravel.
Frederick had come up to the courtyard gate from the other side at the
same moment. As there was not room enough to allow him to pass, he was
compelled to wait. The young lady, with her head thrust forward past the
carriage blind, talked to the door-keeper in a very low tone. All he
could see was her back, covered with a violet mantle. However, he took a
glance into the interior of the carriage, lined with blue rep, with silk
lace and fringes. The lady's ample robes filled up the space within. He
stole away from this little padded box with its perfume of iris, and, so
to speak, its vague odour of feminine elegance. The coachman slackened
the reins, the horse brushed abruptly past the starting-point, and all
disappeared.
Frederick returned on foot, following the track of the boulevard.
He regretted not having been able to get a proper view of Madame
Dambreuse. A little higher than the Rue Montmartre, a regular jumble of
vehicles made him turn round his head, and on the opposite side, facing
him, he read on a marble plate:
"JACQUES ARNOUX."
How was it that he had not thought about her sooner? It was Deslauriers'
fault; and he approached the shop, which, however, he did not enter. He
was waiting for _her_ to appear.
The high, transparent plate-glass windows presented to one's gaze
statuettes, drawings, engravings, catalogues and numbers of _L'Art
Industriel_, arranged in a skilful fashion; and the amounts of the
subscription were repeated on the door, which was decorated in the
centre with the publisher's initials. Against the walls could be seen
large pictures whose varnish had a shiny look, two chests laden with
porcelain, bronze, alluring curiosities; a little staircase separated
them, shut off at the top by a Wilton portière; and a lustre of old
Saxe, a green carpet on the floor, with a table of marqueterie, gave to
this interior the appearance rather of a drawing-room than of a shop.
Frederick pretended to be examining the drawings. After hesitating for a
long time, he went in. A clerk lifted the portière, and in reply to a
question, said that Monsieur would not be in the shop before five
o'clock. But if the message could be conveyed----
"No! I'll come back again," Frederick answered blandly.
The following days were spent in searching for lodgings; and he fixed
upon an apartment in a second story of a furnished mansion in the Rue
Hyacinthe.
With a fresh blotting-case under his arm, he set forth to attend the
opening lecture of the course. Three hundred young men, bare-headed,
filled an amphitheatre, where an old man in a red gown was delivering a
discourse in a monotonous voice. Quill pens went scratching over the
paper. In this hall he found once more the dusty odour of the school, a
reading-desk of similar shape, the same wearisome monotony! For a
fortnight he regularly continued his attendance at law lectures. But he
left off the study of the Civil Code before getting as far as Article 3,
and he gave up the Institutes at the _Summa Divisio Personarum_.
The pleasures that he had promised himself did not come to him; and when
he had exhausted a circulating library, gone over the collections in the
Louvre, and been at the theatre a great many nights in succession, he
sank into the lowest depths of idleness.
His depression was increased by a thousand fresh annoyances. He found it
necessary to count his linen and to bear with the door keeper, a bore
with the figure of a male hospital nurse who came in the morning to make
up his bed, smelling of alcohol and grunting. He did not like his
apartment, which was ornamented with an alabaster time-piece. The
partitions were thin; he could hear the students making punch, laughing
and singing.
Tired of this solitude, he sought out one of his old schoolfellows named
Baptiste Martinon; and he discovered this friend of his boyhood in a
middle-class boarding-house in the Rue Saint-Jacques, cramming up legal
procedure before a coal fire. A woman in a print dress sat opposite him
darning his socks.
Martinon was what people call a very fine man--big, chubby, with a
regular physiognomy, and blue eyes far up in his face. His father, an
extensive land-owner, had destined him for the magistracy; and wishing
already to present a grave exterior, he wore his beard cut like a collar
round his neck.
As there was no rational foundation for Frederick's complaints, and as
he could not give evidence of any misfortune, Martinon was unable in any
way to understand his lamentations about existence. As for him, he went
every morning to the school, after that took a walk in the Luxembourg,
in the evening swallowed his half-cup of coffee; and with fifteen
hundred francs a year, and the love of this workwoman, he felt perfectly
happy.
"What happiness!" was Frederick's internal comment.
At the school he had formed another acquaintance, a youth of
aristocratic family, who on account of his dainty manners, suggested a
resemblance to a young lady.
