FLIGHT
André Mariolle was the first to arrive at Mme. de Burne's. He took a
seat and gazed about him upon the walls, the furniture, the hangings,
at all the small objects and trinkets that were so dear to him from
their association with her--at the familiar apartment where he had
first known her, where he had come to her so many times since then,
and where he had discovered in himself the germs of that ill-starred
passion that had kept on growing, day by day, until the hour of his
barren victory. With what eagerness had he many a time awaited her
coming in this charming spot which seemed to have been made for no one
but her, an exquisite setting for an exquisite creature! How well he
knew the pervading odor of this salon and its hangings; a subdued odor
of iris, so simple and aristocratic. He grasped the arms of the great
armchair, from which he had so often watched her smile and listened
to her talk, as if they had been the hands of some friend that he was
parting with forever. It would have pleased him if she could not
come, if no one could come, and if he could remain there alone, all
night, dreaming of his love, as people watch beside a dead man. Then at
daylight he could go away for a long time, perhaps forever.
The door opened, and she appeared and came forward to him with
outstretched hand. He was master of himself, and showed nothing of his
agitation. She was not a woman, but a living bouquet--an indescribable
bouquet of flowers.
A girdle of pinks enclasped her waist and fell about her in cascades,
reaching to her feet. About her bare arms and shoulders ran a garland
of mingled myosotis and lilies-of-the-valley, while three fairy-like
orchids seemed to be growing from her breast and caressing the
milk-white flesh with the rosy and red flesh of their supernal blooms.
Her blond hair was studded with violets in enamel, in which minute
diamonds glistened, and other diamonds, trembling upon golden pins,
sparkled like dewdrops among the odorous trimming of her corsage.
"I shall have a headache," she said, "but I don't care; my dress is
becoming."
Delicious odors emanated from her, like spring among the gardens. She
was more fresh than the garlands that she wore. André was dazzled
as he looked at her, reflecting that it would be no less brutal and
barbarous to take her in his arms at that moment than it would be to
trample upon a blossoming flower-bed. So their bodies were no longer
objects to inspire love; they were objects to be adorned, simply frames
on which to hang fine clothes. They were like birds, they were like
flowers, they were like a thousand other things as much as they were
like women. Their mothers, all women of past and gone generations, had
used coquettish arts to enhance their natural beauties, but it had
been their aim to please in the first place by their direct physical
seductiveness, by the charm of native grace, by the irresistible
attraction that the female form exercises over the heart of the males.
At the present day coquetry was everything. Artifice was now the great
means, and not only the means, but the end as well, for they employed
it even more frequently to dazzle the eyes of rivals and excite barren
jealousy than to subjugate men.
What end, then, was this toilette designed to serve, the gratification
of the eyes of him, the lover, or the humiliation of the Princess de
Malten?
The door opened, and the lady whose name was in his thoughts was
announced.
Mme. de Burne moved quickly forward to meet her and gave her a kiss,
not unmindful of the orchids during the operation, her lips slightly
parted, with a little grimace of tenderness. It was a pretty kiss, an
extremely desirable kiss, given and returned from the heart by those
two pairs of lips.
Mariolle gave a start of pain. Never once had she run to meet him with
that joyful eagerness, never had she kissed him like that, and with a
sudden change of ideas he said to himself: "Women are no longer made to
fulfill our requirements."
Massival made his appearance, then M. de Pradon and the Comte de
Bernhaus, then George de Maltry, resplendent with English "chic."
Lamarthe and Prédolé were now the only ones missing. The sculptor's
name was mentioned, and every voice was at once raised in praise of
him. "He had restored to life the grace of form, he had recovered the
lost traditions of the Renaissance, with something additional: the
sincerity of modern art!" M. de Maltry maintained that he was the
exquisite revealer of the suppleness of the human form. Such phrases
as these had been current in the salons for the last two months, where
they had been bandied about from mouth to mouth.
