JEAN bore his new resolutions very easily at first; they filled up his
days and they gave him an incentive, and for a time he did not come
into contact with any other point of view.
“_Voyons_,” the concierge’s wife exclaimed to Henri, “you have sent
us a saint. I am not the less careful of him on that account, you may
imagine. For myself, I believe there is luck in such things. My husband
is, as you know, a sceptic; he says that it will not last. Poor young
man! I sometimes think to myself it is a little sad--so young and with
so much to see, and always to be looking at Heaven!”
But Jean did not find it sad; he thought it was well to keep up his
music--monks have been composers before now. So he spent all his spare
time at the piano and bought the latest compositions of a famous
Russian composer. One could hardly call his music strictly religious,
perhaps, but Jean felt confident that it could be religiously applied.
Then it occurred to him one day that he was a little selfish. Here
he was, professedly conscious of a new truth, leading a splendid and
invigorating life and making no attempt to share it. It was not that
Jean wanted to preach; he was not a prig, even though he was very much
in earnest; but he did want to do good and communicate, and he also
wanted sympathy, but of this he was perhaps hardly aware. At twenty-one
we are not likely to know very much about our own characters. We are
too busy making them. Jean was extremely susceptible to sympathy.
Appreciation and approval were like wings to his efforts, even
opposition made life easier to him than indifference.
He could not really enjoy being a hermit without someone to say that
it was, if not a great success, at least an astonishing attempt, and
so far Jean had not surprised anyone in Paris. It came to him one
Sunday afternoon with a flash of inspiration, why should he not reveal
his new way of life to Maurice Golaud? He was almost certain to be in
Paris now; he had said he would, as a matter of course, come up for
the winter, and it was already late in December. It was improbable
that Maurice would at once desire to share Jean’s austere existence,
but he could discuss its charms with Maurice, and point out to him how
disappointed he had been in what Maurice had called “life.” Perhaps
by this time Maurice was disappointed too. At any rate, it would be
very jolly to see Maurice again. He ought to go and see Maurice, and
he re-read the address. The name Mademoiselle Liane de Brances meant
nothing at all to Jean. He did not know that she was a lovely French
actress, almost of the first class. How should he? As a hermit he had
never entered the theatre, and in his pre-hermit days his fellow clerks
had introduced him chiefly to music halls. He did think that it was a
pity he should have to find Maurice at this lady’s address; he even
thought of writing and arranging an appointment in his own room; but
there was that fatal and entrapping confusion between desire and duty.
Surely he ought not to waste any time in going to Maurice? He would
waste no time--and he went.
Everything was different from what Jean had expected. To begin with,
the maid did not think it necessary to inform Jean that Maurice was
out; she knew her mistress to be alone and in a bad temper, and in
these circumstances she had experienced before the extreme efficacy of
a young man. He acted upon Liane’s nerves like a sedative, and Liane’s
servants made a point of considering her nerves. So she took Jean’s
card straight to her mistress and left him to make what he could of a
fashionable actress’s boudoir, while he waited.
Maurice had often spoken to Jean of his “little place” in Paris, but
Jean in his wildest dreams had never imagined a little place like
this. The room was not very large, but it was extraordinarily light
and gay. Great bowls full of scented flowers stood everywhere. Signed
photographs of names that had reached even to St. Jouin were flung
carelessly about, exquisite small ivories and dainty _bonbonnières_
were set out on little tables. By the delicately curtained windows
stood a screen of very fine old miniatures, and on a long, narrow table
was a valuable collection of old snuff-boxes.
Everywhere were mirrors--long mirrors, short mirrors, round mirrors,
oval mirrors; the tables and chairs were white and gold, and here and
there on the walls hung toneless Japanese prints, pale grey, or white
with wavy black lines.
There was only one painting in the room--it hung over the mantelpiece,
and after Jean had looked at it he saw nothing else.
It was a painting of a woman. She seemed almost to speak as she
leaned with bent head out of the picture. There was no smile on her
face--lovely and blooming and intensely gay, there was about her an
enormous and unlimited satisfaction. She seemed, as it were, clothed
in a dauntless confidence. There she sat with uplifted shining eyes,
waiting for her opportunity, and relentlessly competent to take it.
Jean heard a faint sound behind him, and turning, he saw the original
of the picture.
Liane was fifteen years older now, and she was no longer waiting for
her opportunity.
