The Inexpressible She!
One morning, in the month of December, while going to attend a law
lecture, he thought he could observe more than ordinary animation in the
Rue Saint-Jacques. The students were rushing precipitately out of the
cafés, where, through the open windows, they were calling one another
from one house to the other. The shop keepers in the middle of the
footpath were looking about them anxiously; the window-shutters were
fastened; and when he reached the Rue Soufflot, he perceived a large
assemblage around the Panthéon.
Young men in groups numbering from five to a dozen walked along, arm in
arm, and accosted the larger groups, which had stationed themselves here
and there. At the lower end of the square, near the railings, men in
blouses were holding forth, while policemen, with their three-cornered
hats drawn over their ears, and their hands behind their backs, were
strolling up and down beside the walls making the flags ring under the
tread of their heavy boots. All wore a mysterious, wondering look; they
were evidently expecting something to happen. Each held back a question
which was on the edge of his lips.
Frederick found himself close to a fair-haired young man with a
prepossessing face and a moustache and a tuft of beard on his chin, like
a dandy of Louis XIII.'s time. He asked the stranger what was the cause
of the disorder.
"I haven't the least idea," replied the other, "nor have they, for that
matter! 'Tis their fashion just now! What a good joke!"
And he burst out laughing. The petitions for Reform, which had been
signed at the quarters of the National Guard, together with the
property-census of Humann and other events besides, had, for the past
six months, led to inexplicable gatherings of riotous crowds in Paris,
and so frequently had they broken out anew, that the newspapers had
ceased to refer to them.
"This lacks graceful outline and colour," continued Frederick's
neighbour. "I am convinced, messire, that we have degenerated. In the
good epoch of Louis XI., and even in that of Benjamin Constant, there
was more mutinousness amongst the students. I find them as pacific as
sheep, as stupid as greenhorns, and only fit to be grocers. Gadzooks!
And these are what we call the youth of the schools!"
He held his arms wide apart after the fashion of Frederick Lemaitre in
_Robert Macaire_.
"Youth of the schools, I give you my blessing!"
After this, addressing a rag picker, who was moving a heap of
oyster-shells up against the wall of a wine-merchant's house:
"Do you belong to them--the youth of the schools?"
The old man lifted up a hideous countenance in which one could trace, in
the midst of a grey beard, a red nose and two dull eyes, bloodshot from
drink.
"No, you appear to me rather one of those men with patibulary faces whom
we see, in various groups, liberally scattering gold. Oh, scatter it, my
patriarch, scatter it! Corrupt me with the treasures of Albion! Are you
English? I do not reject the presents of Artaxerxes! Let us have a
little chat about the union of customs!"
Frederick felt a hand laid on his shoulder. It was Martinon, looking
exceedingly pale.
"Well!" said he with a big sigh, "another riot!"
He was afraid of being compromised, and uttered complaints. Men in
blouses especially made him feel uneasy, suggesting a connection with
secret societies.
"You mean to say there are secret societies," said the young man with
the moustaches. "That is a worn-out dodge of the Government to frighten
the middle-class folk!"
Martinon urged him to speak in a lower tone, for fear of the police.
"You believe still in the police, do you? As a matter of fact, how do
you know, Monsieur, that I am not myself a police spy?"
And he looked at him in such a way, that Martinon, much discomposed,
was, at first, unable to see the joke. The people pushed them on, and
they were all three compelled to stand on the little staircase which
led, by one of the passages, to the new amphitheatre.
The crowd soon broke up of its own accord. Many heads could be
distinguished. They bowed towards the distinguished Professor Samuel
Rondelot, who, wrapped in his big frock-coat, with his silver spectacles
held up high in the air, and breathing hard from his asthma, was
advancing at an easy pace, on his way to deliver his lecture. This man
was one of the judicial glories of the nineteenth century, the rival of
the Zachariæs and the Ruhdorffs. His new dignity of peer of France had
in no way modified his external demeanour. He was known to be poor, and
was treated with profound respect.
Meanwhile, at the lower end of the square, some persons cried out:
"Down with Guizot!"
"Down with Pritchard!"
"Down with the sold ones!"
"Down with Louis Philippe!"
The crowd swayed to and fro, and, pressing against the gate of the
courtyard, which was shut, prevented the professor from going further.
He stopped in front of the staircase. He was speedily observed on the
lowest of three steps. He spoke; the loud murmurs of the throng drowned
his voice. Although at another time they might love him, they hated him
now, for he was the representative of authority. Every time he tried to
make himself understood, the outcries recommenced. He gesticulated with
great energy to induce the students to follow him. He was answered by
vociferations from all sides. He shrugged his shoulders disdainfully,
and plunged into the passage. Martinon profited by his situation to
disappear at the same moment.
"What a coward!" said Frederick.
"He was prudent," returned the other.
There was an outburst of applause from the crowd, from whose point of
view this retreat, on the part of the professor, appeared in the light
of a victory. From every window, faces, lighted with curiosity, looked
out. Some of those in the crowd struck up the "Marseillaise;" others
proposed to go to Béranger's house.
"To Laffitte's house!"
"To Chateaubriand's house!"
"To Voltaire's house!" yelled the young man with the fair moustaches.
The policemen tried to pass around, saying in the mildest tones they
could assume:
"Move on, messieurs! Move on! Take yourselves off!"
Somebody exclaimed:
"Down with the slaughterers!"
This was a form of insult usual since the troubles of the month of
September. Everyone echoed it. The guardians of public order were hooted
and hissed. They began to grow pale. One of them could endure it no
longer, and, seeing a low-sized young man approaching too close,
laughing in his teeth, pushed him back so roughly, that he tumbled over
on his back some five paces away, in front of a wine-merchant's shop.
All made way; but almost immediately afterwards the policeman rolled on
the ground himself, felled by a blow from a species of Hercules, whose
hair hung down like a bundle of tow under an oilskin cap. Having stopped
for a few minutes at the corner of the Rue Saint-Jacques, he had very
quickly laid down a large case, which he had been carrying, in order to
make a spring at the policeman, and, holding down that functionary,
punched his face unmercifully. The other policemen rushed to the rescue
of their comrade. The terrible shop-assistant was so powerfully built
that it took four of them at least to get the better of him. Two of them
shook him, while keeping a grip on his collar; two others dragged his
arms; a fifth gave him digs of the knee in the ribs; and all of them
called him "brigand," "assassin," "rioter." With his breast bare, and
his clothes in rags, he protested that he was innocent; he could not, in
cold blood, look at a child receiving a beating.
