ISAURA.
The sun was sinking slowly as Isaura sat at her window, gazing dreamily
on the rose-hued clouds that made the western borderland between earth
and heaven. On the table before her lay a few sheets of manuscript
hastily written, not yet reperused. That restless mind of hers had left
its trace on the manuscript.
It is characteristic perhaps of the different genius of the sexes, that
woman takes to written composition more impulsively, more intuitively,
than man,--letter-writing, to him a task-work, is to her a recreation.
Between the age of sixteen and the date of marriage, six well-educated
clever girls out of ten keep a journal; not one well-educated man in ten
thousand does. So, without serious and settled intention of becoming an
author, how naturally a girl of ardent feeling and vivid fancy seeks in
poetry or romance a confessional,--an outpouring of thought and
sentiment, which are mysteries to herself till she has given them words,
and which, frankly revealed on the page, she would not, perhaps could
not, utter orally to a living ear.
During the last few days, the desire to create in the realm of fable
beings constructed by her own breath, spiritualized by her own soul, had
grown irresistibly upon this fair child of song. In fact, when Graham's
words had decided the renunciation of her destined career, her
instinctive yearnings for the utterance of those sentiments or thoughts
which can only find expression in some form of art, denied the one vent,
irresistibly impelled her to the other. And in this impulse she was
confirmed by the thought that here at least there was nothing which her
English friend could disapprove,--none of the perils that beset the
actress. Here it seemed as if, could she but succeed, her fame would be
grateful to the pride of all who loved her. Here was a career ennobled
by many a woman, and side by side in rivalry with renowned men. To her
it seemed that, could she in this achieve an honoured name, that name
took its place at once amid the higher ranks of the social world, and in
itself brought a priceless dowry and a starry crown. It was, however,
not till after the visit to Enghien that this ambition took practical
life and form. One evening after her return to Paris, by an effort so
involuntary that it seemed to her no effort, she had commenced a tale,--
without plan, without method, without knowing in one page what would fill
the next. Her slight fingers hurried on as if, like the pretended spirit
manifestations, impelled by an invisible agency without the pale of the
world. She was intoxicated by the mere joy of inventing ideal images.
In her own special art an elaborate artist, here she had no thought of
art; if art was in her work, it sprang unconsciously from the harmony
between herself and her subject,--as it is, perhaps, with the early
soarings of the genuine lyric poets, in contrast to the dramatic. For
the true lyric poet is intensely personal, intensely subjective. It is
himself that he expresses, that he represents; and he almost ceases to be
lyrical when he seeks to go out of his own existence into that of others
with whom he has no sympathy, no rapport. This tale was vivid with
genius as yet untutored,--genius in its morning freshness, full of
beauties, full of faults. Isaura distinguished not the faults from the
beauties. She felt only a vague persuasion that there was a something
higher and brighter--a something more true to her own idiosyncrasy--than
could be achieved by the art that "sings other people's words to other
people's music." From the work thus commenced she had now paused; and it
seemed to her fancies that between her inner self and the scene without,
whether in the skies and air and sunset, or in the abodes of men
stretching far and near till lost amid the roofs and domes of the great
city, she had fixed and riveted the link of a sympathy hitherto
fluctuating, unsubstantial, evanescent, undefined. Absorbed in her
revery, she did not notice the deepening of the short twilight, till the
servant entering drew the curtains between her and the world without, and
placed the lamp on the table beside her. Then she turned away with a
restless sigh; her eyes fell on the manuscript, but the charm of it was
gone. A sentiment of distrust in its worth had crept into her thoughts,
unconsciously to herself, and the page open before her at an uncompleted
sentence seemed unwelcome and wearisome as a copy-book is to a child
condemned to relinquish a fairy tale half told, and apply himself to a
task half done. She fell again into a revery, when, starting as from a
dream, she heard herself addressed by name, and turning round saw Savarin
and Gustave Rameau in the room.
"We are come, Signorina," said Savarin, "to announce to you a piece of
news, and to hazard a petition. The news is this: my young friend here
has found a Maecenas who has the good taste so to admire his lucubrations
under the _nom de plume_ of Alphonse de Valcour as to volunteer the
expenses for starting a new journal, of which Gustave Rameau is to be
editor-in-chief; and I have promised to assist him as contributor for the
first two months. I have given him notes of introduction to certain
other _feuilletonistes_ and critics whom he has on his list. But all put
together would not serve to float the journal like a short _roman_ from
Madame de Grantmesnil. Knowing your intimacy with that eminent artist, I
venture to back Rameau's supplication that you would exert your influence
on his, behalf. As to the _honoraires_, she has but to name them."
"Carte blanche," cried Rameau, eagerly.
"You know Eulalie too well, Monsieur Savarin," answered Isaura, with a
smile half reproachful, "to suppose that she is a mercenary in letters,
and sells her services to the best bidder."