At last the great man appeared. Everyone was surprised. He was a large
man of uncertain age, with the shoulders of a coal-heaver, a powerful
face with strongly-marked features, surrounded by hair and beard that
were beginning to turn white, a prominent nose, thick full lips,
wearing a timid and embarrassed air. He held his arms away from his
body in an awkward sort of way that was doubtless to be attributed to
the immense hands that protruded from his sleeves. They were broad
and thick, with hairy and muscular fingers; the hands of a Hercules
or a butcher, and they seemed to be conscious of being in the way,
embarrassed at finding themselves there and looking vainly for some
convenient place to hide themselves. Upon looking more closely at his
face, however, it was seen to be illuminated by clear, piercing, gray
eyes of extreme expressiveness, and these alone served to impart some
degree of life to the man's heavy and torpid expression. They were
constantly searching, inquiring, scrutinizing, darting their rapid,
shifting glances here, there, and everywhere, and it was plainly to be
seen that these eager, inquisitive looks were the animating principle
of a deep and comprehensive intellect.
Mme. de Burne was somewhat disappointed; she politely led the artist
to a chair which he took and where he remained seated, apparently
disconcerted by this introduction to a strange house.
Lamarthe, master of the situation, approached his friend with the
intention of breaking the ice and relieving him from the awkwardness of
his position. "My dear fellow," he said, "let me make for you a little
map to let you know where you are. You have seen our divine hostess;
now look at her surroundings." He showed him upon the mantelpiece a
bust, authenticated in due form, by Houdon, then upon a cabinet in
buhl a group representing two women dancing, with arms about each
other's waists, by Clodion, and finally four Tanagra statuettes upon an
_étagère_, selected for their perfection of finish and detail.
Then all at once Prédolé's face brightened as if he had found his
children in the desert. He arose and went to the four little earthen
figures, and when Mme. de Burne saw him grasp two of them at once in
his great hands that seemed made to slaughter oxen, she trembled for
her treasures. When he laid hands on them, however, it appeared that
it was only for the purpose of caressing them, for he handled them
with wonderful delicacy and dexterity, turning them about in his thick
fingers which somehow seemed all at once to have become as supple as a
juggler's. It was evident by the gentle way the big man had of looking
at and handling them that he had in his soul and his very finger-ends
an ideal and delicate tenderness for such small elegancies.
"Are they not pretty?" Lamarthe asked him.
The sculptor went on to extol them as if they had been his own, and
he spoke of some others, the most remarkable that he had met with,
briefly and in a voice that was rather low but confident and calm, the
expression of a clearly defined thought that was not ignorant of the
value of words and their uses.
Still under the guidance of the author, he next inspected the other
rare bric-à-brac that Mme. de Burne had collected, thanks to the
counsels of her friends. He looked with astonishment and delight at
the various articles, apparently agreeably disappointed to find them
there, and in every case he took them up and turned them lightly over
in his hands, as if to place himself in direct personal contact with
them. There was a statuette of bronze, heavy as a cannon-ball, hidden
away in a dark corner; he took it up with one hand, carried it to the
lamp, examined it at length, and replaced it where it belonged without
visible effort. Lamarthe exclaimed: "The great, strong fellow! he is
built expressly to wrestle with stone and marble!" while the ladies
looked at him approvingly.
Dinner was now announced. The mistress of the house took the sculptor's
arm to pass to the dining-room, and when she had seated him in the
place of honor at her right hand, she asked him out of courtesy, just
as she would have questioned a scion of some great family as to the
exact origin of his name: "Your art, Monsieur, has also the additional
honor, has it not, of being the most ancient of all?"
He replied in his calm deep voice: _"Mon Dieu_, Madame, the shepherds
in the Bible play upon the flute, therefore music would seem to be the
more ancient--although true music, as we understand it, does not go
very far back, while true sculpture dates from remote antiquity."
"You are fond of music?"
"I love all the arts," he replied with grave earnestness.
"Is it known who was the inventor of your art?"
He reflected a moment, then replied in tender accents, as if he had
been relating some touching tale: "According to Grecian tradition it
was Dædalus the Athenian. The most attractive legend, however, is that
which attributes the invention to a Sicyonian potter named Dibutades.