"My name is Dussardier. I'm employed at Messieurs Valincart Brothers'
lace and fancy warehouse, in the Rue de Cléry. Where's my case? I want
my case!"
He kept repeating:
"Dussardier, Rue de Cléry. My case!"
However, he became quiet, and, with a stoical air, allowed himself to be
led towards the guard-house in the Rue Descartes. A flood of people came
rushing after him. Frederick and the young man with the moustaches
walked immediately behind, full of admiration for the shopman, and
indignant at the violence of power.
As they advanced, the crowd became less thick.
The policemen from time to time turned round, with threatening looks;
and the rowdies, no longer having anything to do, and the spectators not
having anything to look at, all drifted away by degrees. The passers-by,
who met the procession, as they came along, stared at Dussardier, and in
loud tones, gave vent to abusive remarks about him. One old woman, at
her own door, bawled out that he had stolen a loaf of bread from her.
This unjust accusation increased the wrath of the two friends. At
length, they reached the guard-house. Only about twenty persons were
now left in the attenuated crowd, and the sight of the soldiers was
enough to disperse them.
Frederick and his companion boldly asked to have the man who had just
been imprisoned delivered up. The sentinel threatened, if they
persisted, to ram them into jail too. They said they required to see the
commander of the guard-house, and stated their names, and the fact that
they were law-students, declaring that the prisoner was one also.
They were ushered into a room perfectly bare, in which, amid an
atmosphere of smoke, four benches might be seen lining the
roughly-plastered walls. At the lower end there was an open wicket. Then
appeared the sturdy face of Dussardier, who, with his hair all tousled,
his honest little eyes, and his broad snout, suggested to one's mind in
a confused sort of way the physiognomy of a good dog.
"Don't you recognise us?" said Hussonnet.
This was the name of the young man with the moustaches.
"Why----" stammered Dussardier.
"Don't play the fool any further," returned the other. "We know that you
are, just like ourselves, a law-student."
In spite of their winks, Dussardier failed to understand. He appeared to
be collecting his thoughts; then, suddenly:
"Has my case been found?"
Frederick raised his eyes, feeling much discouraged.
Hussonnet, however, said promptly:
"Ha! your case, in which you keep your notes of lectures? Yes, yes, make
your mind easy about it!"
They made further pantomimic signs with redoubled energy, till
Dussardier at last realised that they had come to help him; and he held
his tongue, fearing that he might compromise them. Besides, he
experienced a kind of shamefacedness at seeing himself raised to the
social rank of student, and to an equality with those young men who had
such white hands.
"Do you wish to send any message to anyone?" asked Frederick.
"No, thanks, to nobody."
"But your family?"
He lowered his head without replying; the poor fellow was a bastard. The
two friends stood quite astonished at his silence.
"Have you anything to smoke?" was Frederick's next question.
He felt about, then drew forth from the depths of one of his pockets the
remains of a pipe--a beautiful pipe, made of white talc with a shank of
blackwood, a silver cover, and an amber mouthpiece.
For the last three years he had been engaged in completing this
masterpiece. He had been careful to keep the bowl of it constantly
thrust into a kind of sheath of chamois, to smoke it as slowly as
possible, without ever letting it lie on any cold stone substance, and
to hang it up every evening over the head of his bed. And now he shook
out the fragments of it into his hand, the nails of which were covered
with blood, and with his chin sunk on his chest, his pupils fixed and
dilated, he contemplated this wreck of the thing that had yielded him
such delight with a glance of unutterable sadness.
"Suppose we give him some cigars, eh?" said Hussonnet in a whisper,
making a gesture as if he were reaching them out.
Frederick had already laid down a cigar-holder, filled, on the edge of
the wicket.
"Pray take this. Good-bye! Cheer up!"
Dussardier flung himself on the two hands that were held out towards
him. He pressed them frantically, his voice choked with sobs.
"What? For me!--for me!"
The two friends tore themselves away from the effusive display of
gratitude which he made, and went off to lunch together at the Café
Tabourey, in front of the Luxembourg.
While cutting up the beefsteak, Hussonnet informed his companion that he
did work for the fashion journals, and manufactured catchwords for
_L'Art Industriel_.
"At Jacques Arnoux's establishment?" said Frederick.
"Do you know him?"
"Yes!--no!--that is to say, I have seen him--I have met him."
He carelessly asked Hussonnet if he sometimes saw Arnoux's wife.
"From time to time," the Bohemian replied.
Frederick did not venture to follow up his enquiries. This man
henceforth would fill up a large space in his life. He paid the
lunch-bill without any protest on the other's part.
There was a bond of mutual sympathy between them; they gave one another
their respective addresses, and Hussonnet cordially invited Frederick to
accompany him to the Rue de Fleurus.
They had reached the middle of the garden, when Arnoux's clerk, holding
his breath, twisted his features into a hideous grimace, and began to
crow like a cock. Thereupon all the cocks in the vicinity responded
with prolonged "cock-a-doodle-doos."
"It is a signal," explained Hussonnet.
They stopped close to the Théàtre Bobino, in front of a house to which
they had to find their way through an alley. In the skylight of a
garret, between the nasturtiums and the sweet peas, a young woman showed
herself, bare-headed, in her stays, her two arms resting on the edge of
the roof-gutter.
"Good-morrow, my angel! good-morrow, ducky!" said Hussonnet, sending her
kisses.
He made the barrier fly open with a kick, and disappeared.
Frederick waited for him all the week. He did not venture to call at
Hussonnet's residence, lest it might look as if he were in a hurry to
get a lunch in return for the one he had paid for. But he sought the
clerk all over the Latin Quarter. He came across him one evening, and
brought him to his apartment on the Quai Napoléon.