She was a tall woman, whose figure already required care; she had thick
coils of magnificent chestnut hair, much of which was still her own.
Her arched eyebrows gave a questioning, mysterious look to her wide
grey eyes with their deep bisque shadows. She had the most beautiful
mouth in Paris, and she had been famous for her smile. Poets had sung
of it, artists had tried to paint it, lovers had sworn they would die
for it. They had not found that necessary, but many of them had found
it remarkably expensive.
Ten years ago that smile of Liane’s was the talk of Paris, but perhaps
rather too many other things had been talked of since. It was by now
a little blurred, tightened by repetition, and hardened by inevitable
usage, still even now it was a work of art, and, without the stage, it
would have afforded Liane a handsome income. It was perhaps no mean
test of a hermit.
Jean stood watching her with a hypnotized air; it was a great tribute
to Liane, but as an attitude in a Parisian boudoir it was a trifle
awkward.
Poor Jean! How beautiful this woman was,--and he had never seen a
beautiful woman before.
Liane hardly seemed to move as she approached him; her figure glided
through the room like the idle wing of a bird in slow flight across a
summer sky. It had taken a _danseuse_ two years to teach Liane how to
walk.
She was dressed in a pale dove-grey tea-gown, with a knot of violets
at her breast. It was not surprising that Maurice admired her more even
than his own imperially cut and waxed moustache; nevertheless, he had
gone to the _courses_ this afternoon without her, and Liane de Brances
did not like being left alone.
“_Vous êtes le bien-venu_, Monsieur,” said Liane, in the modulated
musical tone which she had learned for the theatre. It was not her
natural voice, and she looked at Jean with a soft enclosing look which
seemed to shut out the world.
No woman is very dangerous to a man unless she is a little
self-conscious, and Liane was so completely self-conscious that she
could afford to be perfectly natural. She knew herself as an artist
knows his picture or a captain his ship.
“I think you have fallen from heaven!” she said, sinking into a _chaise
longue_ and patting the cushions left and right of her into a suitable
background. “Or if you have come from the other place that will be more
amusing still! Think of it, Maurice has gone to the races, and left me
alone in the rain! It was clothes of course--the clothes of a woman,
Monsieur, are her tragedy. _Mon Dieu!_ the life one leads! I can assure
you, it is a slavery, and yet what can we do? For if one does not
strain every nerve to succeed, it becomes a massacre! I believe I may
truly say that every woman in the company would murder me with a new
costume to-morrow if I did not put myself in the hands of the greatest
tyrant in Paris. You know Madame Berthe, of course? She dresses half
the world, and we must attempt to accommodate her. I was, then, at
her house, if you will believe me, at ten o’clock this morning--an
hour when I am never awake--I must have been driven there in my sleep,
I fancy, and if I have caught a cold and ruined my voice, one sees
very well why! And after I had sat there an hour--an hour!--and I am
without exception the busiest woman in Paris--I am sent a message that
she cannot see me until three! I assure you that for two pins I would
have burst into her private room and destroyed all the costumes within
sight! But I was handicapped by thoughts of the future; I restrained
myself, and I return here furious. Maurice appears. I cannot accompany
him to the _courses_; instead I have to go back to that infamous woman,
or she won’t have the second act ready at all; as it is, I shall have
to run in and out in pins. And they accuse us of being gay. What a
calumny! No housewife works as I do. I have three parts a mile long to
learn for next week, and I haven’t looked at one of them! Costumes!
Costumes! And then a silly author appears at lunch expecting me to know
his twaddle by heart and praise him for it. Oh la! la! the vanity of
these men who expect gratitude in return for parts only fit for a sick
crow! You have seen _La Fin de l’Amour_ of course? I ask you frankly,
how do I appear in it? You like it, _hein_? I assure you I can do
better than that; but one is ruined of course by the rest of the cast.
I told Colin so yesterday--the _premier_ is so careless, he forgets
half his words and apparently he imagines that the front of the stage
was meant only for him. The less said of the women the better, it is
a marvel to me they are not hissed off the stage. But my public are
always good to me. You like it?”
How was Jean to explain that he had never heard of it, that even if
he had, he should have avoided it, that this lady’s whole profession
appeared to him to be wrong?
He hesitated, but he did not explain; he said:
“Then, Mademoiselle, you are an actress?”
