EFFECTS OF POETRY.
The first visit of Madame de Barancy at Etoilles gave Jack great
pleasure and also great anxiety. He was proud of his mother, but he
knew her, nevertheless, to be weak and rash. He feared Cécile’s calm
judgment and intuitive perceptions, keen and quick as they sometimes
are in the young. The first few moments tranquillized him a little. The
emphatic tone in which Ida addressed Cécile as “my daughter” was all
well enough, but when under the influence of a good breakfast Madame de
Barancy dropped her serious air and began some of her extravagant
stories, Jack felt all his apprehensions revive. She kept her auditors
on the _qui vive_. Some one spoke of relatives that M. Rivals had in
the Pyrenees.
“Ah, yes, the Pyrenees!” she sighed. “Gavarni, the Mer de Glace, and
all that. I made that journey fifteen years ago with a friend of my
family, the Duc de Casares, a Spaniard. I made his acquaintance at
Biarritz in a most amusing way!”
Cécile having said how fond she was of the sea, Ida again began,—
“Ah, my love, had you seen it as I have seen it in a tempest off Palma!
I was in the saloon with the captain, a coarse sort of man, who
insisted on my drinking punch. I refused. Then the wretch got very
angry, and opened the window, took me just at the waist, and held me
above the water in the lightning and rain.”
Jack tried to cut in two these dangerous recitals, but they came to
life again, like those reptiles which, however mutilated, still retain
life and animation.
The climax of his uneasiness was reached, however, when, just as his
lessons were to begin, he heard his mother propose to Cécile to go down
into the garden. What would she say when he was not there? He watched
them from the window; Cécile’s slender figure and quiet movements were
those of a well-born, well-bred woman, while Ida, still handsome, but
loud in her style and costume, affected the manners of a young girl.
For the first time Jack felt his lessons to be very long, and only
breathed freely again when they were all together walking in the woods.
But on this day his mother’s presence disturbed the harmony. She had no
comprehension of love, and saw it only as something utterly ridiculous.
But the worst of all was the sudden respect she entertained for _les
convenances_. She recalled the young people, bade them “not to wander
away so far, but to keep in sight,” and then she looked at the doctor
in a significant way. Jack saw more than once that his mother grated on
the old doctor’s nerves; but the forest was so lovely, Cécile so
affectionate, and the few words they exchanged were so mingled with the
sweet clatter of birds and the humming of bees, that by degrees the
poor boy forgot his terrible companion. But Ida wished to make a
sensation, so they stopped at the forester’s. Mère Archambauld was
delighted to see her old mistress, paid her many compliments, but asked
not a question in regard to D’Argenton, her keen personal sense telling
her that she had best not. But the sight of this good creature, for a
long time so intimately connected with their life at Aulnettes, was too
much for Ida. Without waiting for the lunch so carefully prepared by
Mother Archambauld, she rose suddenly from her chair, as suddenly as if
in answer to a summons unheard by the others, and went swiftly through
the forest paths to her old home at Aulnettes.
The tower was more enshrouded than ever in its green foliage, and the
blinds were closely drawn. Ida stood in lonely silence, listening to
the tale told with silent eloquence by these gray stones. Then she
broke a branch from the clematis that threw its sprays over the wall,
and inhaled the breath of its starry white blossoms.
“What is it, dear mother?” said Jack, who had hastened to follow her.
“Ah!” she said, with rapidly falling tears, “you know I have so much
buried here!”
Indeed the house, in its melancholy silence and with the Latin
inscription over the door, resembled a tomb. She dried her eyes, but
for that evening her gayety was gone. In vain did Cécile, who had been
told that Madame D’Argenton was separated from her husband, try with
minor cares to efface the painful impression of the day; in vain did
Jack seek to interest her in all his projects for the future.
“You see, my child,” she said, on her way home, “that it is not best
for me to come here with you. I have suffered too much, and the wound
is too recent.”
Her voice trembled, and it was easy to see that, after all the
humiliations to which she had been subjected by this man, she yet loved
him.