His daughter Kora having traced her betrothed's profile with the
assistance of an arrow, her father filled in the rude sketch with clay
and modeled it. It was then that my art was born."
"Charming!" murmured Lamarthe. Then turning to Mme. de Burne, he said:
"You cannot imagine, Madame, how interesting this man becomes when he
talks of what he loves; what power he has to express and explain it and
make people adore it."
But the sculptor did not seem disposed either to pose for the
admiration of the guests or to perorate. He had tucked a corner of his
napkin between his shirt-collar and his neck and was reverentially
eating his soup, with that appearance of respect that peasants manifest
for that portion of the meal. Then he drank a glass of wine and drew
himself up with an air of greater ease, of making himself more at
home. Now and then he made a movement as if to turn around, for he had
perceived the reflection in a mirror of a modern group that stood on
the mantelshelf behind him. He did not recognize it and was seeking
to divine the author. At last, unable longer to resist the impulse, he
asked: "It is by Falguière, is it not?"
Mme. de Burne laughed. "Yes, it is by Falguière. How could you tell, in
a glass?"
He smiled in turn. "Ah, Madame, I can't explain how it is done, but
I can tell at a glance the sculpture of those men who are painters
as well, and the painting of those who also practice sculpture. It
is not a bit like the work of a man who devotes himself to one art
exclusively."
Lamarthe, wishing to show off his friend, called for explanations, and
Prédolé proceeded to give them. In his slow, precise manner of speech
he defined and illustrated the painting of sculptors and the sculpture
of painters in such a clear and original way that he was listened
to as much with eyes as with ears. Commencing his demonstration at
the earliest period and pursuing it through the history of art and
gathering examples from epoch to epoch, he came down to the time of the
early Italian masters who were painters and sculptors at the same time,
Nicolas and John of Pisa, Donatello, Lorenzo Ghiberti. He spoke of
Diderot's interesting remarks upon the same subject, and in conclusion
mentioned Ghiberti's bronze gates of the baptistry of Saint John at
Florence, such living and dramatically forceful bas-reliefs that they
seem more like paintings upon canvas. He waved his great hands before
him as if he were modeling, with such ease and grace of motion as to
delight every eye, calling up above the plates and glasses the pictures
that his tongue told of, and reconstructing the work that he mentioned
with such conviction that everyone followed the motions of his fingers
with breathless attention. Then some dishes that he fancied were placed
before him and he ceased talking and began eating.
He scarcely spoke during the remainder of the dinner, not troubling
himself to follow the conversation, which ranged from some bit of
theatrical gossip to a political rumor; from a ball to a wedding; from
an article in the "Revue des Deux Mondes" to the horse-show that had
just opened. His appetite was good, and he drank a good deal, without
being at all affected by it, having a sound, hard head that good wine
could not easily upset.
When they had returned to the drawing-room, Lamarthe, who had not drawn
the sculptor out to the extent that he wished to do, drew him over
to a glass case to show him a priceless object, a classic, historic
gem: a silver inkstand carved by Benvenuto Cellini. The men listened
with extreme interest to his long and eloquent rhapsody as they stood
grouped about him, while the two women, seated in front of the fire
and rather disgusted to see so much enthusiasm wasted upon the form of
inanimate objects, appeared to be a little bored and chatted together
in a low voice from time to time. After that conversation became
general, but not animated, for it had been somewhat damped by the ideas
that had passed into the atmosphere of this pretty room, with its
furnishing of precious objects.
Prédolé left early, assigning as a reason that he had to be at work
at daybreak every morning. When he was gone Lamarthe enthusiastically
asked Mme. de Burne: "Well, how did you like him?"
She replied, hesitatingly and with something of an air of ill nature:
"He is quite interesting, but prosy."