M. de Cisy devoted himself to drawing, and loved the Gothic style. They
frequently went together to admire the Sainte-Chapelle and Nôtre Dame.
But the young patrician's rank and pretensions covered an intellect of
the feeblest order. Everything took him by surprise. He laughed
immoderately at the most trifling joke, and displayed such utter
simplicity that Frederick at first took him for a wag, and finally
regarded him as a booby.
The young man found it impossible, therefore, to be effusive with
anyone; and he was constantly looking forward to an invitation from the
Dambreuses.
On New Year's Day, he sent them visiting-cards, but received none in
return.
He made his way back to the office of _L'Art Industriel_.
A third time he returned to it, and at last saw Arnoux carrying on an
argument with five or six persons around him. He scarcely responded to
the young man's bow; and Frederick was wounded by this reception. None
the less he cogitated over the best means of finding his way to her
side.
His first idea was to come frequently to the shop on the pretext of
getting pictures at low prices. Then he conceived the notion of slipping
into the letter-box of the journal a few "very strong" articles, which
might lead to friendly relations. Perhaps it would be better to go
straight to the mark at once, and declare his love? Acting on this
impulse, he wrote a letter covering a dozen pages, full of lyric
movements and apostrophes; but he tore it up, and did nothing, attempted
nothing--bereft of motive power by his want of success.
Above Arnoux's shop, there were, on the first floor, three windows which
were lighted up every evening. Shadows might be seen moving about behind
them, especially one; this was hers; and he went very far out of his way
in order to gaze at these windows and to contemplate this shadow.
A negress who crossed his path one day in the Tuileries, holding a
little girl by the hand, recalled to his mind Madame Arnoux's negress.
She was sure to come there, like the others; every time he passed
through the Tuileries, his heart began to beat with the anticipation of
meeting her. On sunny days he continued his walk as far as the end of
the Champs-Élysées.
Women seated with careless ease in open carriages, and with their veils
floating in the wind, filed past close to him, their horses advancing at
a steady walking pace, and with an unconscious see-saw movement that
made the varnished leather of the harness crackle. The vehicles became
more numerous, and, slackening their motion after they had passed the
circular space where the roads met, they took up the entire track. The
horses' manes and the carriage lamps were close to each other. The steel
stirrups, the silver curbs and the brass rings, flung, here and there,
luminous points in the midst of the short breeches, the white gloves,
and the furs, falling over the blazonry of the carriage doors. He felt
as if he were lost in some far-off world. His eyes wandered along the
rows of female heads, and certain vague resemblances brought back Madame
Arnoux to his recollection. He pictured her to himself, in the midst of
the others, in one of those little broughams like Madame Dambreuse's
brougham.
But the sun was setting, and the cold wind raised whirling clouds of
dust. The coachmen let their chins sink into their neckcloths; the
wheels began to revolve more quickly; the road-metal grated; and all the
equipages descended the long sloping avenue at a quick trot, touching,
sweeping past one another, getting out of one another's way; then, at
the Place de la Concorde, they went off in different directions. Behind
the Tuileries, there was a patch of slate-coloured sky. The trees of the
garden formed two enormous masses violet-hued at their summits. The
gas-lamps were lighted; and the Seine, green all over, was torn into
strips of silver moiré, near the piers of the bridges.
He went to get a dinner for forty-three sous in a restaurant in the Rue
de la Harpe. He glanced disdainfully at the old mahogany counter, the
soiled napkins, the dingy silver-plate, and the hats hanging up on the
wall.
Those around him were students like himself. They talked about their
professors, and about their mistresses. Much he cared about professors!
Had he a mistress? To avoid being a witness of their enjoyment, he came
as late as possible. The tables were all strewn with remnants of food.
The two waiters, worn out with attendance on customers, lay asleep, each
in a corner of his own; and an odour of cooking, of an argand lamp, and
of tobacco, filled the deserted dining-room. Then he slowly toiled up
the streets again. The gas lamps vibrated, casting on the mud long
yellowish shafts of flickering light. Shadowy forms surmounted by
umbrellas glided along the footpaths. The pavement was slippery; the fog
grew thicker, and it seemed to him that the moist gloom, wrapping him
around, descended into the depths of his heart.