For many Sundays after, Jack came alone to Etiolles, and relinquished
what to him was the greatest happiness of the day, the twilight walk,
and the quiet talk with Cécile, that he might return to Paris in time
to dine with his mother. He took the afternoon train, and passed from
the tranquillity of the country to the animation of a Sunday in the
Faubourg. The sidewalks were covered by little tables, where families
sat drinking their coffee, and crowds were standing, with their noses
in the air, watching an enormous yellow balloon that had just been
released from its moorings.
In remoter streets, people sat on the steps of the doors, and in the
courtyard of the large, silent house the concierge was chatting with
his neighbors, who had taken chairs out to breathe air a little fresher
than they could obtain in their confined quarters within.
Sometimes, in Jack’s absence, Ida, tired of her loneliness, went to a
little reading-room kept by a certain Madame Lévèque. The shop was
filled with mouldy books, was literally obstructed by magazines and
illustrated papers, which she let for a sou a day.
Here lived a dirty, pretentious old woman, who spent her time in making
a certain kind of antiquated trimming of narrow, colored ribbons.
It seems that Madame Lévèque had known better days, and that under the
first empire her father was a man of considerable importance. “I am the
godchild of the Duc de Dantzic,” she said to Ida, with emphasis. She
was one of the relics of past days, such as one finds occasionally in
the secluded corners of old Paris. Like the dusty contents of her shop,
her gilt-edged books torn and incomplete, her conversation glittered
with stories of past splendors. That enchanting reign, of which she had
seen but the conclusion, had dazzled her eyes, and the mere tone in
which she pronounced the titles of that time evoked the memory of
epaulettes and gold lace. And her anecdotes of Josephine, and of the
ladies of the court! One especial tale Madame Lévèque was never tired
of telling: it was of the fire at the Austrian embassy, the night of
the famous ball given by the Princess of Schwartzenberg. All her
subsequent years had been lighted by those flames, and by that light
she saw a procession of gorgeous marshals, tall ladies in very low
dresses, with heads dressed _à la Titus or à la Grecque_, and the
emperor, in his green coat and white trousers, carrying in his arms
across the garden the fainting Madame de Schwartzenberg.
Ida, with her passion for rank, delighted in the society of this
half-crazed old creature, and while the two women sat in the dark shop,
with the names of dukes and marquises gliding lightly from their
tongues, a workman would come in to buy a paper for a sou, or some
woman, impatient for the conclusion of some serial romance, would come
in to ask if the magazine had not yet arrived, and cheerfully pay the
two cents that would deprive her, if she were old, of her snuff, and,
if she were young, of her radishes for breakfast.
Occasionally Madame Lévèque passed a Sunday with friends, and then Ida
had no other amusement than that which she derived from turning over a
pile of books taken at hazard from Madame Lévèque’s shelves. These
books were soiled and tumbled, with spots of grease and crumbs of bread
upon them, showing that they had been read while eating. She sat
reading by the window,—reading until her head swam. She read to escape
thinking. Singularly out of place in this house, the incessant toil
that she saw going on about her depressed her, instead of, as with her
son, exciting her to more strenuous exertions.
The pale, sad woman who sat at her machine day after day, the other
with her sing-song repetition of the words, “How happy people ought to
be who can go to the country in such weather!” exasperated her almost
beyond endurance. The transparent blue of the sky, the soft summer air,
made all these miseries seem blacker and less endurable; in the same
way that the repose of Sunday, disturbed only by church-bells and the
twitter of the sparrows on the roofs, weighed painfully on her spirits.
She thought of her early life, of her drives and walks, of the gay
parties in the country, and above all of the more recent years at
Etiolles. She thought of D’Argenton reciting one of his poems on the
porch in the moonlight. Where was he? What was he doing? Three months
had passed since she left him, and he had not written one word. Then
the book fell from her hands, and she sat buried in thought until the
arrival of her son, whom she endeavored to welcome with a smile. But he
read the whole story in the disorder of the room and in the careless
toilet. Nothing was in readiness for dinner.
“I have done nothing,” she said, sadly. “The weather is so warm, and I
am discouraged.”
