LIANE was not fond of preliminaries. She considered that life was short
and that love was infinitely shorter, and she thought that the best
plan with both was to live in the present.
Jean perplexed and amused her; he adored her ardently and blindly, and
yet he seemed reluctant to give himself up to the elements which drew
him. He was caught off his feet, but he struggled and fought with the
power that held him. He had scruples and he wanted time. Liane gave him
no time and she laughed immoderately at his scruples.
“You do not deceive your friend, _mon ami_,” she said one night as they
were returning from the theatre. “If there is any deception on hand,
it is certainly my own. But, I assure you, your friend Maurice does
not consider me a nun, as you appear to do. I do not know that I have
given him, or you either, any reason to suppose that I find myself
at home in a convent! He is a man of the world, the good Maurice, at
least he wishes to be thought so. _Bon!_ he must accept the world. It
is doubtless as the good God made it, and he did not make it expressly
for the _jeune fille_! In Paris we get out of it what we can. Maurice
is the size of his income, neither larger nor smaller, and I give him
his money’s worth, rest assured! Why should I give him more? He is not
an object of charity! For myself I am an artist; I should bore myself
prettily if I sat and pined all day for your little man of the world!
I need a friend who is also an artist. It is you to-day; I remind you,
though you do not like it, that there have been yesterdays, and that if
you are not very good, there will be to-morrows.”
Jean closed his eyes. He hated what Liane was saying, and he thought
if he shut his eyes he might not see her words. He loved Liane best
when he was away from her and she could not disfigure herself in his
eyes; when he was in his dark and lonely little room, and could feel a
passionate impatience and disgust with Maurice, his old hero--who had
long ago ceased to be a hero in Paris, where young man at twenty-five,
with moustaches, self-importance, and a sense of life were not
particularly rare.
But when Jean found himself with Liane in Maurice’s motor, he was apt
to feel the disgust and impatience with himself, instead of with
Maurice, and he was far too proud to like to feel himself to blame.
Liane saw this quite plainly, even though she did not understand it.
To-night she had decided to cure it. She laid her hand on his arm.
“_Alors_,” she whispered, “is it for me to tell you to profit by
to-day? I give you all that an artist should give an artist; but, Jean,
that is not all I have to give!”
Jean’s eyes were drawn to her face; she knew that was the way to make
him forget all inconvenient ideas; and he forgot them. He looked at
her and everything vanished, the cold of the night around them, the
flashing lights, the swift, sharp cries of the streets, the softened
whirr and buzz of the passing cars, the houses, those sheltered
screens of human life, standing between them and the sky--all these
outer things, and all the inner things too, Jean’s scruples and his
struggles, his reluctance, and the safeguard of his pride, failed and
fell away from him, under the spell of Liane’s eyes. A hard compulsion
came upon him; at that moment he ceased to worship Liane, he wanted
her. He ceased to reflect; he could not speak. He put out his hand and
caught hers. He hurt her, but she did not wince; like the girl in the
picture, she met his demand with serene, satisfied eyes, waiting for
inevitable surrender.
“Maurice is away to-night,” she whispered. Jean followed her into the
flat without a word.
The fortnight that followed Jean never cared greatly to recall. There
was still the Bank in the daytime; sometimes he fell asleep over his
work, but his fellow clerks were very kind; they woke him up and said
to each other: “See how he has begun to live, this little one!”
When he was roused, Jean used to shiver and feel horribly sad; at these
times he wished that he had never seen Liane; a fierce thirst for
loneliness, and freedom for his soul, possessed him; he hungered to
shut out Liane’s face and get back to his piano, his empty room, and
the liberty of his dreams. The long, dull day cramped and stiffened
him, and the money that ran through his hands seemed to his nervous
fancy to stain them like an unclean thing. It was as if in its
monotonous reiteration it spelt Liane. It was for her that it came
there, for her that it increased, and then ran back into the streets
of Paris, a golden, sordid stream. The sound of the money made Jean
yearn for the sound and smell of the earth at St. Jouin, for the clean
air and sweet loneliness of the woods. But when evening fell and the
lights came out, and Paris awoke, when the streets filled with the stir
of a well-dressed, living throng, then Jean’s heart quickened, and the
Bank and St. Jouin, and even the piano and its dreams, sank back into a
hidden place in his soul, and he became the happiest and gayest young
man in Paris, inconceivably loved by the most splendid woman in the
world.
It was not possible that he could wholly succeed in hiding from Liane
his intense separation of spirit. She knew, indeed, extremely little
about spirit, but on the other hand she knew a great deal about lovers,
and it did not escape her that Jean had, at moments, the power of
estranging himself from her possession. At the end of the fortnight
Maurice returned from the provinces, and Jean explained to Liane in her
dressing-room at the Odéon that he had met Maurice.
“Well,” said Liane impatiently. “I do not see anything very
extraordinary in that. I have also met him, _mon cher_; what then?”
“But you must not meet him again, Liane, not now,” said Jean quietly.
“You say the flat is your own, so I shall not ask you to leave it, but
you must not allow Maurice to visit you there again.”