They had a long chat, and unbosomed themselves to each other. Hussonnet
yearned after the glory and the gains of the theatre. He collaborated in
the writing of vaudevilles which were not accepted, "had heaps of
plans," could turn a couplet; he sang out for Frederick a few of the
verses he had composed. Then, noticing on one of the shelves a volume of
Hugo and another of Lamartine, he broke out into sarcastic criticisms of
the romantic school. These poets had neither good sense nor correctness,
and, above all, were not French! He plumed himself on his knowledge of
the language, and analysed the most beautiful phrases with that snarling
severity, that academic taste which persons of playful disposition
exhibit when they are discussing serious art.
Frederick was wounded in his predilections, and he felt a desire to cut
the discussion short. Why not take the risk at once of uttering the word
on which his happiness depended? He asked this literary youth whether it
would be possible to get an introduction into the Arnoux's house through
his agency.
The thing was declared to be quite easy, and they fixed upon the
following day.
Hussonnet failed to keep the appointment, and on three subsequent
occasions he did not turn up. One Saturday, about four o'clock, he made
his appearance. But, taking advantage of the cab into which they had
got, he drew up in front of the Théàtre Français to get a box-ticket,
got down at a tailor's shop, then at a dressmaker's, and wrote notes in
the door-keeper's lodge. At last they came to the Boulevard Montmartre.
Frederick passed through the shop, and went up the staircase. Arnoux
recognised him through the glass-partition in front of his desk, and
while continuing to write he stretched out his hand and laid it on
Frederick's shoulder.
Five or six persons, standing up, filled the narrow apartment, which was
lighted by a single window looking out on the yard, a sofa of brown
damask wool occupying the interior of an alcove between two
door-curtains of similar material. Upon the chimney-piece, covered with
old papers, there was a bronze Venus. Two candelabra, garnished with
rose-coloured wax-tapers, supported it, one at each side. At the right
near a cardboard chest of drawers, a man, seated in an armchair, was
reading the newspaper, with his hat on. The walls were hidden from view
beneath the array of prints and pictures, precious engravings or
sketches by contemporary masters, adorned with dedications testifying
the most sincere affection for Jacques Arnoux.
"You're getting on well all this time?" said he, turning round to
Frederick.
And, without waiting for an answer, he asked Hussonnet in a low tone:
"What is your friend's name?" Then, raising his voice:
"Take a cigar out of the box on the cardboard stand."
The office of _L'Art Industriel_, situated in a central position in
Paris, was a convenient place of resort, a neutral ground wherein
rivalries elbowed each other familiarly. On this day might be seen there
Anténor Braive, who painted portraits of kings; Jules Burrieu, who by
his sketches was beginning to popularise the wars in Algeria; the
caricaturist Sombary, the sculptor Vourdat, and others. And not a single
one of them corresponded with the student's preconceived ideas. Their
manners were simple, their talk free and easy. The mystic Lovarias told
an obscene story; and the inventor of Oriental landscape, the famous
Dittmer, wore a knitted shirt under his waistcoat, and went home in the
omnibus.
The first topic that came on the carpet was the case of a girl named
Apollonie, formerly a model, whom Burrieu alleged that he had seen on
the boulevard in a carriage. Hussonnet explained this metamorphosis
through the succession of persons who had loved her.
"How well this sly dog knows the girls of Paris!" said Arnoux.
"After you, if there are any of them left, sire," replied the Bohemian,
with a military salute, in imitation of the grenadier offering his flask
to Napoléon.
Then they talked about some pictures in which Apollonie had sat for the
female figures. They criticised their absent brethren, expressing
astonishment at the sums paid for their works; and they were all
complaining of not having been sufficiently remunerated themselves, when
the conversation was interrupted by the entrance of a man of middle
stature, who had his coat fastened by a single button, and whose eyes
glittered with a rather wild expression.
"What a lot of shopkeepers you are!" said he. "God bless my soul! what
does that signify? The old masters did not trouble their heads about the
million--Correggio, Murillo----"
"Add Pellerin," said Sombary.
But, without taking the slightest notice of the epigram, he went on
talking with such vehemence, that Arnoux was forced to repeat twice to
him:
"My wife wants you on Thursday. Don't forget!"
This remark recalled Madame Arnoux to Frederick's thoughts. No doubt,
one might be able to reach her through the little room near the sofa.
Arnoux had just opened the portière leading into it to get a
pocket-handkerchief, and Frédéric had seen a wash-stand at the far end
of the apartment.
But at this point a kind of muttering sound came from the corner of the
chimney-piece; it was caused by the personage who sat in the armchair
reading the newspaper. He was a man of five feet nine inches in height,
with rather heavy eyelashes, a head of grey hair, and an imposing
appearance; and his name was Regimbart.
"What's the matter now, citizen?" said Arnoux.
"Another fresh piece of rascality on the part of Government!"
The thing that he was referring to was the dismissal of a schoolmaster.
Pellerin again took up his parallel between Michael Angelo and
Shakespeare. Dittmer was taking himself off when Arnoux pulled him back
in order to put two bank notes into his hand. Thereupon Hussonnet said,
considering this an opportune time:
"Couldn't you give me an advance, my dear master----?"
But Arnoux had resumed his seat, and was administering a severe
reprimand to an old man of mean aspect, who wore a pair of blue
spectacles.
"Ha! a nice fellow you are, Père Isaac! Here are three works cried down,
destroyed! Everybody is laughing at me! People know what they are now!
What do you want me to do with them? I'll have to send them off to
California--or to the devil! Hold your tongue!"
The specialty of this old worthy consisted in attaching the signatures
of the great masters at the bottom of these pictures. Arnoux refused to
pay him, and dismissed him in a brutal fashion. Then, with an entire
change of manner, he bowed to a gentleman of affectedly grave demeanour,
who wore whiskers and displayed a white tie round his neck and the cross
of the Legion of Honour over his breast.
With his elbow resting on the window-fastening, he kept talking to him
for a long time in honeyed tones. At last he burst out:
"Ah! well, I am not bothered with brokers, Count."
The nobleman gave way, and Arnoux paid him down twenty-five louis. As
soon as he had gone out:
"What a plague these big lords are!"
"A lot of wretches!" muttered Regimbart.