“Why discouraged, dear mother? Are you not with me? You want some
little amusement, I fancy. Let us dine out to-day,” he continued, with
a tender, pitying smile. But Ida wished to make a toilet; to take out
from her wardrobe some one of her pretty costumes of other days, too
coquettish, too conspicuous for her present circumstances. To dress as
modestly as possible, and walk through these poor streets, afforded her
no amusement. In spite of her care to avoid anything noticeable in her
costume, Jack always detected some eccentricity,—in the length of her
skirts, which required a carriage, or in the cut of her corsage, or the
trimming of her hat. Jack and his mother then went to dine at Bagnolet
or Romainville, and dined drearily enough. They attempted some little
conversation, but they found it almost impossible. Their lives had been
so different that they really now had little in common. While Ida was
disgusted with the coarse table-cloth spotted by wine, and polished,
with a disgusted face, her plate and glass with her napkin, Jack hardly
perceived this negligence of service, but was astonished at his
mother’s ignorance and indifference upon many other points.
She had certain phrases caught from D’Argenton, a peremptory tone in
discussion, a didactic “I think so; I believe; I know.” She generally
began and finished her arguments with some disdainful gesture that
signified, “I am very good to take the trouble to talk to you.” Thanks
to that miracle of assimilation by which, at the end of some years,
husband and wife resemble each other, Jack was terrified to see an
occasional look of D’Argenton on his mother’s face. On her lips was
often to be detected the sarcastic smile that had been the bugbear of
his boy-hood, and which he always dreaded to see in D’Argenton. Never
had a sculptor found in his clay more docile material than the
pretentious poet had discovered in this poor woman.
After dinner, one of their favorite walks on these long summer evenings
was the Square des Buttes-Chaumont, a melancholy-looking spot on the
old heights of Montfauçon. The grottos and bridges, the precipices and
pine groves, seemed to add to the general dreariness. But there was
something artificial and romantic in the place that pleased Ida by its
resemblance to a park. She allowed her dress to trail over the sand of
the alleys, admired the exotics, and would have liked to write her name
on the ruined wall, with the scores of others that were already there.
When they were tired with walking, they took their seats at the summit
of the hill, to enjoy the superb view that was spread out before them.
Paris, softened and veiled by dust and smoke, lay at their feet. The
heights around the faubourgs looked in the mist like an immense circle,
connected by Pere la Chaise on one side, and Montmartre on the other,
with Montfauçon; nearer them they could witness the enjoyment of the
people. In the winding alleys and under the groups of trees young
people were singing and dancing, while on the hillside, sitting amid
the yellowed grass, and on the dried red earth, families were gathered
together like flocks of sheep.
Ida saw all this with weary, contemptuous eyes, and her very attitude
said, “How inexpressibly tiresome it is!” Jack felt helpless before
this persistent melancholy. He thought he might make the acquaintance
of some one of these honest, simple families, and perhaps in their
society his mother might be cheered. Once he thought he had found what
he wanted. It was one Sunday. Before them walked an old man, rustic in
appearance, leading two little children, over whom he was bending with
that wonderful patience which only grandfathers are possessed of.
“I certainly know that man,” said Jack to his mother; “it is—it must be
M. Rondic.”
Rondic it was, but so aged and grown so thin, that it was a wonder that
his former apprentice had recognized him. The girl with him was a
miniature of Zénaïde, while the boy looked like Maugin.
The good old man showed great pleasure in meeting Jack, but his smile
was sad, and then Jack saw that he wore crape on his hat. The youth
dared not ask a question until, as they turned a corner, Zénaïde bore
down upon them like a ship under full sail. She had changed her plaited
skirt and ruffled cap for a Parisian dress and bonnet, and looked
larger than ever. She had the arm of her husband, who was now attached
to one of the custom-houses, and who was in uniform. Zénaïde adored M.
Maugin and was absurdly proud of him, while he looked very happy in
being so worshipped.
Jack presented his mother to all these good people; then, as they
divided into two groups, he said in a low voice to Zenaïde, “What has
happened? Is it possible that Madame Clarisse—”
“Yes, she is dead; she was drowned in the Loire accidentally.”