"Bah, belle enfant!" said Savarin, with his gay light laugh. "Business
is business, and books as well as razors are made to sell. But, of
course, a proper prospectus of the journal must accompany your request to
write in it. Meanwhile Rameau will explain to you, as he has done to me,
that the journal in question is designed for circulation among readers of
_haute classe_ it is to be pleasant and airy, full of _bons mots_ and
anecdote; witty, but not ill-natured. Politics to be Liberal, of course,
but of elegant admixture,--champagne and seltzer-water. In fact,
however, I suspect that the politics will be a very inconsiderable
feature in this organ of fine arts and manners; some amateur scribbler in
the _beau monde_ will supply them. For the rest, if my introductory
letters are successful, Madame de Grantmesnil will not be in bad
company."
"You will write to Madame de Grantmesnil?" asked Rameau, pleadingly.
"Certainly I will, as soon--"
"As soon as you have the prospectus, and the names of the
collaborateurs," interrupted Rameau. "I hope to send you these in a very
few days."
While Rameau was thus speaking, Savarin had seated himself by the table,
and his eye mechanically resting on the open manuscript lighted by chance
upon a sentence--an aphorism--embodying a very delicate sentiment in very
felicitous diction,--one of those choice condensations of thought,
suggesting so much more than is said, which are never found in mediocre
writers, and, rare even in the best, come upon us like truths seized by
surprise.
"Parbleu!" exclaimed Savarin, in the impulse of genuine admiration, "but
this is beautiful; what is more, it is original,"--and he read the words
aloud. Blushing with shame and resentment, Isaura turned and hastily
placed her hand on the manuscript.
"Pardon," said Savarin, humbly; "I confess my sin, but it was so
unpremeditated that it does not merit a severe penance. Do not look at
me so reproachfully. We all know that young ladies keep commonplace
books in which they enter passages that strike them in the works they
read; and you have but shown an exquisite taste in selecting this gem.
Do tell me where you found it. Is it somewhere in Lamartine?"
"No," answered Isaura, half inaudibly, and with an effort to withdraw the
paper. Savarin gently detained her hand, and looking earnestly into her
tell-tale face, divined her secret.
"It is your own, Signorina! Accept the congratulations of a very
practised and somewhat fastidious critic. If the rest of what you write
resembles this sentence, contribute to Rameau's journal, and I answer for
its success."
Rameau approached, half incredulous, half envious.
"My dear child," resumed Savarin, drawing away the manuscript from
Isaura's coy, reluctant clasp, "do permit me to cast a glance over these
papers. For what I yet know, there may be here more promise of fame than
even you could gain as a singer."
The electric chord in Isaura's heart was touched. Who cannot conceive
what the young writer feels, especially the young woman-writer, when
hearing the first cheery note of praise from the lips of a writer of
established fame?
"Nay, this cannot be worth your reading," said Isaura, falteringly; "I
have never written anything of the kind before, and this is a riddle to
me. I know not," she added, with a sweet low laugh, "why I began, nor
how I should end it."
"So much the better," said Savarin; and he took the manuscript, withdrew
to a recess by the farther window, and seated himself there, reading
silently and quickly, but now and then with a brief pause of reflection.
Rameau placed himself beside Isaura on the divan, and began talking with
her earnestly,--earnestly, for it was about himself and his aspiring
hopes. Isaura, on the other hand, more woman-like than author-like,
ashamed even to seem absorbed in herself and her hopes, and with her back
turned, in the instinct of that shame, against the reader of her
manuscript,--Isaura listened and sought to interest herself solely in the
young fellow-author. Seeking to do so she succeeded genuinely, for ready
sympathy was a prevalent characteristic of her nature.
"Oh," said Rameau, "I am at the turning-point of my life. Ever since
boyhood I have been haunted with the words of Andre Chenier on the
morning he was led to the scaffold 'And yet there was something here,'
striking his forehead. Yes, I, poor, low-born, launching myself headlong
in the chase of a name; I, underrated, uncomprehended, indebted even for
a hearing to the patronage of an amiable trifler like Savarin, ranked by
petty rivals in a grade below themselves,--I now see before me, suddenly,
abruptly presented, the expanding gates into fame and fortune. Assist
me, you!"
"But how?" said Isaura, already forgetting her manuscript; and certainly
Rameau did not refer to that.
"How!" echoed Rameau; "how! But do you not see--or at least, do you not
conjecture--this journal of which Savarin speaks contains my present and
my future? Present independence, opening to fortune and renown. Ay,--
and who shall say? renown beyond that of the mere writer. Behind the
gaudy scaffolding of this rickety Empire, a new social edifice
unperceived arises; and in that edifice the halls of State shall be given
to the men who help obscurely to build it,--to men like me." Here,
drawing her hand into his own, fixing on her the most imploring gaze of
his dark persuasive eyes, and utterly unconscious of bathos in his
adjuration, he added: "Plead for me with your whole mind and heart; use
your uttermost influence with the illustrious writer whose pen can assure
the fates of my journal."
Here the door suddenly opened, and following the servant, who announced
unintelligibly his name, there entered Graham Vane.