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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/3919.txt b/3919.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..b25e075 --- /dev/null +++ b/3919.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3465 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Red Lily, by Anatole France, v1 +#6 in our series The French Immortals Crowned by the French Academy +#4 in our series by Anatole France + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. 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He was educated at the +College Stanislas and published in 1868 an essay upon Alfred de Vigny. +This was followed by two volumes of poetry: 'Les Poemes Dores' (1873), +and 'Les Noces Corinthiennes' (1876). With the last mentioned book his +reputation became established. + +Anatole France belongs to the class of poets known as "Les Parnassiens." +Yet a book like 'Les Noces Corinthiennes' ought to be classified among a +group of earlier lyrics, inasmuch as it shows to a large degree the +influence of Andre Chenier and Alfred de Vigny. France was, and is, +also a diligent contributor to many journals and reviews, among others, +'Le Globe, Les Debats, Le Journal Officiel, L'Echo de Paris, La Revue de +Famille, and Le Temps'. On the last mentioned journal he succeeded Jules +Claretie. He is likewise Librarian to the Senate, and has been a member +of the French Academy since 1896. + +The above mentioned two volumes of poetry were followed by many works in +prose, which we shall notice. France's critical writings are collected +in four volumes, under the title, 'La Vie Litteraire' (1888-1892); his +political articles in 'Opinions Sociales' (2 vols., 1902). He combines +in his style traces of Racine, Voltaire, Flaubert, and Renan, and, +indeed, some of his novels, especially 'Thais' (1890), 'Jerome Coignard' +(1893), and Lys Rouge (1894), which was crowned by the Academy, are +romances of the first rank. + +Criticism appears to Anatole France the most recent and possibly the +ultimate evolution of literary expression, "admirably suited to a highly +civilized society, rich in souvenirs and old traditions . . . . It +proceeds," in his opinion, "from philosophy and history, and demands for +its development an absolute intellectual liberty . . . . . It is the +last in date of all literary forms, and it will end by absorbing them all +. . . . To be perfectly frank the critic should say: 'Gentlemen, I +propose to enlarge upon my own thoughts concerning Shakespeare, Racine, +Pascal, Goethe, or any other writer.'" + +It is hardly necessary to say much concerning a critic with such +pronounced ideas as Anatole France. He gives us, indeed, the full flower +of critical Renanism, but so individualized as to become perfection in +grace, the extreme flowering of the Latin genius. It is not too much to +say that the critical writings of Anatole France recall the Causeries du +Lundi, the golden age of Sainte-Beuve! + +As a writer of fiction, Anatole France made his debut in 1879 with +'Jocaste', and 'Le Chat Maigre'. Success in this field was yet decidedly +doubtful when 'Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard' appeared in 1881. It at +once established his reputation; 'Sylvestre Bonnard', as 'Le Lys Rouge' +later, was crowned by the French Academy. These novels are replete with +fine irony, benevolent scepticism and piquant turns, and will survive the +greater part of romances now read in France. The list of Anatole +France's works in fiction is a large one. The titles of nearly all of +them, arranged in chronological order, are as follows: 'Les Desirs de +Jean Seyvien (1882); Abeille (1883); Le Livre de mon Ami (1885); Nos +Enfants (1886); Balthazar (1889); Thais (1890); L'Etui de Naire (1892); +Jerome Coignard, and La Rotisserie de la Reine Pedanque (1893); and +Histoire Contemporaine (1897-1900), the latter consisting of four +separate works: 'L'Orme du Mail, Le Mannequin d'Osier, L'Anneau +d'Amethyste, and Monsieur Bergeret a Paris'. All of his writings show +his delicately critical analysis of passion, at first playfully tender in +its irony, but later, under the influence of his critical antagonism to +Brunetiere, growing keener, stronger, and more bitter. In 'Thais' he has +undertaken to show the bond of sympathy that unites the pessimistic +sceptic to the Christian ascetic, since both despise the world. In 'Lys +Rouge', his greatest novel, he traces the perilously narrow line that +separates love from hate; in 'Opinions de M. l'Abbe Jerome Coignard' he +has given us the most radical breviary of scepticism that has appeared +since Montaigne. 'Le Livre de mon Ami' is mostly autobiographical; +'Clio' (1900) contains historical sketches. + +To represent Anatole France as one of the undying names in literature +would hardly be extravagant. Not that I would endow Ariel with the +stature and sinews of a Titan; this were to miss his distinctive +qualities: delicacy, elegance, charm. He belongs to a category of +writers who are more read and probably will ever exercise greater +influence than some of greater name. The latter show us life as a whole; +but life as a whole is too vast and too remote to excite in most of us +more than a somewhat languid curiosity. France confines himself to +themes of the keenest personal interest, the life of the world we live +in. It is herein that he excels! His knowledge is wide, his sympathies +are many-sided, his power of exposition is unsurpassed. No one has set +before us the mind of our time, with its half-lights, its shadowy vistas, +its indefiniteness, its haze on the horizon, so vividly as he. + +In Octave Mirbeau's notorious novel, a novel which it would be +complimentary to describe as naturalistic, the heroine is warned by her +director against the works of Anatole France, "Ne lisez jamais du +Voltaire. . . C'est un peche mortel . . . ni de Renan . . . ni +de l'Anatole France. Voila qui est dangereux." The names are +appropriately united; a real, if not precisely an apostolic, succession +exists between the three writers. + + JULES LEMAITRE + de l'Academie Francais + + + + + +BOOK 1. + + +CHAPTER