Then she added, “We say ‘accidentally’ on father’s account; but you,
who knew her so well, may be quite sure that it was by no accident that
she perished. She died because she could never see Chariot again. Ah,
what wicked men there are in this world!”
Jack glanced at his mother, and was quite ready to agree with his
companion.
“Poor father! we thought that he could not survive the shock,” resumed
Zénaïde; “but then he never suspected the truth. When M. Maugin got his
position in Paris, we made him come with us, and we live all together
in the Rue des Silas at Charonne. You will come and see him, won’t you,
Jack? You know he always loved you; and now only the children amuse
him. Perhaps you can make him talk. But let us join him; he is looking
at us, and thinks we are speaking of him, and he does not like that.”
Ida, who was deep in conversation with M. Maugin, stopped short as Jack
approached her. He suspected that she had been talking of D’Argenton,
as indeed she had, praising his genius and recounting his successes,
which, had she confined herself to the truth, would not have taken
long. They separated, promising to meet again soon; and Jack, not long
afterward, called upon them with his mother.
He found the old ornaments on the chimney that he had learned to know
so well at Indret, the sponges and corals; he recognized the big
wardrobe as an old friend. The rooms were exquisitely clean, and
presented a perfect picture of a Breton interior transplanted to Paris.
But he soon saw that his mother was bored by Zénaïde, who was too
energetic and positive to suit her, and that there, as everywhere else,
she was haunted by the same melancholy and the same disgust which she
expressed in the brief phrase, “It smells of the work-shop.”
The house, the room she lived in, the bread she ate, all seemed
impregnated with one smell, one especial flavor. If she opened the
window, she perceived it even more strongly; if she went out, each
breath of wind brought it to her. The people she saw—even her own Jack,
when he returned at night with his blouse spotted with oil—exhaled the
same baleful odor, which she fancied clung even to herself—the odor of
toil—and filled her with immense sadness.
One evening, Jack found his mother in a state of extraordinary
excitement; her eyes were bright and complexion animated. “D’Argenton
has written to me!” she cried, as he entered the room; “yes, my dear,
he has actually dared to write to me. For four months he did not
vouchsafe a syllable. He writes me now that he is about to return to
Paris, and that, if I need him, he is at my disposal.”
“You do not need him, I think,” said Jack, quietly, though he was in
reality as much moved as his mother herself.
“Of course I do not,” she answered, hurriedly.
“And what shall you say?”
“Say! To a wretch who has dared to lift his hand to me? You do not yet
know me. I have, thank Heaven, more pride than that. I have just
finished his letter, and have torn it into a thousand bits. I am
curious to see his house, though, now that I am not there to keep all
in order. He is evidently out of spirits, and perhaps he is not well,
as he has been for two months at—what is the name of the place?” and
she calmly drew from her pocket the letter which she said she had
destroyed. “Ah, yes, it is at the springs of Royat that he has been.
What nonsense! Those mineral springs have always been bad for him.”
Jack colored at her falsehood, but said not one word. All the evening
she was busy, and seemed to have regained the courage and animation of
her first days with her son. While at work she talked to herself.
Suddenly she crossed the room to Jack.
“You are full of courage, my boy,” she said, kissing him.
He was occupied in watching all that was going on within his mother’s
mind. “It is not I whom she kisses,” he said, shrewdly; and his
suspicions were confirmed by a trifle that proved how completely the
past had taken possession of the poor woman’s mind. She never ceased
humming the words of a little song of D’Argenton’s, which the poet was
in the habit of singing himself at the piano in the twilight. Over and
over again she sang the refrain, and the words revived in Jack’s mind
only sad and shameful memories. Ah, if he had dared, what words he
would have said to the woman before him! But she was his mother; he
loved her, and wished by his own respect to teach her to respect
herself. He therefore kept strict guard over his lips. This first
warning of coming danger, however, awoke in him all the jealous
foreboding of a man who was about to be betrayed. He studied her way of
saying good-bye to him when he left in the morning, and he analyzed her
smile of greeting on his return. He could not watch her himself, nor
could he confide to any other person the distrust with which she
inspired him. He knew how often a woman surrounds the man whom she
deceives in an atmosphere of tender attentions,—the manifestations of
hidden remorse. Once, on his way home, he thought he saw Hirsch and
Labassandre turning a distant corner.