Liane was silent a moment from sheer astonishment. It was true that
with a desire to spare Jean’s feelings she had told him the flat was
her own. It was equally true that it was not--not in the sense in which
she had led Jean to believe it to be.
“Must not, Jean!” she repeated, laying down her powder-puff and
regarding him with blank amazement. “Are you mad? What has this poor
Maurice done, then, that I am not to receive him?”
“Liane! Liane!” cried Jean, taking both her hands in his. “Why do you
pretend that you do not understand me? You do! you do! you do!”
Liane withdrew her hands and returned to her powder-puff.
“You are absurd,” she said coldly. “Do not enrage me with your virtues
from the provinces. I will not be taught how to live by a chicken whose
shell I have just broken. I shall receive whom I like when I like. One
would think, Monsieur, that I was your wife. Let me hear no more of
these impertinences!”
Jean went to the window and opened it; something in his brain seemed to
be burning to escape; he felt hot, savage, and reckless. No, she was
not his wife; he supposed if she were he might have trusted her, he
might have respected her. As it was, he did not, he hated her. All his
heart seemed filled with a hard exasperation. When he turned to face
her again, his eyes were fierce.
“I told him he could not come,” he said; “if you receive him you do it
at your own risk.”
“You told Maurice--told him he could not come?” Liane gasped.
“I told him you must choose between us,” Jean continued doggedly. “I
know he has all the things I have not got. I have nothing to offer
you--yes, that is true. You see me here, Liane; how much do you suppose
I have in my pocket? I think I have three francs. Well, it is all I
shall have till the end of the month. Maurice is, I believe, rich;
but there is one thing I have which I will not give up, and that is my
pride. Now which is it to be, tell me. If it is Maurice, I go!”
Liane contrived to stare at him for a moment without speaking. She
could say a good deal, but she was not going to say any of it at
present. Jean with his ardent eyes full of fire and tears charmed her
jaded senses. He was a new experience, she valued him. As for Maurice,
that was another story. She could, she fancied, make some arrangement
about Maurice. He would not cry for the moon, and she could manage
for him to have something short of that commodity. As far as Jean was
concerned, it was quite unnecessary that he should know anything about
her arrangements. The blank look passed out of her eyes, she opened her
arms to him and he knelt beside her, a child in her hands, trembling
with distress at his own temerity.
“Only trust me, Jean,” she whispered. “You do trust me?”
“You won’t see him, Liane?”
“Selfish little boy, to please you then--no.”
Jean gave a long sigh of relief. Where was his hatred now? His bitter
antagonism? that feeling in his heart of remorseless hardness? It
seemed impossible that they had ever existed and incredible that they
should ever exist again; but even now they were only hidden, like
the sharp teeth of rocks covered for the moment by the rush of the
incoming tide.
Liane carried out a suitable arrangement, and Jean believed that she
had obeyed him; it made him extraordinarily humble and tender with
her; he could not do enough to show his gratitude; and Liane was
not always easy to serve, she required so much and she had a most
terrible temper. Jean set himself to please her with an almost feminine
gentleness and tact. He did not ask from her refined sensibilities or
quick perceptions. He called her to himself a great artist, and he made
himself believe that this excused everything.
He was very young and he loved her, and the young cannot love without
the divine fire. They must look for their vine to bring forth grapes,
and when it brings forth wild grapes they shut their eyes.
They will believe in beauty though they must go blind to keep their
vision; they would rather enter into the kingdom of heaven maimed than
know it is not the kingdom of heaven.
Jean persisted in believing in Liane in spite of Liane, but sometimes
she made it very hard for him.
“There is still an arrangement we must make,” she said to him one
day. “I cannot have anyone going about with me who is dressed like a
piano-tuner. You carry yourself well, it is true. You have the good
little air which says: ‘I own myself,’ but that is not enough when
you are with me. It is necessary that you show a great deal more
importance, you must, in short, look as if you owned me! and for that,
_mon cher_, you will require clothes. I cannot put a placard on your
back--‘_I beseech you, here is a man who is about to become a great
musician; refrain from regarding his cravat!_’ And I will not be seen
with a nobody! In Paris it is necessary to have a note, a tone, to
express one’s self in such a way that the world cannot readily overlook
you.”
Jean looked dogged, he did not wish to say he was too poor. He had
already been forced into this confession rather frequently by Liane,
who never understood anything about money, except that you spent
it--yours or any one else’s--like water, and that when it was finished
you made yourself excessively agreeable or disagreeable (according
to the requirements of the case) till you were given more. There is
more than one way of paying for your fun, and since Jean’s pockets
were empty, he had had to pay for it lately with his pride, and he had
several times made a stand about the price. He did not like supping
here and there and everywhere at enormous expense, for which Liane
paid; he did not like the invariable use of the expensive motor,
and Liane never walked a step and never used anything else. He did
not like his position as the man who carried things, shared things,
bought things, and for none of which his whole salary (he had just
been started on a hundred francs a month) would have covered the tips
for one busy night. Cravats and tie-pins he had hardly seen his way
to escape, but he drew the line at a silk hat for the Opera, and a
new suit, and took the first opportunity during a short afternoon’s
shopping to say so.
Liane stared at him.