I + +"I NEED LOVE" + +She gave a glance at the armchairs placed before the chimney, at the tea- +table, which shone in the shade, and at the tall, pale stems of flowers +ascending above Chinese vases. She thrust her hand among the flowery +branches of the guelder roses to make their silvery balls quiver. Then +she looked at herself in a mirror with serious attention. She held +herself sidewise, her neck turned over her shoulder, to follow with her +eyes the spring of her fine form in its sheath-like black satin gown, +around which floated a light tunic studded with pearls wherein sombre +lights scintillated. She went nearer, curious to know her face of that +day. The mirror returned her look with tranquillity, as if this amiable +woman whom she examined, and who was not unpleasing to her, lived without +either acute joy or profound sadness. + +On the walls of the large drawing-room, empty and silent, the figures of +the tapestries, vague as shadows, showed pallid among their antique games +and dying graces. Like them, the terra-cotta statuettes on slender +columns, the groups of old Saxony, and the paintings of Sevres, spoke of +past glories. On a pedestal ornamented with precious bronzes, the marble +bust of some princess royal disguised as Diana appeared about to fly out +of her turbulent drapery, while on the ceiling a figure of Night, +powdered like a marquise and surrounded by cupids, sowed flowers. +Everything was asleep, and only the crackling of the logs and the light +rattle of Therese's pearls could be heard. + +Turning from the mirror, she lifted the corner of a curtain and saw +through the window, beyond the dark trees of the quay, the Seine +spreading its yellow reflections. Weariness of the sky and of the water +was reflected in her fine gray eyes. The boat passed, the 'Hirondelle', +emerging from an arch of the Alma Bridge, and carrying humble travellers +toward Grenelle and Billancourt. She followed it with her eyes, then let +the curtain fall, and, seating herself under the flowers, took a book +from the table. On the straw-colored linen cover shone the title in +gold: 'Yseult la Blonde', by Vivian Bell. It was a collection of French +verses composed by an Englishwoman, and printed in London. She read +indifferently, waiting for visitors, and thinking less of the poetry than +of the poetess, Miss Bell, who was perhaps her most agreeable friend, and +whom she almost never saw; who, at every one of their meetings, which +were so rare, kissed her, calling her "darling," and babbled; who, plain +yet seductive, almost ridiculous, yet wholly exquisite, lived at Fiesole +like a philosopher, while England celebrated her as her most beloved +poet. Like Vernon Lee and like Mary Robinson, she had fallen in love +with the life and art of Tuscany; and, without even finishing her +Tristan, the first part of which had inspired in Burne-Jones dreamy +aquarelles, she wrote Provencal verses and French poems expressing +Italian ideas. She had sent her 'Yseult la Blonde' to "Darling," with a +letter inviting her to spend a month with her at Fiesole. She had +written: "Come; you will see the most beautiful things in the world, and +you will embellish them." + +And "darling" was saying to herself that she would not go, that she must +remain in Paris. But the idea of seeing Miss Bell in Italy was not +indifferent to her. And turning the leaves of the book, she stopped by +chance at this line: + + Love and gentle heart are one. + +And she asked herself, with gentle irony, whether Miss Bell had ever been +in love, and what manner of man could be the ideal of Miss Bell. The +poetess had at Fiesole an escort, Prince Albertinelli. He was very +handsome, but rather coarse and vulgar; too much so to please an aesthete +who blended with the desire for love the mysticism of an Annunciation. + +"Good-evening, Therese. I am positively worn out." + +The Princess Seniavine had entered, supple in her furs, which almost +seemed to form a part of her dark beauty. She seated herself brusquely, +and, in a voice at once harsh yet caressing, said: + +"This morning I walked through the park with General Lariviere. I met +him in an alley and made him go with me to the bridge, where he wished to +buy from the guardian a learned magpie which performs the manual of arms +with a gun. Oh! I am so tired!" + +"But why did you drag the General to the bridge?" + +"Because he had gout in his toe." + +Therese shrugged her shoulders, smiling: + +"You squander your wickedness. You spoil things." + +"And you wish me, dear, to save my kindness and my wickedness for a +serious investment?" + +Therese made her drink some Tokay. + +Preceded by the sound of his powerful breathing, General Lariviere +approached with heavy state and sat between the two women, looking +stubborn and self-satisfied, laughing in every wrinkle of his face. + +"How is Monsieur Martin-Belleme? Always busy?" + +Therese thought he was at the Chamber, and even that he was making a +speech there. + +Princess Seniavine, who was eating caviare sandwiches, asked Madame +Martin why she had not gone to Madame Meillan's the day before. They had +played a comedy there. + +"A Scandinavian play? Was it a success?" + +"Yes--I don't know. I was in the little green room, under the portrait +of the Duc d'Orleans. Monsieur Le Menil came to me and did me one of +those good turns that one never forgets. He saved me from Monsieur +Garain." + +The General, who knew the Annual Register, and stored away all useful +information, pricked up his ears. + +"Garain," he asked, "the minister who was in the Cabinet when the princes +were exiled?" + +"Himself. I was excessively agreeable to him. He talked to me of the +yearnings of his heart and he looked at me with alarming tenderness. +And from time to time he gazed, with sighs, at the portrait of the Duc +d'Orleans. I said to him: 'Monsieur Garain, you are making a mistake. +It is my sister-in-law who is an Orleanist. I am not.' At this moment +Monsieur Le Menil came to escort me to the buffet. He paid great +compliments--to my horses! He said, also, there was nothing so beautiful +as the forest in winter. He talked about wolves. That