“Has any one been here?” he said to the concierge; and by the way he
was answered he saw that some plot was already organized against him.
The Sunday after on his return from Etiolles he found his mother so
completely absorbed in her book that she did not even hear him come in.
He would not have noticed this, knowing her mania for romances, had not
Ida made an attempt to conceal the book.
“You startled me,” she said, half pouting.
“What are you reading?” he asked.
“Nothing,—some nonsense. And how are our friends?” But as she spoke, a
blush covered her face and glowed under her fine transparent skin. It
was one of the peculiarities of this childish nature that she was at
once prompt and unskilful in falsehood. Annoyed by his earnest gaze,
she rose from her chair. “You wish to know what I am reading! Look,
then.” He saw once more the glossy cover of the Review that he had read
for the first time in the engine-room of the Cydnus; only it was
thinner and smaller. Jack would not have opened it if the following
title on the outer page had not met his eyes:—
THE PARTING.
A POEM.
By the Vicomte Amacry d’Abgenton.
And commenced thus:—
“TO ONE WHO HAS GONE.
“What! with out one word of farewell,
Without a turn of the head...”
Two hundred lines followed these. That there might be no mistake, the
name of Charlotte occurred several times. Jack flung down the magazine
with a shrug of the shoulders. “And he dared to send you this?”
“Yes; two or three days ago.”
Ida was dying to pick up the book from the floor, but dared not. After
a while she stooped, carelessly.
“You do not intend to keep those verses, do you? They are simply
absurd.”
“But I do not think them so.”
“He simply beats his wings and crows, mother dear; his words touch no
human heart.”
“Be more just, Jack,”—her voice trembled,—“heaven knows that I know M.
D’Argenton better than any one, his faults and the defects of his
nature, because I have suffered from them. The man I give up to you; as
to the poet, it is a different thing. In the opinion of every one, the
peculiarity of M. D’Argenton’s genius is the sympathetic quality of his
verses. Musset had its irksome degree; and I think that the beginning
of this poem, ‘The Parting,’ is very touching: the young woman who goes
away in the morning fog in her ball-dress without one word of
farewell.”
Jack could not restrain himself. “But the woman is yourself,” he cried,
“and you know under what circumstances you left.”
She answered, coldly,—
“Is it kind in you, my son, to recall such humiliations? Had M.
D’Argenton treated me a thousand times worse than he has, I should be
able, I hope, to recognize the fact that he stands at the head of the
poets of France. More than one person who speaks of him with contempt
to-day, will yet be proud of having known him and of having sat at his
table!” And as she finished she left the room with great dignity. Jack
took his seat at his desk, but his heart was not in his work. He felt
that “the enemy,” as in his childish days he had called the vicomte,
was gradually making his approaches. In fact Amaury d’Argenton was as
unhappy apart from Charlotte as she was herself. Victim and
executioner, indispensable to each other, he felt profoundly the
emptiness of divided lives. From the first hour of their separation the
poet had adopted a dramatic and Byronic tone as of a broken heart. He
was seen in the restaurants at night, surrounded by a group of
flatterers who talked of her; he wished to have every one know his
misery and its details; he wished to have people think that he was
drowning his sorrows in dissipation. When he said, “Waiter! bring me
some pure absinthe,” it was that some one at the next table might
whisper, “He is killing himself by inches—all for a woman!”
D’Argenton succeeded simply in disordering his stomach and injuring his
constitution. His “attacks” were more frequent, and Charlotte’s absence
was extremely inconvenient. What other woman would ever have endured
his perpetual complaints? Who would administer his powders and tisanes.