As it grew later, Arnoux was much more busily occupied. He classified
articles, tore open letters, set out accounts in a row; at the sound of
hammering in the warehouse he went out to look after the packing; then
he went back to his ordinary work; and, while he kept his steel pen
running over the paper, he indulged in sharp witticisms. He had an
invitation to dine with his lawyer that evening, and was starting next
day for Belgium.
The others chatted about the topics of the day--Cherubini's portrait,
the hemicycle of the Fine Arts, and the next Exhibition. Pellerin railed
at the Institute. Scandalous stories and serious discussions got mixed
up together. The apartment with its low ceiling was so much stuffed up
that one could scarcely move; and the light of the rose-coloured
wax-tapers was obscured in the smoke of their cigars, like the sun's
rays in a fog.
The door near the sofa flew open, and a tall, thin woman entered with
abrupt movements, which made all the trinkets of her watch rattle under
her black taffeta gown.
It was the woman of whom Frederick had caught a glimpse last summer at
the Palais-Royal. Some of those present, addressing her by name, shook
hands with her. Hussonnet had at last managed to extract from his
employer the sum of fifty francs. The clock struck seven.
All rose to go.
Arnoux told Pellerin to remain, and accompanied Mademoiselle Vatnaz into
the dressing-room.
Frederick could not hear what they said; they spoke in whispers.
However, the woman's voice was raised:
"I have been waiting ever since the job was done, six months ago."
There was a long silence, and then Mademoiselle Vatnaz reappeared.
Arnoux had again promised her something.
"Oh! oh! later, we shall see!"
"Good-bye! happy man," said she, as she was going out.
Arnoux quickly re-entered the dressing-room, rubbed some cosmetic over
his moustaches, raised his braces, stretched his straps; and, while he
was washing his hands:
"I would require two over the door at two hundred and fifty apiece, in
Boucher's style. Is that understood?"
"Be it so," said the artist, his face reddening.
"Good! and don't forget my wife!"
Frederick accompanied Pellerin to the top of the Faubourg Poissonnière,
and asked his permission to come to see him sometimes, a favour which
was graciously accorded.
Pellerin read every work on æsthetics, in order to find out the true
theory of the Beautiful, convinced that, when he had discovered it, he
would produce masterpieces. He surrounded himself with every imaginable
auxiliary--drawings, plaster-casts, models, engravings; and he kept
searching about, eating his heart out. He blamed the weather, his
nerves, his studio, went out into the street to find inspiration there,
quivered with delight at the thought that he had caught it, then
abandoned the work in which he was engaged, and dreamed of another which
should be finer. Thus, tormented by the desire for glory, and wasting
his days in discussions, believing in a thousand fooleries--in systems,
in criticisms, in the importance of a regulation or a reform in the
domain of Art--he had at fifty as yet turned out nothing save mere
sketches. His robust pride prevented him from experiencing any
discouragement, but he was always irritated, and in that state of
exaltation, at the same time factitious and natural, which is
characteristic of comedians.
On entering his studio one's attention was directed towards two large
pictures, in which the first tones of colour laid on here and there made
on the white canvas spots of brown, red, and blue. A network of lines in
chalk stretched overhead, like stitches of thread repeated twenty times;
it was impossible to understand what it meant. Pellerin explained the
subject of these two compositions by pointing out with his thumb the
portions that were lacking. The first was intended to represent "The
Madness of Nebuchadnezzar," and the second "The Burning of Rome by
Nero." Frederick admired them.
He admired academies of women with dishevelled hair, landscapes in which
trunks of trees, twisted by the storm, abounded, and above all freaks of
the pen, imitations from memory of Callot, Rembrandt, or Goya, of which
he did not know the models. Pellerin no longer set any value on these
works of his youth. He was now all in favour of the grand style; he
dogmatised eloquently about Phidias and Winckelmann. The objects around
him strengthened the force of his language; one saw a death's head on a
prie-dieu, yataghans, a monk's habit. Frederick put it on.
When he arrived early, he surprised the artist in his wretched
folding-bed, which was hidden from view by a strip of tapestry; for
Pellerin went to bed late, being an assiduous frequenter of the
theatres. An old woman in tatters attended on him. He dined at a
cook-shop, and lived without a mistress. His acquirements, picked up in
the most irregular fashion, rendered his paradoxes amusing. His hatred
of the vulgar and the "bourgeois" overflowed in sarcasms, marked by a
superb lyricism, and he had such religious reverence for the masters
that it raised him almost to their level.
But why had he never spoken about Madame Arnoux? As for her son, at one
time he called Pellerin a decent fellow, at other times a charlatan.
Frederick was waiting for some disclosures on his part.
One day, while turning over one of the portfolios in the studio, he
thought he could trace in the portrait of a female Bohemian some
resemblance to Mademoiselle Vatnaz; and, as he felt interested in this
lady, he desired to know what was her exact social position.
She had been, as far as Pellerin could ascertain, originally a
schoolmistress in the provinces. She now gave lessons in Paris, and
tried to write for the small journals.
According to Frederick, one would imagine from her manners with Arnoux
that she was his mistress.
"Pshaw! he has others!"
Then, turning away his face, which reddened with shame as he realised
the baseness of the suggestion, the young man added, with a swaggering
air:
"Very likely his wife pays him back for it?"
"Not at all; she is virtuous."
Frederick again experienced a feeling of compunction, and the result was
that his attendance at the office of the art journal became more marked
than before.
The big letters which formed the name of Arnoux on the marble plate
above the shop seemed to him quite peculiar and pregnant with
significance, like some sacred writing. The wide footpath, by its
descent, facilitated his approach; the door almost turned of its own
accord; and the handle, smooth to the touch, gave him the sensation of
friendly and, as it were, intelligent fingers clasping his.
Unconsciously, he became quite as punctual as Regimbart.
Every day Regimbart seated himself in the chimney corner, in his
armchair, got hold of the _National_, and kept possession of it,
expressing his thoughts by exclamations or by shrugs of the
shoulders. From time to time he would wipe his forehead with his
pocket-handkerchief, rolled up in a ball, which he usually stuck in
between two buttons of his green frock-coat. He had trousers with
wrinkles, bluchers, and a long cravat; and his hat, with its turned-up
brim, made him easily recognised, at a distance, in a crowd.