Liane flung back her head and laughed and laughed.
“Oh, _Mon Dieu_! An actress--I?” she cried, when she could speak. “But
do you not know me, then? Have you never heard of me? I am Liane de
Brances? _Ma foi_, I did not expect to have to explain myself at this
time of day! I am not a vain woman, but, Monsieur, Paris knows me!” And
she dropped her eyes and lifted them again, with her head bent like the
girl in the picture. She spoke no more than the truth. Paris did know
her.
“Maurice told me you came from the country,” she added. “But it appears
I had over-estimated what the country amuses itself with. Perhaps you
have never seen an actress before?”
“Oh yes, I have,” said Jean, flushing a little, “but I have not before
had the pleasure----” and he broke off, for Liane was laughing again.
“I am the first, then?” she exclaimed, with caressing mockery. “Really
the first? And you are not afraid to meet a lady who is to be seen on
the posters? _Quel courage_, Monsieur!”
Here was Jean’s opportunity presented to him afresh. Now was the time
for him to tell Liane that he had come to see Maurice, and Maurice
alone, and that his views of life were so different from her own as to
make all future communications impossible between them.
Jean saw himself telling Liane this, he saw the incredulous amusement,
the offended dignity, and his own ignominious retreat; and then, after
all, would it be _right_ to leave her like this? Perhaps if they
became friends she might listen more sympathetically to his point of
view. It never did to be premature. If he had but known it, this was
his one opportunity of escape--women like Liane do not give a second
opportunity. But he was fated never to tell her his point of view. He
hesitated and was lost.
“Now you must make up for all you have not known, Monsieur,” said
Liane, with her enchanting smile, “and I myself will teach you.”
It was a little difficult for Liane to talk to Jean, still for another
quarter of an hour she tried. She really made an effort, because she
was grateful to him for the passionate adoration in his eyes. It
renewed her youth and gave her a feeling of ease and comfort. It was
the sensation of a tired swimmer when the breeze drives back the salt
water from his mouth, and nerves him afresh for the struggle. Liane was
thirty-five, and lately the salt waters of life had risen threateningly
close to those still perfect lips. In the end she knew she must yield
to age, and she liked Jean because he made the end seem further off.
She asked him about his uncle, whom everybody knew and who was so
charming; she asked him about his aunt, who of course was charming too,
but whom unfortunately Liane had not happened to meet.
She was interested, to the point of stifling a yawn, in the Banque de
Paris et des Pays-Bas; and where Jean lived and what he thought of
Paris. It was rather like talking in letters of the alphabet to him
instead of using civilized words.
But behind the talk she was busily thinking. Who was it Jean reminded
her of so much? Someone she had known very well, whose little habits
and tricks of talking were familiar to her; she must remember, and yet
the name would not come back to her mind. Then her eyes fell on Jean’s
hands and she started, they were narrow, well-shaped hands with long
fingers and a wide gap between the thumb and the hand, and they were
exactly like the hands of a musician--a musician whom Liane would
never forget--the only real figure in her life, perhaps. Certainly the
only man for whom she had really cared, and oh! how he had cared for
Liane! It was long before she was famous, or it would never have done
at all. He was poor and struggling and the most unpractical person
on earth; he had no idea of what was due to a woman, but he loved
fiercely, with the wild, unappeasable hunger of the soul which Liane
never attempted to satisfy. Still he had made her laugh and cry, and in
the end he had made her famous; because he killed himself for her. It
was all a mistake really--it came of his taking things so seriously. He
never had any _souplesse_ about him, and men who will not bend, break.
She had only made an appointment to meet a friend; it was certainly
unfortunate that he should happen to hear of it, and then he had
promptly and publicly shot himself in her presence, and Liane became
the talk of Paris. Through it she was offered the engagement which gave
her her great opportunity. Certainly he was not a man to forget. Liane
smiled a little as she thought of him, not cruelly at all, but with a
feeling of grateful security, and amusement at her own power. She had
many rivals on the stage, but she did not think that any woman had ever
made men feel so much. She was a queen of the emotions. She leaned
forward and laid her soft, perilous fingers on Jean’s.
“You have a musician’s hands,” she said. Jean did not attempt to
return the pressure of her hand; it would, he felt, have been taking
advantage of her heavenly kindness.