The novelist smiled and said to himself: "_Parbleu_, that is because
he did not admire your toilette; and you are the only one of all your
pretty things that he hardly condescended to look at." He exchanged a
few pleasant remarks with her and went over and took a seat by Mme. de
Malten, to whom he began to be very attentive. The Comte de Bernhaus
approached the mistress of the house, and taking a small footstool,
appeared sunk in devotion at her feet. Mariolle, Massival, Maltry,
and M. de Pradon continued to talk of the sculptor, who had made a
deep impression on their minds. M. de Maltry was comparing him to
the old masters, for whom life was embellished and illuminated by an
exclusive and consuming love of the manifestations of beauty, and he
philosophized upon his theme with many very subtle and very tiresome
observations.
Massival, quickly tiring of a conversation which made no reference to
his own art, crossed the room to Mme. de Malten and seated himself
beside Lamarthe, who soon yielded his place to him and went and
rejoined the men.
"Shall we go?" he said to Mariolle.
"Yes, by all means!"
The novelist liked to walk the streets at night with some friend and
talk, when the incisive, peremptory tones of his voice seemed to lay
hold of the walls of the houses and climb up them. He had an impression
that he was very eloquent, witty, and sagacious during these nocturnal
_tête-à-têtes_, which were monologues rather than conversations so far
as his part in them was concerned. The approbation that he thus gained
for himself sufficed his needs, and the gentle fatigue of legs and
lungs assured him a good night's rest.
Mariolle, for his part, had reached the limit of his endurance. The
moment that he was outside her door all his wretchedness and sorrow,
all his irremediable disappointment, boiled up and overflowed his
heart. He could stand it no longer; he would have no more of it. He
would go away and never return.
The two men found themselves alone with each other in the street. The
wind had changed and the cold that had prevailed during the day had
yielded; it was warm and pleasant, as it almost always is two hours
after a snowstorm in spring. The sky was vibrating with the light
of innumerable stars, as if a breath of summer in the immensity of
space had lighted up the heavenly bodies and set them twinkling. The
sidewalks were gray and dry again, while in the roadway pools of water
reflected the light of the gas-lamps.
Lamarthe said: "What a fortunate man he is, that Prédolé! He lives
only for one thing, his art; thinks but of that, loves but that; it
occupies all his being; consoles and cheers him, and affords him a
life of happiness and comfort. He is really a great artist of the old
stock. Ah! he doesn't let women trouble his head, not much, our women
of to-day with their frills and furbelows and fantastic disguises!
Did you remark how little attention he paid to our two pretty dames?
And yet they were rather seductive. But what he is looking for is
the plastic--the plastic pure and simple; he has no use for the
artificial. It is true that our divine hostess put him down in her
books as an insupportable fool. In her estimation a bust by Houdon,
Tanagra statuettes, and an inkstand by Cellini are but so many
unconsidered trifles that go to the adornment and the rich and natural
setting of a masterpiece, which is Herself; she and her dress, for
dress is part and parcel of Herself; it is the fresh accentuation that
she places on her beauty day by day. What a trivial, personal thing is
woman!"
He stopped and gave the sidewalk a great thump with his cane, so that
the noise resounded through the quiet street, then he went on.
"They have a very clear and exact perception of what adds to their
attractions: the toilette and the ornaments in which there is an
entire change of fashion every ten years; but they are heedless of
that attribute which involves rare and constant power of selection,
which demands from them keen and delicate artistic penetration and a
purely æsthetic exercise of their senses. Their senses, moreover, are
extremely rudimentary, incapable of high development, inaccessible to
whatever does not touch directly the feminine egotism that absorbs
everything in them. Their acuteness is the stratagem of the savage,
of the red Indian; of war and ambush. They are even almost incapable
of enjoying the material pleasures of the lower order, which require
a physical education and the intelligent exercise of an organ, such
as good living. When, as they do in exceptional cases, they come to
have some respect for decent cookery, they still remain incapable of
appreciating our great wines, which speak to masculine palates only,
for wine does speak."
He again thumped the pavement with his cane, accenting his last dictum
and punctuating the sentence, and continued.