At eight o'clock in the morning he descended the heights of Montmartre,
in order to imbibe white wine in the Rue Nôtre Dame des Victoires. A
late breakfast, following several games of billiards, brought him on to
three o'clock. He then directed his steps towards the Passage des
Panoramas, where he had a glass of absinthe. After the sitting in
Arnoux's shop, he entered the Bordelais smoking-divan, where he
swallowed some bitters; then, in place of returning home to his wife, he
preferred to dine alone in a little café in the Rue Gaillon, where he
desired them to serve up to him "household dishes, natural things."
Finally, he made his way to another billiard-room, and remained there
till midnight, in fact, till one o'clock in the morning, up till the
last moment, when, the gas being put out and the window-shutters
fastened, the master of the establishment, worn out, begged of him to
go.
And it was not the love of drinking that attracted Citizen Regimbart to
these places, but the inveterate habit of talking politics at such
resorts. With advancing age, he had lost his vivacity, and now exhibited
only a silent moroseness. One would have said, judging from the gravity
of his countenence, that he was turning over in his mind the affairs of
the whole world. Nothing, however, came from it; and nobody, even
amongst his own friends, knew him to have any occupation, although he
gave himself out as being up to his eyes in business.
Arnoux appeared to have a very great esteem for him. One day he said to
Frederick:
"He knows a lot, I assure you. He is an able man."
On another occasion Regimbart spread over his desk papers relating to
the kaolin mines in Brittany. Arnoux referred to his own experience on
the subject.
Frederick showed himself more ceremonious towards Regimbart, going so
far as to invite him from time to time to take a glass of absinthe; and,
although he considered him a stupid man, he often remained a full hour
in his company solely because he was Jacques Arnoux's friend.
After pushing forward some contemporary masters in the early portions of
their career, the picture-dealer, a man of progressive ideas, had tried,
while clinging to his artistic ways, to extend his pecuniary profits.
His object was to emancipate the fine arts, to get the sublime at a
cheap rate. Over every industry associated with Parisian luxury he
exercised an influence which proved fortunate with respect to little
things, but fatal with respect to great things. With his mania for
pandering to public opinion, he made clever artists swerve from their
true path, corrupted the strong, exhausted the weak, and got distinction
for those of mediocre talent; he set them up with the assistance of his
connections and of his magazine. Tyros in painting were ambitious of
seeing their works in his shop-window, and upholsterers brought
specimens of furniture to his house. Frederick regarded him, at the same
time, as a millionaire, as a _dilettante_, and as a man of action.
However, he found many things that filled him with astonishment, for my
lord Arnoux was rather sly in his commercial transactions.
He received from the very heart of Germany or of Italy a picture
purchased in Paris for fifteen hundred francs, and, exhibiting an
invoice that brought the price up to four thousand, sold it over again
through complaisance for three thousand five hundred. One of his usual
tricks with painters was to exact as a drink-allowance an abatement in
the purchase-money of their pictures, under the pretence that he would
bring out an engraving of it. He always, when selling such pictures,
made a profit by the abatement; but the engraving never appeared. To
those who complained that he had taken an advantage of them, he would
reply by a slap on the stomach. Generous in other ways, he squandered
money on cigars for his acquaintances, "thee'd" and "thou'd" persons who
were unknown, displayed enthusiasm about a work or a man; and, after
that, sticking to his opinion, and, regardless of consequences, spared
no expense in journeys, correspondence, and advertising. He looked upon
himself as very upright, and, yielding to an irresistible impulse to
unbosom himself, ingenuously told his friends about certain indelicate
acts of which he had been guilty. Once, in order to annoy a member of
his own trade who inaugurated another art journal with a big banquet, he
asked Frederick to write, under his own eyes, a little before the hour
fixed for the entertainment, letters to the guests recalling the
invitations.
"This impugns nobody's honour, do you understand?"
And the young man did not dare to refuse the service.
Next day, on entering with Hussonnet M. Arnoux's office, Frederick saw
through the door (the one opening on the staircase) the hem of a lady's
dress disappearing.
"A thousand pardons!" said Hussonnet. "If I had known that there were
women----"
"Oh! as for that one, she is my own," replied Arnoux. "She just came in
to pay me a visit as she was passing."
"You don't say so!" said Frederick.
"Why, yes; she is going back home again."
The charm of the things around him was suddenly withdrawn. That which
had seemed to him to be diffused vaguely through the place had now
vanished--or, rather, it had never been there. He experienced an
infinite amazement, and, as it were, the painful sensation of having
been betrayed.
Arnoux, while rummaging about in his drawer, began to smile. Was he
laughing at him? The clerk laid down a bundle of moist papers on the
table.
"Ha! the placards," exclaimed the picture-dealer. "I am not ready to
dine this evening."
Regimbart took up his hat.
"What, are you leaving me?"
"Seven o'clock," said Regimbart.
Frederick followed him.
At the corner of the Rue Montmartre, he turned round. He glanced towards
the windows of the first floor, and he laughed internally with self-pity
as he recalled to mind with what love he had so often contemplated them.
Where, then, did she reside? How was he to meet her now? Once more
around the object of his desire a solitude opened more immense than
ever!
"Are you coming to take it?" asked Regimbart.
"To take what?"
"The absinthe."
And, yielding to his importunities, Frederick allowed himself to be led
towards the Bordelais smoking-divan. Whilst his companion, leaning on
his elbow, was staring at the decanter, he was turning his eyes to the
right and to the left. But he caught a glimpse of Pellerin's profile on
the footpath outside; the painter gave a quick tap at the window-pane,
and he had scarcely sat down when Regimbart asked him why they no longer
saw him at the office of _L'Art Industriel_.
"May I perish before ever I go back there again. The fellow is a brute,
a mere tradesman, a wretch, a downright rogue!"
These insulting words harmonised with Frederick's present angry mood.
Nevertheless, he was wounded, for it seemed to him that they hit at
Madame Arnoux more or less.
"Why, what has he done to you?" said Regimbart.
Pellerin stamped with his foot on the ground, and his only response was
an energetic puff.