“I am not yet a musician,” he said, “but it is true that is what I want
to be. It is the thing I love best and understand most in life.”
Had he already forgotten his new vocation? It would have astounded Jean
to know that he had.
Liane considered; she could not talk to him any more, and he was
obviously unfitted at present for any other form of amusement; perhaps
he could play, she was really fond of music.
“Play to me then,” she said very gently. Jean drew in his breath.
Play to her! Oh, if he could! He who was so little accustomed to play
to anybody, how dared he play to her--to the exquisite and angelic
human being whom merely to look at and speak to was a delicious and
mysterious fever?
“Do you--do you really want me to?” he asked. For of course, if she
really wanted him to, he must! Liane smiled.
“Well, yes,” she said. “I really want you to, Monsieur. Do you know
‘Les Jeux d’Eaux,’ that has an especial appeal to me, or better still,
Debussy’s ‘Les Jardins sous la Pluie?’”
“I don’t know either of them,” said Jean.
Liane thought him an idiot.
“Play, then, what you will,” she said, and resignedly wondered if she
could safely light a cigarette, but she decided to wait. However, she
leaned back on the _chaise longue_ luxuriously and closed her eyes.
Unless he played too badly she could perhaps go to sleep.
Jean found himself trembling all over when he rose to go over to the
piano. Liane had talked to him so cleverly that it had not appeared to
him that he had failed to amuse her. On the contrary, he had enjoyed
their conversation intensely. Elizabeth was the most sympathetic woman
he had ever met, but her conversation was not nearly so interesting
as Liane’s. But music! music was different; here he was really afraid
to fail, because he knew what good music was, and he knew nothing
about amusing conversation. In half an hour’s time he felt he would be
eternally disgraced in his own eyes and in Liane’s. Then he began to
play some of the Russian music he had just been learning by heart in
his rooms as a hermit. In a moment he realized that the music expressed
Liane, expressed the wonder of her, the sacred beauty, the incredible
force and joy! He was not nervous any more after that, the music became
a communication between them, and he let himself go. Jean’s music was
an original and instinctive note. He had spoken the truth when he had
told Liane it was the only thing for which he cared. It was his only
personal channel of expression, roughened by inexperience and without
the bell-like clarity of disciplined practice, but it was an authentic,
living talent, and it shook the artist in Liane wide awake. She sat up
suddenly and opened her eyes. Who was this young man who was playing to
her? This quite ordinary, inarticulate young man, with his _cachet_ of
_fils de famille_ written all over him? The little Baron D’Ucelles, who
oughtn’t by all the rules of the game to do anything better than anyone
else?
He had caught at her heart and was holding it with those hands of the
master; he was making her think and feel and forcing her back into the
currents of life. The notes flowed from his fingers like fire and dew,
his vivid impetuosity awaked and astonished her. He had come out of the
world where, to Liane, men were as trees walking; and he had become
a distinct value. When he stopped playing and came back to her, she
looked straight in his eyes.
“_Bon!_” she cried, “you deceived me, my friend. I thought you were a
young gentleman, it appears you are an artist. What, may I ask in the
name of all the blessed saints, are you doing in the Bank?”
“Ah!” cried Jean, exhausted but triumphant. “Then you really think I
can play? You really believe in me?” Liane looked at her watch.
“I have listened to you for an hour, my child,” she said; “do you not
call that belief in you?”
“Oh, but Mademoiselle, I am ashamed, horrified--I have played to you
for an hour, a thousand pardons!”
“A thousand nothings of the kind,” interrupted Liane impatiently. “We
drop all this now, you know, you and I--we are artists, and artists, as
you probably don’t know, are very simple people when they are together
and attend strictly to business. You will, of course, throw up this
performance at the Bank to-morrow. You had better come here on Sunday
at ten o’clock (the evening, you know, _mon petit_; nothing is done at
ten o’clock in the morning but the saying of one’s prayers, unless,
indeed, one is under the tyranny of a dressmaker). Then you must play
to Cartier; he will take you in hand, I fancy. I will have some other
men here too; this affair of yours must be well looked into--and fancy
that that _crétin_ of a Maurice hadn’t the sense to tell me you were
an artist, and there I was stiffening my jaws with the rubbish of an
afternoon call.”