He was afraid, too, to be alone, and made some one, Hirsch or another,
sleep on a sofa in his room. The evenings were dreary because he was
environed by disorder and dust, which all women, even that foolish Ida,
contrive to get rid of in some way. Neither the fire nor the lamp would
burn, and currents of air whistled under all the doors; and in the
depths of his selfish nature D’Argenton sincerely regretted his
companion, and became seriously unhappy. Then he decided to take a
journey, but that did him no good, to judge from the melancholy tone of
his letters to his friends.
One idea tormented him, that the woman whom he so regretted was happy
away from him, and in the society of her son. Moronval said, “Write a
poem about it,” and D’Argenton went to work. Unfortunately, instead of
being calmed by this composition, he was more excited than ever, and
the separation became more and more intolerable. As soon as the Review
appeared, Hirsch and Labassandre were bidden to carry a copy at once to
the Rue des Panoyeaux.
This done, D’Argenton decided that it was time to make a grand _coup_.
He dressed with great care, took a fiacre, and presented himself at
Charlotte’s door at an hour that he knew Jack must be away. D’Argenton
was very pale, and the beating of his heart choked him. One of the
greatest mysteries in human nature is that such persons have a heart,
and that that heart is capable of beating. It was not love that moved
him, but he saw a certain romance in the affair, the carriage stationed
at the corner as for an elopement, and above all the hope of gratifying
his hatred of Jack. He pictured to himself the disappointment of the
youth on his return to find that the bird had flown. He meant to appear
suddenly before Charlotte, to throw himself at her feet, and, giving
her no time to think, to carry her away with him at once. She must be
very much changed since he last saw her if she could resist him. He
entered her room without knocking, saying in a low voice, “It is I.”
There was no Charlotte; but instead, Jack stood before him. Jack, on
account of the occurrence of his mother’s birthday, had a holiday, and
was at work with his books. Ida was asleep on her bed in the alcove.
The two men looked at each other in silence. This time the poet had not
the advantage. In the first place, he was not at home; next, how could
he treat as an inferior this tall, proud-looking fellow, in whose
intelligent face appeared, as if still more to exasperate the lover,
something of his mother’s beauty.
“Why do you come here?” asked Jack.
The other stammered and colored. “I was told that your mother was
here.”
“So she is; but I am with her, and you shall not see her.”
This was said rapidly and in a low voice; then Jack took D’Argenton by
the shoulder and wheeled him back into the corridor. The poet with some
difficulty preserved his footing.
“Jack,” he said, endeavoring to be dignified,—“there has been a
misunderstanding for some time between us, but now that you are a man,
all this should cease. I offer you my hand, my child.”
Jack shrugged his shoulders. “Of what use are these theatricals between
us, sir? You detest me, and I return the compliment!”
“And since when have we been such enemies, Jack?”
“Ever since we knew each other! My earliest recollection is of absolute
hatred toward you. Besides, why should we not hate each other like the
bitterest of foes? By what other name should I call you? Who and what
are you? Believe me that if ever in my life I have thought of you
without anger, it has never been without a blush of shame.”
“It is true, Jack, that our position toward each other has been
entirely false. But, my dear friend, life is not a romance.”
But Jack cut short this discourse.
“You are right, sir, life is not a romance: it is, on the contrary, a
very serious and positive matter. In proof of which, permit me to say
that every instant of my time is occupied, and that I cannot lose one
of them in useless discussions. For ten years my mother has been your
slave. All that I suffered in this time my pride will never let you
know. My mother now belongs to me, and I mean to keep her. What do you
want of her? Her hair is gray, and your treatment of her has made great
wrinkles on her forehead. She is no longer a pretty woman, but she is
my mother!”
They looked each other straight in the face as they stood in that
narrow, squalid corridor. It was a fitting frame for a scene so
humiliating.
“You strangely mistake the sense of my words,” said the poet, deadly
pale. “I know that your resources must be very moderate; I come, as an
old friend, to see if I can serve you in any way.”
“We need nothing. The work of my hands supplies us with all we
require.”
“You are very proud, my dear Jack; you were not so always.”
“That is very true, sir, and also that your presence, that I once was
forced to endure, has now become odious to me.”