refreshed me." + +The General, who did not like young men, said he had met Le Menil the day +before in the forest, galloping, with vast space between himself and his +saddle. + +He declared that old cavaliers alone retained the traditions of good +horsemanship; that people in society now rode like jockeys. + +"It is the same with fencing," he added. "Formerly--" + +Princess Seniavine interrupted him: + +"General, look and see how charming Madame Martin is. She is always +charming, but at this moment she is prettier than ever. It is because +she is bored. Nothing becomes her better than to be bored. Since we +have been here, we have bored her terribly. Look at her: her forehead +clouded, her glance vague, her mouth dolorous. Behold a victim!" + +She arose, kissed Therese tumultuously, and fled, leaving the General +astonished. + +Madame Martin-Belleme prayed him not to listen to what the Princess had +said. + +He collected himself and asked: + +"And how are your poets, Madame?" + +It was difficult for him to forgive Madame Martin her preference for +people who lived by writing and were not of his circle. + +"Yes, your poets. What has become of that Monsieur Choulette, who visits +you wrapped in a red muffler?" + +"My poets? They forget me, they abandon me. One should not rely on +anybody. Men and women--nothing is sure. Life is a continual betrayal. +Only that poor Miss Bell does not forget me. She has written to me from +Florence and sent her book." + +"Miss Bell? Isn't she that young person who looks, with her yellow +waving hair, like a little lapdog?" + +He reflected, and expressed the opinion that she must be at least thirty. + +An old lady, wearing with modest dignity her crown of white hair, and a +little vivacious man with shrewd eyes, came in suddenly--Madame Marmet +and M. Paul Vence. Then, carrying himself very stiffly, with a square +monocle in his eye, appeared M. Daniel Salomon, the arbiter of elegance. +The General hurried out. + +They talked of the novel of the week. Madame Marmet had dined often with +the author, a young and very amiable man. Paul Vence thought the book +tiresome. + +"Oh," sighed Madame Martin, "all books are tiresome. But men are more +tiresome than books, and they are more exacting." + +Madame Marmet said that her husband, who had much literary taste, had +retained, until the end of his days, a horror of naturalism. She was the +widow of a member of the 'Academie des Inscriptions', and plumed herself +upon her illustrious widowhood. She was sweet and modest in her black +gown and her beautiful white hair. + +Madame Martin said to M. Daniel Salomon that she wished to consult him +particularly on the picture of a group of beautiful children. + +"You will tell me if it pleases you. You may also give me your opinion, +Monsieur Vence, unless you disdain such trifles." + +M. Daniel Salomon looked at Paul Vence through his monocle with disdain. +Paul Vence surveyed the drawing-room. + +"You have beautiful things, Madame. That would be nothing. But you have +only beautiful things, and all serve to set off your own beauty." + +She did not conceal her pleasure at hearing him speak in that way. She +regarded Paul Vence as the only really intelligent man she knew. She had +appreciated him before his books had made him celebrated. His ill- +health, his dark humor, his assiduous labor, separated him from society. +The little bilious man was not very pleasing; yet he attracted her. She +held in high esteem his profound irony, his great pride, his talent +ripened in solitude, and she admired him, with reason, as an excellent +writer, the author of powerful essays on art and on life. + +Little by little the room filled with a brilliant crowd. Within the +large circle of armchairs were Madame de Wesson, about whom people told +frightful stories, and who kept, after twenty years of half-smothered +scandal, the eyes of a child and cheeks of virginal smoothness; old +Madame de Morlaine, who shouted her witty phrases in piercing cries; +Madame Raymond, the wife of the Academician; Madame Garain, the wife of +the exminister; three other ladies; and, standing easily against the +mantelpiece, M. Berthier d'Eyzelles, editor of the 'Journal des Debats', +a deputy who caressed his white beard while Madame de Morlaine shouted at +him: + +"Your article on bimetallism is a pearl, a jewel! Especially the end of +it." + +Standing in the rear of the room, young clubmen, very grave, lisped among +themselves: + +"What did he do to get the button from the Prince?" + +"He, nothing. His wife, everything." + +They had their own cynical philosophy. One of them had no faith in +promises of men. + +"They are types that do not suit me. They wear their hearts on their +hands and on their mouths. You present yourself for admission to a club. +They say, 'I promise to give you a white ball. It will be an alabaster +ball--a snowball! They vote. It's a black ball. Life seems a vile +affair when I think of it." + +"Then don't think of it." + +Daniel Salomon, who had joined them, whispered in their ears spicy +stories in a lowered voice. And at every strange revelation concerning +Madame Raymond, or Madame Berthier, or Princess Seniavine, he added, +negligently: + +"Everybody knows it." + +Then, little by little, the crowd of visitors dispersed. Only Madame +Marmet and Paul Vence remained. + +The latter went toward Madame Martin, and asked: + +"When do you wish me to introduce Dechartre to you?" + +It was the second time he had asked this of her. She did not like to see +new faces. She replied, unconcernedly: + +"Your sculptor? When you wish. I saw at the Champ de Mars medallions +made by him which are very good. But he does not work much. He is an +amateur, is he not?" + +"He is a delicate artist. He does not need to work in order to live. +He caresses his figures with loving slowness. But do not be deceived +about him, Madame. He knows and he feels. He would be a master if he +did not live alone. I have known him since his childhood. People think +that he is solitary and morose. He is passionate and timid. What he +lacks, what he will lack always to reach the highest point of his art, +is simplicity of