He had been devoting himself to artistic work of a kind that he did not
care to connect his name with, such as portraits for two crayons, or
pasticcios from the great masters for amateurs of limited knowledge;
and, as he felt humiliated by these inferior productions, he preferred
to hold his tongue on the subject as a general rule. But "Arnoux's dirty
conduct" exasperated him too much. He had to relieve his feelings.
In accordance with an order, which had been given in Frederick's very
presence, he had brought Arnoux two pictures. Thereupon the dealer took
the liberty of criticising them. He found fault with the composition,
the colouring, and the drawing--above all the drawing; he would not, in
short, take them at any price. But, driven to extremities by a bill
falling due, Pellerin had to give them to the Jew Isaac; and, a
fortnight later, Arnoux himself sold them to a Spaniard for two thousand
francs.
"Not a sou less! What rascality! and, faith, he has done many other
things just as bad. One of these mornings we'll see him in the dock!"
"How you exaggerate!" said Frederick, in a timid voice.
"Come, now, that's good; I exaggerate!" exclaimed the artist, giving the
table a great blow with his fist.
This violence had the effect of completely restoring the young man's
self-command. No doubt he might have acted more nicely; still, if Arnoux
found these two pictures----
"Bad! say it out! Are you a judge of them? Is this your profession? Now,
you know, my youngster, I don't allow this sort of thing on the part of
mere amateurs."
"Ah! well, it's not my business," said Frederick.
"Then, what interest have you in defending him?" returned Pellerin,
coldly.
The young man faltered:
"But--since I am his friend----"
"Go, and give him a hug for me. Good evening!"
And the painter rushed away in a rage, and, of course, without paying
for his drink.
Frederick, whilst defending Arnoux, had convinced himself. In the heat
of his eloquence, he was filled with tenderness towards this man, so
intelligent and kind, whom his friends calumniated, and who had now to
work all alone, abandoned by them. He could not resist a strange impulse
to go at once and see him again. Ten minutes afterwards he pushed open
the door of the picture-warehouse.
Arnoux was preparing, with the assistance of his clerks, some huge
placards for an exhibition of pictures.
"Halloa! what brings you back again?"
This question, simple though it was, embarrassed Frederick, and, at a
loss for an answer, he asked whether they had happened to find a
notebook of his--a little notebook with a blue leather cover.
"The one that you put your letters to women in?" said Arnoux.
Frederick, blushing like a young girl, protested against such an
assumption.
"Your verses, then?" returned the picture-dealer.
He handled the pictorial specimens that were to be exhibited,
discovering their form, colouring, and frames; and Frederick felt more
and more irritated by his air of abstraction, and particularly by the
appearance of his hands--large hands, rather soft, with flat nails. At
length, M. Arnoux arose, and saying, "That's disposed of!" he chucked
the young man familiarly under the chin. Frederick was offended at this
liberty, and recoiled a pace or two; then he made a dash for the
shop-door, and passed out through it, as he imagined, for the last time
in his life. Madame Arnoux herself had been lowered by the vulgarity of
her husband.
During the same week he got a letter from Deslauriers, informing him
that the clerk would be in Paris on the following Thursday. Then he
flung himself back violently on this affection as one of a more solid
and lofty character. A man of this sort was worth all the women in the
world. He would no longer have any need of Regimbart, of Pellerin, of
Hussonnet, of anyone! In order to provide his friend with as comfortable
lodgings as possible, he bought an iron bedstead and a second armchair,
and stripped off some of his own bed-covering to garnish this one
properly. On Thursday morning he was dressing himself to go to meet
Deslauriers when there was a ring at the door.
Arnoux entered.
"Just one word. Yesterday I got a lovely trout from Geneva. We expect
you by-and-by--at seven o'clock sharp. The address is the Rue de
Choiseul 24 _bis_. Don't forget!"
Frederick was obliged to sit down; his knees were tottering under him.
He repeated to himself, "At last! at last!" Then he wrote to his
tailor, to his hatter, and to his bootmaker; and he despatched these
three notes by three different messengers.
The key turned in the lock, and the door-keeper appeared with a trunk on
his shoulder.
Frederick, on seeing Deslauriers, began to tremble like an adulteress
under the glance of her husband.
"What has happened to you?" said Deslauriers. "Surely you got my
letter?"
Frederick had not enough energy left to lie. He opened his arms, and
flung himself on his friend's breast.
Then the clerk told his story. His father thought to avoid giving an
account of the expense of tutelage, fancying that the period limited for
rendering such accounts was ten years; but, well up in legal procedure,
Deslauriers had managed to get the share coming to him from his mother
into his clutches--seven thousand francs clear--which he had there with
him in an old pocket-book.
"'Tis a reserve fund, in case of misfortune. I must think over the best
way of investing it, and find quarters for myself to-morrow morning.
To-day I'm perfectly free, and am entirely at your service, my old
friend."
"Oh! don't put yourself about," said Frederick. "If you had anything of
importance to do this evening----"
"Come, now! I would be a selfish wretch----"
This epithet, flung out at random, touched Frederick to the quick, like
a reproachful hint.
The door-keeper had placed on the table close to the fire some chops,
cold meat, a large lobster, some sweets for dessert, and two bottles of
Bordeaux.
Deslauriers was touched by these excellent preparations to welcome his
arrival.
"Upon my word, you are treating me like a king!"
They talked about their past and about the future; and, from time to
time, they grasped each other's hands across the table, gazing at each
other tenderly for a moment.
But a messenger came with a new hat. Deslauriers, in a loud tone,
remarked that this head-gear was very showy. Next came the tailor
himself to fit on the coat, to which he had given a touch with the
smoothing-iron.
"One would imagine you were going to be married," said Deslauriers.
An hour later, a third individual appeared on the scene, and drew forth
from a big black bag a pair of shining patent leather boots. While
Frederick was trying them on, the bootmaker slyly drew attention to the
shoes of the young man from the country.
"Does Monsieur require anything?"
"Thanks," replied the clerk, pulling behind his chair his old shoes
fastened with strings.
This humiliating incident annoyed Frederick. At length he exclaimed, as
if an idea had suddenly taken possession of him:
"Ha! deuce take it! I was forgetting."