The attitude of the young man was so determined and so insulting, his
looks so thoroughly carried out his words, that the poet dared not add
one word, and descended the stairs, where his careful costume was
strangely out of place. When Jack heard his last footfall, he returned
to his room: on the threshold stood Ida, strangely white, her eyes
swollen with tears and sleep.
“I was there,” she said in a low voice; “I heard everything, even that
I was old and had wrinkles.”
He approached her, took her hands, and looked into the depths of her
eyes.
“He is not far away. Shall I call him?”
She disengaged her hands, threw her arms around his neck, and with one
of those sudden impulses that prevented her from being utterly
unworthy, exclaimed, “You are right, Jack; I am your mother, and only
your mother!”
Some days after this scene, Jack wrote the following letter to M.
Rivals:—
“My Dear Friend: She has left me, and gone back to him. It all happened
in such an unexpected manner that I have not yet recovered from the
blow. Alas! she of whom I must complain is my mother. It would be more
dignified to keep silence, but I cannot. I knew in my childhood a negro
lad who said, ‘If the world could not sigh, the world would stifle!’ I
never fully understood this until to-day, for it seems to me that if I
do not write you this letter, that I could not live. I could not wait
until Sunday because I could not speak before Cécile. I told you of the
explanation that man and I had, did I not? Well, from that time my
mother was so very sad, and seemed so worn out by the scene she had
gone through, that I resolved to change our residence. I understood
that a battle was being fought, and that, if I wished her to be
victorious, if I wished to keep my mother with me, that I must employ
all means and devices. Our street and house displeased her. I wanted
something gayer and more airy. I hired then at Charonne Rue de Silas
three rooms newly papered. I furnished these rooms with great care. All
the money I had saved—pardon me these details—I devoted to this
purpose. Bélisaire aided me in moving, while Zénaïde was in the same
street, and I counted on her in many ways. All these arrangements were
made secretly, and I hoped a great surprise and pleasure was in store
for my mother. The place was as quiet as a village street, the trees
were well grown and green, and I fancied that she would, when
established there, have less to regret in the country-life she had so
much enjoyed.
“Yesterday evening everything was in readiness. Belisaire was to tell
her that I was waiting for her at the Rondics, and then he was to take
her to our new home. I was there waiting; white curtains hung at all
the windows, and great bunches of roses were on the chimney. I had made
a little fire, for the evening was cool, and it gave a home look to the
room. In the midst of my contentment I had a sudden presentiment. It
was like an electric spark. ‘She will not come.’ In vain did I call
myself an idiot, in vain did I arrange and rearrange her chair and her
footstool. I knew that she would never come. More than once in my life
I have had these intuitions. One might believe that Fate, before
striking her heaviest blows, had a moment of compassion, and gave me a
warning.
“She did not come, but Bélisaire brought a note from her. It was very
brief, merely stating that M. D’Argenton was very ill, and that she
regarded it as her duty to watch at his side. As soon as he was well
she would return. Ill! I had not thought of that. I might call myself
ill, too, and keep her at my bedside. How well he understood her, the
wretch! How thoroughly he had studied that weak but kindly nature! You
remember those ‘attacks’ he talked of at Etiolles, and which so soon
disappeared after a good dinner. It is one of those which he now has.
But my mother was only too glad of an excuse, and allowed herself to be
deceived. But to return to my story. Behold me alone in this little
home, amid all the wasted efforts, time and money! Was it not cruel? I
could not remain there; I returned to my old room. The house seemed to
me as sad as a funeral-chamber. I permitted the fire to die out, and
the roses wither and fall on the marble hearth below with a gentle
rustle. I took the rooms for two years, and I shall keep them with
something of the same superstition with which one preserves for a long
time the cage from which some favorite bird has flown. If my mother
returns we will go there together. But if she does not I shall never
inhabit the place. I have now told you all, but do not let Cécile see
this letter. Ah, my friend, will she too desert me? The treachery of
those we love is terrible indeed. But of what am I thinking; I have her
word and her promise, and Cécile always tells the truth.”