mind. He is restless, and he spoils his most beautiful +impressions. In my opinion he was created less for sculpture than for +poetry or philosophy. He knows a great deal, and you will be astonished +at the wealth of his mind." + +Madame Marmet approved. + +She pleased society by appearing to find pleasure in it. She listened a +great deal and talked little. Very affable, she gave value to her +affability by not squandering it. Either because she liked Madame +Martin, or because she knew how to give discreet marks of preference in +every house she went, she warmed herself contentedly, like a relative, in +a corner of the Louis XVI chimney, which suited her beauty. She lacked +only her dog. + +"How is Toby?" asked Madame Martin. "Monsieur Vence, do you know Toby? +He has long silky hair and a lovely little black nose." + +Madame Marmet was relishing the praise of Toby, when an old man, pink and +blond, with curly hair, short-sighted, almost blind under his golden +spectacles, rather short, striking against the furniture, bowing to empty +armchairs, blundering into the mirrors, pushed his crooked nose before +Madame Marmet, who looked at him indignantly. + +It was M. Schmoll, member of the Academie des Inscriptions. He smiled +and turned a madrigal for the Countess Martin with that hereditary harsh, +coarse voice with which the Jews, his fathers, pressed their creditors, +the peasants of Alsace, of Poland, and of the Crimea. He dragged his +phrases heavily. This great philologist knew all languages except +French. And Madame Martin enjoyed his affable phrases, heavy and rusty +like the iron-work of brica-brac shops, among which fell dried leaves of +anthology. M. Schmoll liked poets and women, and had wit. + +Madame Marmet feigned not to know him, and went out without returning his +bow. + +When he had exhausted his pretty madrigals, M. Schmoll became sombre and +pitiful. He complained piteously. He was not decorated enough, not +provided with sinecures enough, nor well fed enough by the State--he, +Madame Schmoll, and their five daughters. His lamentations had some +grandeur. Something of the soul of Ezekiel and of Jeremiah was in them. + +Unfortunately, turning his golden-spectacled eyes toward the table, he +discovered Vivian Bell's book. + +"Oh, 'Yseult La Blonde'," he exclaimed, bitterly. "You are reading that +book, Madame? Well, learn that Mademoiselle Vivian Bell has stolen an +inscription from me, and that she has altered it, moreover, by putting it +into verse. You will find it on page 109 of her book: 'A shade may weep +over a shade.' You hear, Madame? 'A shade may weep over a shade.' Well, +those words are translated literally from a funeral inscription which I +was the first to publish and to illustrate. Last year, one day, when I +was dining at your house, being placed by the side of Mademoiselle Bell, +I quoted this phrase to her, and it pleased her a great deal. At her +request, the next day I translated into French the entire inscription and +sent it to her. And now I find it changed in this volume of verses under +this title: 'On the Sacred Way'--the sacred way, that is I." + +And he repeated, in his bad humor: + +"I, Madame, am the sacred way." + +He was annoyed that the poet had not spoken to him about this +inscription. He would have liked to see his name at the top of the poem, +in the verses, in the rhymes. He wished to see his name everywhere, and +always looked for it in the journals with which his pockets were stuffed. +But he had no rancor. He was not really angry with Miss Bell. He +admitted gracefully that she was a distinguished person, and a poet that +did great honor to England. + +When he had gone, the Countess Martin asked ingenuously of Paul Vence if +he knew why that good Madame Marmet had looked at M. Schmoll with such +marked though silent anger. He was surprised that she did not know. + +"I never know anything," she said. + +"But the quarrel between Schmoll and Marmet is famous. It ceased only at +the death of Marmet. + +"The day that poor Marmet was buried, snow was falling. We were wet and +frozen to the bones. At the grave, in the wind, in the mud, Schmoll read +under his umbrella a speech full of jovial cruelty and triumphant pity, +which he took afterward to the newspapers in a mourning carriage. An +indiscreet friend let Madame Marmet hear of it, and she fainted. Is it +possible, Madame, that you have not heard of this learned and ferocious +quarrel? + +"The Etruscan language was the cause of it. Marmet made it his unique +study. He was surnamed Marmet the Etruscan. Neither he nor any one else +knew a word of that language, the last vestige of which is lost. Schmoll +said continually to Marmet: 'You do not know Etruscan, my dear colleague; +that is the reason why you are an honorable savant and a fair-minded +man.' Piqued by his ironic praise, Marmet thought of learning a little +Etruscan. He read to his colleague a memoir on the part played by +flexions in the idiom of the ancient Tuscans." + +Madame Martin asked what a flexion was. + +"Oh, Madame, if I explain anything to you, it will mix up everything. +Be content with knowing that in that memoir poor Marmet quoted Latin +texts and quoted them wrong. Schmoll is a Latinist of great learning, +and, after Mommsen, the chief epigraphist of the world. + +"He reproached his young colleague--Marmet was not fifty years old--with +reading Etruscan too well and Latin not well enough. From that time +Marmet had no rest. At every meeting he was mocked unmercifully; and, +finally, in spite of his softness, he got angry. Schmoll is without +rancor. It is a virtue of his race. He does not bear ill-will to those +whom he persecutes. One day, as he went up the stairway of the Institute +with Renan and Oppert, he met Marmet, and extended his hand to him. +Marmet refused to take it, and said 'I do not know you.'