He was smitten with a vague remorse. He renewed his attendance at
lectures. But as he was entirely ignorant of the matters which formed
the subject of explanation, things of the simplest description puzzled
him. He set about writing a novel entitled _Sylvio, the Fisherman's
Son_. The scene of the story was Venice. The hero was himself, and
Madame Arnoux was the heroine. She was called Antonia; and, to get
possession of her, he assassinated a number of noblemen, and burned a
portion of the city; after which achievements he sang a serenade under
her balcony, where fluttered in the breeze the red damask curtains of
the Boulevard Montmartre.
The reminiscences, far too numerous, on which he dwelt produced a
disheartening effect on him; he went no further with the work, and his
mental vacuity redoubled.
After this, he begged of Deslauriers to come and share his apartment.
They might make arrangements to live together with the aid of his
allowance of two thousand francs; anything would be better than this
intolerable existence. Deslauriers could not yet leave Troyes. He urged
his friend to find some means of distracting his thoughts, and, with
that end in view, suggested that he should call on Sénécal.
Sénécal was a mathematical tutor, a hard-headed man with republican
convictions, a future Saint-Just, according to the clerk. Frederick
ascended the five flights, up which he lived, three times in succession,
without getting a visit from him in return. He did not go back to the
place.
He now went in for amusing himself. He attended the balls at the Opera
House. These exhibitions of riotous gaiety froze him the moment he had
passed the door. Besides, he was restrained by the fear of being
subjected to insult on the subject of money, his notion being that a
supper with a domino, entailing considerable expense, was rather a big
adventure.
It seemed to him, however, that he must needs love her. Sometimes he
used to wake up with his heart full of hope, dressed himself carefully
as if he were going to keep an appointment, and started on interminable
excursions all over Paris. Whenever a woman was walking in front of him,
or coming in his direction, he would say: "Here she is!" Every time it
was only a fresh disappointment. The idea of Madame Arnoux strengthened
these desires. Perhaps he might find her on his way; and he conjured up
dangerous complications, extraordinary perils from which he would save
her, in order to get near her.
So the days slipped by with the same tiresome experiences, and
enslavement to contracted habits. He turned over the pages of pamphlets
under the arcades of the Odéon, went to read the _Revue des Deux Mondes_
at the café, entered the hall of the Collége de France, and for an hour
stopped to listen to a lecture on Chinese or political economy. Every
week he wrote long letters to Deslauriers, dined from time to time with
Martinon, and occasionally saw M. de Cisy. He hired a piano and composed
German waltzes.
One evening at the theatre of the Palais-Royal, he perceived, in one of
the stage-boxes, Arnoux with a woman by his side. Was it she? The screen
of green taffeta, pulled over the side of the box, hid her face. At
length, the curtain rose, and the screen was drawn aside. She was a tall
woman of about thirty, rather faded, and, when she laughed, her thick
lips uncovered a row of shining teeth. She chatted familiarly with
Arnoux, giving him, from time to time, taps, with her fan, on the
fingers. Then a fair-haired young girl with eyelids a little red, as if
she had just been weeping, seated herself between them. Arnoux after
that remained stooped over her shoulder, pouring forth a stream of talk
to which she listened without replying. Frederick taxed his ingenuity to
find out the social position of these women, modestly attired in gowns
of sober hue with flat, turned-up collars.
At the close of the play, he made a dash for the passages. The crowd of
people going out filled them up. Arnoux, just in front of him, was
descending the staircase step by step, with a woman on each arm.
Suddenly a gas-burner shed its light on him. He wore a crape hat-band.
She was dead, perhaps? This idea tormented Frederick's mind so much,
that he hurried, next day, to the office of _L'Art Industriel_, and
paying, without a moment's delay, for one of the engravings exposed in
the window for sale, he asked the shop-assistant how was Monsieur
Arnoux.
The shop-assistant replied:
"Why, quite well!"
Frederick, growing pale, added:
"And Madame?"
"Madame, also."
Frederick forgot to carry off his engraving.
The winter drew to an end. He was less melancholy in the spring time,
and began to prepare for his examination. Having passed it
indifferently, he started immediately afterwards for Nogent.
He refrained from going to Troyes to see his friend, in order to escape
his mother's comments. Then, on his return to Paris at the end of the
vacation, he left his lodgings, and took two rooms on the Quai Napoléon
which he furnished. He had given up all hope of getting an invitation
from the Dambreuses. His great passion for Madame Arnoux was beginning
to die out.