Liane spoke to him simply, plainly, and like a man. The awe of her
exquisite manner fell away. She no longer seemed to Jean like a
mysterious and potent being from another world; but he had no time to
regret the destruction of his illusion. For the first time in his life
he was talking to a real comrade. Bliss had come out of solitude, and
submitted joyously to the reinforcement of humanity. The names of great
musicians flashed between them. Liane flung her experiences into his
hands and drew out of him in return his ambitions and desires; these at
present, it seemed, did not include retirement into a monastery or the
rules of the Third Order.
“You are one of the emotional players,” she said to him. “Not the
great, broad interpreters who give you the picked bones of a musician’s
work--but one of their own brothers, who fire you afresh with their
laughter and their tears. You will play Chopin most, I fancy. Schumann
and Grieg, and the Russian men--our French moderns too, of course,
Debussy above all; for there is so much dream in you--but Cartier won’t
let you specialize yet. What he’ll give you is Bach and Mozart; he’ll
stuff it into you by the yard. You must meet some singers, too, and
play for them. Often one must begin this way.”
In the middle of their talk the door opened and Maurice Golaud
stood there, tired and wet from the _courses_, but looking at them
nevertheless with curious amusement in his eyes.
Jean stood up half embarrassed, with the burden of his youth upon him,
and as he did so he saw Liane’s face change; it was as if she had
covered herself subtly and suddenly with a veil of intangible gauze,
the artist had retreated once more. She was the beautiful woman with
the lure in her eyes. Her lips parted, and a glance ran between her and
Maurice which seemed to Jean like quick flame. The smile in Maurice’s
eyes deepened.
“Ah, you have found us at last, _mon ami_?” Maurice said to Jean. “For
my part, I was fancying you must have picked up some pretty amusements
elsewhere, since you have been in Paris nearly a month before looking
us up. You should have been at the _courses_ this afternoon; it was
really not half bad. No, it wouldn’t have amused you, _ma chérie_, no
one was killed and no one was ruined, and the ladies’ clothes looked
_passés_ in the rain. You really did better for yourself remaining
here, and entertaining my dear old Jean.”
Liane smiled, but she did not say anything. She no longer looked at
Jean.
He got up to go; they both of them urged him to remain, though Maurice
went to the door with him in a bland cordiality of farewell.
“Well, and now you have found your way here you must come often,” he
said. “I can see already that Liane likes you.”
It was not easy for Jean to explain to Maurice about his vocation now,
but Maurice was, after all, only another man, and Jean was not a coward.
“This is not the kind of life I have been living,” he began lamely.
“You see, Maurice, I am bound to say so, I don’t like the--the ways of
Paris.”
“No?” said Maurice cheerfully. “Well, that is a pity! Still, if you
have been leading a dull life and not mixing with clever people like
ourselves--one understands. We must alter all that, you know; I’ll talk
to Liane about it. _Au revoir_, Jean.”
The rain had stopped, and for the first time Jean discovered a charm
in the streets of Paris. There was something mysterious and beautiful
in the air to-night. The faces of the women in the crowd seemed as
fresh as summer flowers, the lights along the Seine wound their way
into the heart of the city like a string of fallen stars.
Jean held his head up as he walked; he felt an indefinable sense of
youth and vigour in his veins.
He noticed that one or two of the women as he passed looked at him; and
he no longer felt like a ghost.
After dinner he went back to his rooms, but he could not stay there. He
was dissatisfied with himself and he did not want to think. He went to
the window and looked out. It was ten o’clock; if he was going to early
Mass to-morrow as usual, he had better go to bed.
_La Fin de l’Amour_ was on at the Odéon. Jean had never been to the
Odéon, but he knew where it was. If he went at once he would be in time
to see Liane in the last act.
After all, he had decided nothing, he had taken no vows. How wrong it
was of the old Confessor not to let him join the Third Order! If he
were living under rule now--then for one moment Jean faced his own
soul and would not lie to himself. “If I were living under rule now,”
he said beneath his breath, “I should break the rule.” After that he
thought no more about the higher life.
“_Bon!_” said the concierge’s wife, as she saw him swing off down the
street. “One knows very well when they begin to walk like that what has
happened to them; but that will not make him better off; one must be
careful now about the rent,” and she sighed. She was really at heart
rather sad to lose her little saint; her husband, she knew, would
triumph over her.
For the concierge’s wife, too, realized that Jean had ceased to be a
hermit.