--'Do you take me +for a Latin inscription?' Schmoll replied. Marmet died and was buried +because of that satire. Now you know the reason why his widow sees his +enemy with horror." + +"And I have made them dine together, side by side." + +"Madame, it was not immoral, but it was cruel." + +"My dear sir, I shall shock you, perhaps; but if I had to choose, I +should like better to do an immoral thing than a cruel one." + +A young man, tall, thin, dark, with a long moustache, entered, and bowed +with brusque suppleness. + +"Monsieur Vence, I think that you know Monsieur Le Menil." + +They had met before at Madame Martin's, and saw each other often at the +Fencing Club. The day before they had met at Madame Meillan's. + +"Madame Meillan's--there's a house where one is bored," said Paul Vence. + +"Yet Academicians go there," said M. Robert Le Menil. "I do not +exaggerate their value, but they are the elite." + +Madame Martin smiled. + +"We know, Monsieur Le Menil, that at Madame Meillan's you are preoccupied +by the women more than by the Academicians. You escorted Princess +Seniavine to the buffet and talked to her about wolves." + +"What wolves?" + +"Wolves, and forests blackened by winter. We thought that with so pretty +a woman your conversation was rather savage!" + +Paul Vence rose. + +"So you permit, Madame, that I should bring my friend Dechartre? He has +a great desire to know you, and I hope he will not displease you. There +is life in his mind. He is full of ideas." + +"Oh, I do not ask for so much," Madame Martin said. "People that are +natural and show themselves as they are rarely bore me, and sometimes +they amuse me." + +When Paul Vence had gone, Le Menil listened until the noise of footsteps +had vanished; then, coming nearer: + +"To-morrow, at three o'clock? Do you still love me?" + +He asked her to reply while they were alone. She answered that it was +late, that she expected no more visitors, and that no one except her +husband would come. + +He entreated. Then she said: + +"I shall be free to-morrow all day. Wait for me at three o'clock." + +He thanked her with a look. Then, placing himself on at the other side +of the chimney, he asked who was that Dechartre whom she wished +introduced to her. + +"I do not wish him to be introduced to me. He is to be introduced to me. +He is a sculptor." + +He deplored the fact that she needed to see new faces, adding: + +"A sculptor? They are usually brutal." + +"Oh, but this one does so little sculpture! But if it annoys you that I +should meet him, I will not do so." + +"I should be sorry if society took any part of the time you might give to +me." + +"My friend, you can not complain of that. I did not even go to Madame +Meillan's yesterday." + +"You are right to show yourself there as little as possible. It is not a +house for you." + +He explained. All the women that went there had had some spicy adventure +which was known and talked about. Besides, Madame Meillan favored +intrigue. He gave examples. Madame Martin, however, her hands extended +on the arms of the chair in charming restfulness, her head inclined, +looked at the dying embers in the grate. Her thoughtful mood had flown. +Nothing of it remained on her face, a little saddened, nor in her languid +body, more desirable than ever in the quiescence of her mind. She kept +for a while a profound immobility, which added to her personal attraction +the charm of things that art had created. + +He asked her of what she was thinking. Escaping the magic of the blaze +in the ashes, she said: + +"We will go to-morrow, if you wish, to far distant places, to the odd +districts where the poor people live. I like the old streets where +misery dwells." + +He promised to satisfy her taste, although he let her know that he +thought it absurd. The walks that she led him sometimes bored him, and +he thought them dangerous. People might see them. + +"And since we have been successful until now in not causing gossip--" + +She shook her head. + +"Do you think that people have not talked about us? Whether they know or +do not know, they talk. Not everything is known, but everything is +said." + +She relapsed into her dream. He thought her discontented, cross, for +some reason which she would not tell. He bent upon her beautiful, grave +eyes which reflected the light of the grate. But she reassured him. + +"I do not know whether any one talks about me. And what do I care? +Nothing matters." + +He left her. He was going to dine at the club, where a friend was +waiting for him. She followed him with her eyes, with peaceful sympathy. +Then she began again to read in the ashes. + +She saw in them the days of her childhood; the castle wherein she had +passed the sweet, sad summers; the dark and humid park; the pond where +slept the green water; the marble nymphs under the chestnut-trees, and +the bench on which she had wept and desired death. To-day she still +ignored the cause of her youthful despair, when the ardent awakening of +her imagination threw her into a troubled maze of desires and of fears. +When she was a child, life frightened her. And now she knew that life is +not worth so much anxiety nor so much hope; that it is a very ordinary +thing. She should have known this. She thought: + +"I saw mamma; she was good, very simple, and not very happy. I dreamed +of a destiny different from hers. Why? I felt around me the insipid +taste of life, and seemed to inhale the future like a salt and pungent +aroma. Why? What did I want, and what did I expect? Was I not warned +enough of the sadness of everything?" + +She had been born rich, in the brilliancy of a fortune too new. She was +a daughter of that Montessuy, who, at first a clerk in a Parisian bank, +founded and governed two great establishments, brought to sustain them +the resources of a brilliant mind, invincible force of character, a rare +alliance of cleverness and honesty, and treated with the Government as if +he were a foreign power. She had grown up in the historical castle of +Joinville, bought, restored, and magnificently furnished by her father. +Montessuy made life give all it could yield. An instinctive and powerful +atheist, he wanted all the goods of this world and all the desirable +things that earth produces. He accumulated pictures by old masters, and +precious sculptures. At fifty he had known all the most beautiful women +of the stage, and many in society. He enjoyed everything worldly with +the brutality of his temperament and