“_Pourquoi, mon ami?_” she said, in a voice of toneless gentleness,
which Jean had learned to dread as the preliminary of a rising fury.
“_Pourquoi pas?_” And she went out of the shop where she had turned
over everything and bought nothing--she was a difficult shopper--with
the air of a tragedy queen.
If she would only be angry, Jean thought he might manage to keep the
little golden coin of his pride, but she wasn’t only angry. She was
angry at first, splendidly, furiously angry, till she saw it was no
use. Then she melted and entreated Jean with that flexible, dramatic
tenderness which attacks all the weak places in a man’s heart and
tyrannizes over them; but still Jean held out. She made him feel that
he was a brute and know that he was a fool, but he clung to his pride
and faced her with drawn lips and haggard eyes.
“Please, please don’t tempt me, Liane,” he pleaded. “I literally
haven’t a penny except some money, a very small sum, my mother left
me, which I have promised to keep intact for an emergency. You don’t
want me to use that? I don’t even know if I legally can, and you
certainly can’t suppose that I will accept clothes from you. It’s just
like you to be generous enough to offer anything you have, but it
would be impossible for me to take it. I know I’m not very smart, my
poor Liane, but try to put up with me as I am! Perhaps I shall make
something by playing soon, and every bit of it shall go to a jeweller
for you, and a tailor for me; only have patience.”
Unfortunately Jean asked Liane for the quality she most despised and
least possessed.
“So you will not even do this one little thing for me?” she said,
gazing tragically in front of her.
“I would do anything in all the world for you, Liane,” said Jean, his
voice trembling, “but I can’t take money!”
Liane flung her pathos from her as if it were an old shoe.
“Bah!” she said. “That same old story, then! The things a man will do
for you! How often have I not heard them! _Hein!_ What are they, _mon
ami_? First, die for me! You would naturally put this first, as it is
the last thing I should ask of you! It is true you could die for me
in any old suit, but how would it profit me? I am not a cannibal, nor
am I a murderer. I do not desire the death of my friends! It would
not contribute, this sacrifice of yours, anything to my safety, my
comfort or my amusement! Anything! I again ask you--will you give
up your Bank for me? No! You have already said that you cannot risk
having no profession. I do not know what you call ten sous a month,
but it appears that it may pass for a profession. You cannot offer me
money--you have not got it. Talent? You will not use it. Beauty? Your
friend Maurice with his ox eyes, his butcher’s moustache, his figure
enlaced, presents something better to the eye than you. What then?
Your wit? My poor Jean, you have just given me, it seems, a specimen.
Pardon me if I prefer my own. You have not the sense to see that there
are only two things worth having--money and life--and that one pays for
the other! What can you do for me, then? I will tell you. You can take
things when I want you to take them! But that, it seems at present,
you can only do when you yourself want them! You are willing enough to
take my time, for example, and also what you are so good as to call my
charms? I introduce you into the artist world, I lift you here, I lift
you there, I carry you about, I get myself even laughed at. They say:
‘The good Liane has turned nursemaid; behold how she trains her little
one!’ I ask in return what? That you should not go about with me in
rags from a country village. No, I do not care if the chauffeur hears
or not--yes, rags! Yes! I say a suit left over from the year of your
first Communion, and you say ‘No! this I will not do; this goes too
far; this risks too much!’----”
“Liane,” entreated Jean. “The people on the pavement, everyone is
staring at us!” Liane was enjoying herself. What if everyone was
staring at them? She preferred an audience. She did not lower her tone
at all as she continued:
“_Mon ami_, I am very reasonable. I am very calm, I am quite patient,
_moi_! I say only this--” and she made a superb gesture with her hands
which took in half the Bois de Boulogne, through which they were
dashing at a magnificent pace, “which of us two is it, then, who asks
too much?”
Jean capitulated. He answered that he would try and draw out the sum
his mother had left for the special emergency.
Liane became pacific; they would dismount, she said, and take a stroll
in the Bois, where they would have tea--the whole world was out this
afternoon.
She did not at all mind what money Jean used, the great thing was that
they should both be well dressed and that she should have what she
wanted without any dispute about it.
“Now, _mon ami_, are you happy?” she asked Jean, with the acquired
sublimity of the Liane smile as she led the way under the sun-touched,
wintry trees of the Bois. Jean could not honestly say that he was
happy, but he was at least glad that Liane should be so. Lately, he
was beginning to realize that the desire to appease her was taking
the place of finding in her his own tremendous joy. Instead of rapture
at the miracle of her presence he felt relief if they succeeded in
spending a peaceful hour together; and once or twice he had not been
quite sure that the relief was due to the peace so much as to the
fact that the hour was over, and he could go back once more to his
stolen moments at the piano, the only free ones of his life. He began
to think, too, more good-naturedly of Maurice, and less--very much
less--proudly of himself; but he still thought that he loved Liane. It
takes a great deal to kill love, for after the glory of the individual
has faded, there still remains the inmost unquenchable fire--the love
of love. Perhaps it would not be true to say that Jean still loved
Liane. She had very much disgusted and distressed him, but she could
still make him love love, and while she could do that there was no real
danger of his escaping her.