"It won't do, however, to expect too much from them, but this want of
taste and appreciation that so frequently clouds their intellectual
vision when higher considerations are at stake often serves to blind
them still more when our interests are in question. A man may have
heart, feeling, intelligence, exceptional merits, and qualities of all
kinds, they will all be unavailing to secure their favor as in bygone
days when a man was valued for his worth and his courage. The women of
to-day are actresses, second-rate actresses at that, who are merely
playing for effect a part that has been handed down to them and in
which they have no belief. They have to have actors of the same stamp
to act up to them and lie through the rôle just as they do; and these
actors are the coxcombs that we see hanging around them; from the
fashionable world, or elsewhere."
They walked along in silence for a few moments, side by side. Mariolle
had listened attentively to the words of his companion, repeating them
in his mind and approving of his sentiments under the influence of his
sorrow. He was aware also that a sort of Italian adventurer who was
then in Paris giving lessons in swordsmanship, Prince Epilati by name,
a gentleman of the fencing-schools, of considerable celebrity for his
elegance and graceful vigor that he was in the habit of exhibiting
in black-silk tights before the upper ten and the select few of the
demimonde, was just then in full enjoyment of the attentions and
coquetries of the pretty little Baronne de Frémines.
As Lamarthe said nothing further, he remarked to him:
"It is all our own fault; we make our selections badly; there are other
women besides those."
The novelist replied: "The only ones now that are capable of real
attachment are the shopgirls and some sentimental little _bourgeoises_,
poor and unhappily married. I have before now carried consolation to
one of those distressed souls. They are overflowing with sentiment,
but such cheap, vulgar sentiment that to exchange ours against it is
like throwing your money to a beggar. Now I assert that in our young,
wealthy society, where the women feel no needs and no desires, where
all that they require is some mild distraction to enable them to kill
time, and where the men regulate their pleasures as scrupulously as
they regulate their daily labors, I assert that under such conditions
the old natural attraction, charming and powerful as it was, that used
to bring the sexes toward each other, has disappeared."
"You are right," Mariolle murmured.
He felt an increasing desire to fly, to put a great distance between
himself and these people, these puppets who in their empty idleness
mimicked the beautiful, impassioned, and tender life of other days and
were incapable of savoring its lost delights.
"Good night," he said; "I am going to bed." He went home and seated
himself at his table and wrote:
"Farewell, Madame. Do you remember my first letter? In it
too I said farewell, but I did not go. What a mistake that
was! When you receive this I shall have left Paris; need
I tell you why? Men like me ought never to meet with women
like you. Were I an artist and were my emotions capable of
expression in such manner as to afford me consolation, you
would have perhaps inspired me with talent, but I am only a
poor fellow who was so unfortunate as to be seized with love
for you, and with it its accompanying bitter, unendurable
sorrow.
"When I met you for the first time I could not have deemed
myself capable of feeling and suffering as I have done.
Another in your place would have filled my heart with divine
joy in bidding it wake and live, but you could do nothing
but torture it. It was not your fault, I know; I reproach
you with nothing and I bear you no hard feeling; I have not
even the right to send you these lines. Pardon me. You are
so constituted that you cannot feel as I feel; you cannot
even divine what passes in my breast when I am with you,
when you speak to me and I look on you.
"Yes, I know; you have accepted me and offered me a rational
and tranquil happiness, for which I ought to thank you on my
knees all my life long, but I will not have it. Ah, what a
horrible, agonizing love is that which is constantly craving
a tender word, a warm caress, without ever receiving them!
My heart is empty, empty as the stomach of a beggar who has
long followed your carriage with outstretched hand and to
whom you have thrown out pretty toys, but no bread. It was
bread, it was love, that I hungered for. I am about to go
away wretched and in need, in sore need of your love, a few
crumbs of which would have saved me. I have nothing left in
the world but a cruel memory that clings and will not leave
me, and that I must try to kill.
"Adieu, Madame. Thanks, and pardon me. I love you still,
this evening, with all the strength of my soul. Adieu.
"ANDRÉ MARIOLLE."