the shrewdness of his mind. + +Poor Madame Montessuy, economical and careful, languished at Joinville, +delicate and poor, under the frowns of twelve gigantic caryatides which +held a ceiling on which Lebrun had painted the Titans struck by Jupiter. +There, in the iron cot, placed at the foot of the large bed, she died one +night of sadness and exhaustion, never having loved anything on earth +except her husband and her little drawing-room in the Rue Maubeuge. + +She never had had any intimacy with her daughter, whom she felt +instinctively too different from herself, too free, too bold at heart; +and she divined in Therese, although she was sweet and good, the strong +Montessuy blood, the ardor which had made her suffer so much, and which +she forgave in her husband, but not in her daughter. + +But Montessuy recognized his daughter and loved her. Like most hearty, +full-blooded men, he had hours of charming gayety. Although he lived out +of his house a great deal, he breakfasted with her almost every day, and +sometimes took her out walking. He understood gowns and furbelows. He +instructed and formed Therese. He amused her. Near her, his instinct +for conquest inspired him still. He desired to win always, and he won +his daughter. He separated her from her mother. Therese admired him, +she adored him. + +In her dream she saw him as the unique joy of her childhood. She was +persuaded that no man in the world was as amiable as her father. + +At her entrance in life, she despaired at once of finding elsewhere so +rich a nature, such a plenitude of active and thinking forces. This +discouragement had followed her in the choice of a husband, and perhaps +later in a secret and freer choice. + +She had not really selected her husband. She did not know: she had +permitted herself to be married by her father, who, then a widower, +embarrassed by the care of a girl, had wished to do things quickly and +well. He considered the exterior advantages, estimated the eighty years +of imperial nobility which Count Martin brought. The idea never came to +him that she might wish to find love in marriage. + +He flattered himself that she would find in it the satisfaction of the +luxurious desires which he attributed to her, the joy of making a display +of grandeur, the vulgar pride, the material domination, which were for +him all the value of life, as he had no ideas on the subject of the +happiness of a true woman, although he was sure that his daughter would +remain virtuous. + +While thinking of his absurd yet natural faith in her, which accorded so +badly with his own experiences and ideas regarding women, she smiled with +melancholy irony. And she admired her father the more. + +After all, she was not so badly married. Her husband was as good as any +other man. He had become quite bearable. Of all that she read in the +ashes, in the veiled softness of the lamps, of all her reminiscences, +that of their married life was the most vague. She found a few isolated +traits of it, some absurd images, a fleeting and fastidious impression. +The time had not seemed long and had left nothing behind. Six years had +passed, and she did not even remember how she had regained her liberty, +so prompt and easy had been her conquest of that husband, cold, sickly, +selfish, and polite; of that man dried up and yellowed by business and +politics, laborious, ambitious, and commonplace. He liked women only +through vanity, and he never had loved his wife. The separation had been +frank and complete. And since then, strangers to each other, they felt +a tacit, mutual gratitude for their freedom. She would have had some +affection for him if she had not found him hypocritical and too subtle in +the art of obtaining her signature when he needed money for enterprises +that were more for ostentation than real benefit. The man with whom she +dined and talked every day had no significance for her. + +With her cheek in her hand, before the grate, as if she questioned a +sibyl, she saw again the face of the Marquis de Re. She saw it so +precisely that it surprised her. The Marquis de Re had been presented to +her by her father, who admired him, and he appeared to her grand and +dazzling for his thirty years of intimate triumphs and mundane glories. +His adventures followed him like a procession. He had captivated three +generations of women, and had left in the heart of all those whom he had +loved an imperishable memory. His virile grace, his quiet elegance, and +his habit of pleasing had prolonged his youth far beyond the ordinary +term of years. He noticed particularly the young Countess Martin. The +homage of this expert flattered her. She thought of him now with +pleasure. He had a marvellous art of conversation. He amused her. She +let him see it, and at once he promised to himself, in his heroic +frivolity, to finish worthily his happy life by the subjugation of this +young woman whom he appreciated above every one else, and who evidently +admired him. He displayed, to capture her, the most learned stratagems. +But she escaped him very easily. + +She yielded, two years later, to Robert Le Menil, who had desired her +ardently, with all the warmth of his youth, with all the simplicity of +his mind. She said to herself: "I gave myself to him because he loved +me." It was the truth. The truth was, also, that a dumb yet powerful +instinct had impelled her, and that she had obeyed the hidden impulse of +her being. But even this was not her real self; what awakened her nature +at last was the fact that she believed in the sincerity of his sentiment. +She had yielded as soon as she had felt that she was loved. She had +given herself, quickly, simply. He thought that she had yielded easily. +He was mistaken. She had felt the discouragement which the irreparable +gives, and that sort of shame which comes of having suddenly something to +conceal. Everything that had been whispered before her about other women +resounded in her burning ears. But, proud and delicate, she took care to +hide the value of the gift she was making. He never suspected her moral +uneasiness, which lasted only a few days, and was replaced by perfect +tranquillity. After