"What is it, pray?"
"I have to dine in the city this evening."
"At the Dambreuses'? Why did you never say anything to me about them in
your letters?"
"It is not at the Dambreuses', but at the Arnoux's."
"You should have let me know beforehand," said Deslauriers. "I would
have come a day later."
"Impossible," returned Frederick, abruptly. "I only got the invitation
this morning, a little while ago."
And to redeem his error and distract his friend's mind from the
occurrence, he proceeded to unfasten the tangled cords round the trunk,
and to arrange all his belongings in the chest of drawers, expressed his
willingness to give him his own bed, and offered to sleep himself in the
dressing-room bedstead. Then, as soon as it was four o'clock, he began
the preparations for his toilet.
"You have plenty of time," said the other.
At last he was dressed and off he went.
"That's the way with the rich," thought Deslauriers.
And he went to dine in the Rue Saint-Jacques, at a little restaurant
kept by a man he knew.
Frederick stopped several times while going up the stairs, so violently
did his heart beat. One of his gloves, which was too tight, burst, and,
while he was fastening back the torn part under his shirt-cuff, Arnoux,
who was mounting the stairs behind him, took his arm and led him in.
The anteroom, decorated in the Chinese fashion, had a painted lantern
hanging from the ceiling, and bamboos in the corners. As he was passing
into the drawing-room, Frederick stumbled against a tiger's skin. The
place had not yet been lighted up, but two lamps were burning in the
boudoir in the far corner.
Mademoiselle Marthe came to announce that her mamma was dressing. Arnoux
raised her as high as his mouth in order to kiss her; then, as he wished
to go to the cellar himself to select certain bottles of wine, he left
Frederick with the little girl.
She had grown much larger since the trip in the steamboat. Her dark hair
descended in long ringlets, which curled over her bare arms. Her dress,
more puffed out than the petticoat of a _danseuse_, allowed her rosy
calves to be seen, and her pretty childlike form had all the fresh odour
of a bunch of flowers. She received the young gentleman's compliments
with a coquettish air, fixed on him her large, dreamy eyes, then
slipping on the carpet amid the furniture, disappeared like a cat.
After this he no longer felt ill at ease. The globes of the lamps,
covered with a paper lace-work, sent forth a white light, softening the
colour of the walls, hung with mauve satin. Through the fender-bars, as
through the slits in a big fan, the coal could be seen in the fireplace,
and close beside the clock there was a little chest with silver clasps.
Here and there things lay about which gave the place a look of home--a
doll in the middle of the sofa, a fichu against the back of a chair, and
on the work-table a knitted woollen vest, from which two ivory needles
were hanging with their points downwards. It was altogether a peaceful
spot, suggesting the idea of propriety and innocent family life.
Arnoux returned, and Madame Arnoux appeared at the other doorway. As she
was enveloped in shadow, the young man could at first distinguish only
her head. She wore a black velvet gown, and in her hair she had fastened
a long Algerian cap, in a red silk net, which coiling round her comb,
fell over her left shoulder.
Arnoux introduced Frederick.
"Oh! I remember Monsieur perfectly well," she responded.
Then the guests arrived, nearly all at the same time--Dittmer, Lovarias,
Burrieu, the composer Rosenwald, the poet Théophile Lorris, two art
critics, colleagues of Hussonnet, a paper manufacturer, and in the rear
the illustrious Pierre Paul Meinsius, the last representative of the
grand school of painting, who blithely carried along with his glory his
forty-five years and his big paunch.
When they were passing into the dining-room, Madame Arnoux took his arm.
A chair had been left vacant for Pellerin. Arnoux, though he took
advantage of him, was fond of him. Besides, he was afraid of his
terrible tongue, so much so, that, in order to soften him, he had given
a portrait of him in _L'Art Industriel_, accompanied by exaggerated
eulogies; and Pellerin, more sensitive about distinction than about
money, made his appearance about eight o'clock quite out of breath.
Frederick fancied that they had been a long time reconciled.
He liked the company, the dishes, everything. The dining-room, which
resembled a mediæval parlour, was hung with stamped leather. A Dutch
whatnot faced a rack for chibouks, and around the table the Bohemian
glasses, variously coloured, had, in the midst of the flowers and
fruits, the effect of an illumination in a garden.
He had to make his choice between ten sorts of mustard. He partook of
daspachio, of curry, of ginger, of Corsican blackbirds, and a species of
Roman macaroni called lasagna; he drank extraordinary wines, lip-fraeli
and tokay. Arnoux indeed prided himself on entertaining people in good
style. With an eye to the procurement of eatables, he paid court to
mail-coach drivers, and was in league with the cooks of great houses,
who communicated to him the secrets of rare sauces.
But Frederick was particularly amused by the conversation. His taste for
travelling was tickled by Dittmer, who talked about the East; he
gratified his curiosity about theatrical matters by listening to
Rosenwald's chat about the opera; and the atrocious existence of Bohemia
assumed for him a droll aspect when seen through the gaiety of
Hussonnet, who related, in a picturesque fashion, how he had spent an
entire winter with no food except Dutch cheese. Then, a discussion
between Lovarias and Burrieu about the Florentine School gave him new
ideas with regard to masterpieces, widened his horizon, and he found
difficulty in restraining his enthusiasm when Pellerin exclaimed:
"Don't bother me with your hideous reality! What does it mean--reality?
Some see things black, others blue--the multitude sees them
brute-fashion. There is nothing less natural than Michael Angelo; there
is nothing more powerful! The anxiety about external truth is a mark of
contemporary baseness; and art will become, if things go on that way, a
sort of poor joke as much below religion as it is below poetry, and as
much below politics as it is below business. You will never reach its
end--yes, its end!--which is to cause within us an impersonal
exaltation, with petty works, in spite of all your finished execution.
Look, for instance, at Bassolier's pictures: they are pretty,
coquettish, spruce, and by no means dull. You might put them into your
pocket, bring them with you when you are travelling. Notaries buy them
for twenty thousand francs, while pictures of the ideal type are sold
for three sous. But, without ideality, there is no grandeur; without
grandeur there is no beauty. Olympus is a mountain. The most swagger
monument will always be the Pyramids. Exuberance is better than taste;
the desert is better than a street-pavement, and a savage is better than
a hairdresser!"
Frederick, as these words fell upon his ear, glanced towards Madame
Arnoux. They sank into his soul like metals falling into a furnace,
added to his passion, and supplied the material of love.
His chair was three seats below hers on the same side. From time to
time, she bent forward a little, turning aside her head to address a few
words to her little daughter; and as she smiled on these occasions, a
dimple took shape in her cheek, giving to her face an expression of more
dainty good-nature.
As soon as the time came for the gentlemen to take their wine, she
disappeared. The conversation became more free and easy. M. Arnoux shone
in it, and Frederick was astonished at the cynicism of men. However,
their preoccupation with woman established between them and him, as it
were, an equality, which raised him in his own estimation.
When they had returned to the drawing-room, he took up, to keep himself
in countenance, one of the albums which lay about on the table. The
great artists of the day had illustrated them with drawings, had written
in them snatches of verse or prose, or their signatures simply. In the
midst of famous names he found many that he had never heard of before,
and original thoughts appeared only underneath a flood of nonsense. All
these effusions contained a more or less direct expression of homage
towards Madame Arnoux. Frederick would have been afraid to write a line
beside them.
She went into her boudoir to look at the little chest with silver clasps
which he had noticed on the mantel-shelf. It was a present from her
husband, a work of the Renaissance. Arnoux's friends complimented him,
and his wife thanked him. His tender emotions were aroused, and before
all the guests he gave her a kiss.
After this they all chatted in groups here and there. The worthy
Meinsius was with Madame Arnoux on an easy chair close beside the fire.
She was leaning forward towards his ear; their heads were just touching,
and Frederick would have been glad to become deaf, infirm, and ugly if,
instead, he had an illustrious name and white hair--in short, if he only
happened to possess something which would install him in such intimate
association with her. He began once more to eat out his heart, furious
at the idea of being so young a man.
But she came into the corner of the drawing-room in which he was
sitting, asked him whether he was acquainted with any of the guests,
whether he was fond of painting, how long he had been a student in
Paris. Every word that came out of her mouth seemed to Frederick
something entirely new, an exclusive appendage of her personality. He
gazed attentively at the fringes of her head-dress, the ends of which
caressed her bare shoulder, and he was unable to take away his eyes; he
plunged his soul into the whiteness of that feminine flesh, and yet he
did not venture to raise his eyelids to glance at her higher, face to
face.
Rosenwald interrupted them, begging of Madame Arnoux to sing something.
He played a prelude, she waited, her lips opened slightly, and a sound,
pure, long-continued, silvery, ascended into the air.
Frederick did not understand a single one of the Italian words. The song
began with a grave measure, something like church music, then in a more
animated strain, with a crescendo movement, it broke into repeated
bursts of sound, then suddenly subsided, and the melody came back again
in a tender fashion with a wide and easy swing.
She stood beside the keyboard with her arms hanging down and a far-off
look on her face. Sometimes, in order to read the music, she advanced
her forehead for a moment and her eyelashes moved to and fro. Her
contralto voice in the low notes took a mournful intonation which had a
chilling effect on the listener, and then her beautiful head, with those
great brows of hers, bent over her shoulder; her bosom swelled; her eyes
were wide apart; her neck, from which roulades made their escape, fell
back as if under aërial kisses. She flung out three sharp notes, came
down again, cast forth one higher still, and, after a silence, finished
with an organ-point.
Rosenwald did not leave the piano. He continued playing, to amuse
himself. From time to time a guest stole away. At eleven o'clock, as the
last of them were going off, Arnoux went out along with Pellerin, under
the pretext of seeing him home. He was one of those people who say that
they are ill when they do not "take a turn" after dinner. Madame Arnoux
had made her way towards the anteroom. Dittmer and Hussonnet bowed to
her. She stretched out her hand to them. She did the same to Frederick;
and he felt, as it were, something penetrating every particle of his
skin.
He quitted his friends. He wished to be alone. His heart was
overflowing. Why had she offered him her hand? Was it a thoughtless
act, or an encouragement? "Come now! I am mad!" Besides, what did it
matter, when he could now visit her entirely at his ease, live in the
very atmosphere she breathed?
The streets were deserted. Now and then a heavy wagon would roll past,
shaking the pavements. The houses came one after another with their grey
fronts, their closed windows; and he thought with disdain of all those
human beings who lived behind those walls without having seen her, and
not one of whom dreamed of her existence. He had no consciousness of his
surroundings, of space, of anything, and striking the ground with his
heel, rapping with his walking-stick on the shutters of the shops, he
kept walking on continually at random, in a state of excitement, carried
away by his emotions. Suddenly he felt himself surrounded by a circle of
damp air, and found that he was on the edge of the quays.
The gas-lamps shone in two straight lines, which ran on endlessly, and
long red flames flickered in the depths of the water. The waves were
slate-coloured, while the sky, which was of clearer hue, seemed to be
supported by vast masses of shadow that rose on each side of the river.
The darkness was intensified by buildings whose outlines the eye could
not distinguish. A luminous haze floated above the roofs further on. All
the noises of the night had melted into a single monotonous hum.
He stopped in the middle of the Pont Neuf, and, taking off his hat and
exposing his chest, he drank in the air. And now he felt as if something
that was inexhaustible were rising up from the very depths of his being,
an afflux of tenderness that enervated him, like the motion of the
waves under his eyes. A church-clock slowly struck one, like a voice
calling out to him.
Then, he was seized with one of those shuddering sensations of the soul
in which one seems to be transported into a higher world. He felt, as it
were, endowed with some extraordinary faculty, the aim of which he could
not determine. He seriously asked himself whether he would be a great
painter or a great poet; and he decided in favour of painting, for the
exigencies of this profession would bring him into contact with Madame
Arnoux. So, then, he had found his vocation! The object of his existence
was now perfectly clear, and there could be no mistake about the future.
When he had shut his door, he heard some one snoring in the dark closet
near his apartment. It was his friend. He no longer bestowed a thought
on him.
His own face presented itself to his view in the glass. He thought
himself handsome, and for a minute he remained gazing at himself.