three years she defended her conduct as innocent and +natural. + +Having done harm to no one, she had no regrets. She was content. She +was in love, she was loved. Doubtless she had not felt the intoxication +she had expected, but does one ever feel it? She was the friend of the +good and honest fellow, much liked by women who passed for disdainful and +hard to please, and he had a true affection for her. The pleasure she +gave him and the joy of being beautiful for him attached her to this +friend. He made life for her not continually delightful, but easy to +bear, and at times agreeable. + +That which she had not divined in her solitude, notwithstanding vague +yearnings and apparently causeless sadness, he had revealed to her. She +knew herself when she knew him. It was a happy astonishment. Their +sympathies were not in their minds. Her inclination toward him was +simple and frank, and at this moment she found pleasure in the idea of +meeting him the next day in the little apartment where they had met for +three years. With a shake of the head and a shrug of her shoulders, +coarser than one would have expected from this exquisite woman, sitting +alone by the dying fire, she said to herself: "There! I need love!" + + + + +CHAPTER II + +"ONE CAN SEE THAT YOU ARE YOUNG!" + +It was no longer daylight when they came out of the little apartment in +the Rue Spontini. Robert Le Menil made a sign to a coachman, and entered +the carriage with Therese. Close together, they rolled among the vague +shadows, cut by sudden lights, through the ghostly city, having in their +minds only sweet and vanishing impressions while everything around them +seemed confused and fleeting. + +The carriage approached the Pont-Neuf. They stepped out. A dry cold +made vivid the sombre January weather. Under her veil Therese joyfully +inhaled the wind which swept on the hardened soil a dust white as salt. +She was glad to wander freely among unknown things. She liked to see the +stony landscape which the clearness of the air made distinct; to walk +quickly and firmly on the quay where the trees displayed the black +tracery of their branches on the horizon reddened by the smoke of the +city; to look at the Seine. In the sky the first stars appeared. + +"One would think that the wind would put them out," she said. + +He observed, too, that they scintillated a great deal. He did not think +it was a sign of rain, as the peasants believe. He had observed, on the +contrary, that nine times in ten the scintillation of stars was an augury +of fine weather. + +Near the little bridge they found old iron-shops lighted by smoky lamps. +She ran into them. She turned a corner and went into a shop in which +queer stuffs were hanging. Behind the dirty panes a lighted candle +showed pots, porcelain vases, a clarinet, and a bride's wreath. + +He did not understand what pleasure she found in her search. + +"These shops are full of vermin. What can you find interesting in them?" + +"Everything. I think of the poor bride whose wreath is under that globe. +The dinner occurred at Maillot. There was a policeman in the procession. +There is one in almost all the bridal processions one sees in the park on +Saturdays. Don't they move you, my friend, all these poor, ridiculous, +miserable beings who contribute to the grandeur of the past?" + +Among cups decorated with flowers she discovered a little knife, the +ivory handle of which represented a tall, thin woman with her hair +arranged a la Maintenon. She bought it for a few sous. It pleased her, +because she already had a fork like it. Le Menil confessed that he had +no taste for such things, but said that his aunt knew a great deal about +them. At Caen all the merchants knew her. She had restored and +furnished her house in proper style. This house was noted as early as +1690. In one of its halls were white cases full of books. His aunt had +wished to put them in order. She had found frivolous books in them, +ornamented with engravings so unconventional that she had burned them. + +"Is she silly, your aunt?" asked Therese. + +For a long time his anecdotes about his aunt had made her impatient. +Her friend had in the country a mother, sisters, aunts, and numerous +relatives whom she did not know and who irritated her. He talked of them +with admiration. It annoyed her that he often visited them. When he +came back, she imagined that he carried with him the odor of things that +had been packed up for years. He was astonished, naively, and he +suffered from her antipathy to them. + +He said nothing. The sight of a public-house, the panes of which were +flaming, recalled to him the poet Choulette, who passed for a drunkard. +He asked her if she still saw that Choulette, who called on her wearing +a mackintosh and a red muffler. + +It annoyed her that he spoke like General Lariviere. She did not say +that she had not seen Choulette since autumn, and that he neglected her +with the capriciousness of a man not in society. + +"He has wit," she said, "fantasy, and an original temperament. He +pleases me." + +And as he reproached her for having an odd taste, she replied: + +"I haven't a taste, I have tastes. You do not disapprove of them all, +I suppose." + +He replied that he did not criticise her. He was only afraid that she +might do herself harm by receiving a Bohemian who was not welcome in +respectable houses. + +She exclaimed: + +"Not welcome in respectable houses--Choulette? Don't you know that he +goes every year for a month to the Marquise de Rieu? Yes, to the +Marquise de Rieu, the Catholic, the royalist. But since Choulette +interests you, listen to his latest adventure. Paul Vence related it to +me. I understand it better in this street, where there are shirts and +flowerpots at the windows. + +"This winter, one night when it was raining, Choulette went into a +public-house in a street the name of which I have forgotten, but which +must resemble this one, and met there an unfortunate girl whom the +waiters would not have noticed, and whom he liked for her humility. Her +name was Maria. The name was not hers. She found it nailed on her door +at the top of the stairway where she went to lodge. Choulette was +touched by this perfection of poverty and infamy. He called her his +sister, and kissed her hands. Since then he has not quitted her a +moment. He takes her to the coffee-houses of the Latin Quarter where the +rich students read their reviews. He says sweet things to her. He +weeps, she weeps. They drink; and when they are drunk, they fight. He +loves her. He calls her his chaste one, his cross and his salvation. +She was barefooted; he gave her yarn and knitting-needles that she might +make stockings. And he made shoes for this unfortunate girl himself, +with enormous nails. He teaches her verses that are easy to understand. +He is afraid of altering her moral beauty by taking her out of the shame +where she lives in perfect simplicity and admirable destitution." + +Le Menil shrugged his shoulders. + +"But that Choulette is crazy, and Paul Vence has no right to tell you +such stories. I am not austere, assuredly; but there are immoralities +that disgust me." They were walking at random. She fell into a dream. + +"Yes, morality, I know--duty! But duty--it takes the devil to discover +it. I can assure you that I do not know where duty is. It's like a +young lady's turtle at Joinville. We spent all the evening looking for +it under the furniture, and when we had found it, we went to bed." + +He thought there was some truth in what she said. He would think about +it when alone. + +"I regret sometimes that I did not remain in the army. I know what you +are going to say--one becomes a brute in that profession. Doubtless, but +one knows exactly what one has to do, and that is a great deal in life. +I think that my uncle's life is very beautiful and very agreeable. But +now that everybody is in the army, there are neither officers nor +soldiers. It all looks like a railway station on Sunday. My uncle knew +personally all the officers and all the soldiers of his brigade. +Nowadays, how can you expect an officer to know his men?" + +She had ceased to listen. She was looking at a woman selling fried +potatoes. She realized that she was hungry and wished to eat fried +potatoes. + +He remonstrated: + +"Nobody knows how they are cooked." + +But he had to buy two sous' worth of fried potatoes, and to see that the +woman put salt on them. + +While Therese was eating them, he led her into deserted streets far from +the gaslights. Soon they found themselves in front of the cathedral. +The moon silvered the roofs. + +"Notre Dame," she said. "See, it is as heavy as an elephant yet as +delicate as an insect. The moon climbs over it and looks at it with a +monkey's maliciousness. She does not look like the country moon at +Joinville. At Joinville I have a path--a flat path--with the moon at the +end of it. She is not there every night; but she returns faithfully, +full, red, familiar. She is a country neighbor. I go seriously to meet +her. But this moon of Paris I should not like to know. She is not +respectable company. Oh, the things that she has seen during the time +she has been roaming around the roofs!" + +He smiled a tender smile. + +"Oh, your little path where you walked alone and that you liked because +the sky was at the end of it! I see it as if I were there." + +It was at the Joinville castle that he had seen her for the first time, +and had at once loved her. It was there, one night, that he had told her +of his love, to which she had listened, dumb, with a pained expression on +her mouth and a vague look in her eyes. + +The reminiscence of this little path where she walked alone moved him, +troubled him, made him live again the enchanted hours of his first +desires and hopes. He tried to find her hand in her muff and pressed her +slim wrist under the fur. + +A little girl carrying violets saw that they were lovers, and offered +flowers to them. He bought a two-sous' bouquet and offered it to +Therese. + +She was walking toward the cathedral. She was thinking: "It is like an +enormous beast--a beast of the Apocalypse." + +At the other end of the bridge a flower-woman, wrinkled, bearded, gray +with years and dust, followed them with her basket full of mimosas and +roses. Therese, who held her violets and was trying to slip them into +her waist, said, joyfully: + +"Thank you, I have some." + +"One can see that you are young," the old woman shouted with a wicked +air, as she went away. + +Therese understood at once, and a smile came to her lips and eyes. They +were passing near the porch, before the stone figures that wear sceptres +and crowns. + +"Let us go in," she said. + +He did not wish to go in. He declared that the door was closed. She +pushed it, and slipped into the immense nave, where the inanimate trees +of the columns ascended in darkness. In the rear, candles were moving in +front of spectre-like priests, under the last reverberations of the +organs. She trembled in the silence, and said: + +"The sadness of churches at night moves me; I feel in them the grandeur +of nothingness." + +He replied: + +"We must believe in something. If there were no God, if our souls were +not immortal, it would be too sad." + +She remained for a while immovable under the curtains of shadow hanging +from the arches. Then she said: + +"My poor friend, we do not know what to do with this life, which is so +short, and yet you desire another life which shall never finish." + +In the carriage that took them back he said gayly that he had passed +a fine afternoon. He kissed her, satisfied with her and with himself. +But his good-humor was not communicated to her. The last moments they +passed together were spoiled for her always by the presentiment that he +would not say at parting the thing that he should say. Ordinarily, he +quitted her brusquely, as if what had happened were not to last. At +every one of their partings she had a confused feeling that they were +parting forever. She suffered from this in advance and became irritable. + +Under the trees he took her hand and kissed her. + +"Is it not rare, Therese, to love as we love each other?" + +"Rare? I don't know; but I think that you love me." + +"And you?" + +"I, too, love you." + +"And you will love me always?" + +"What does one ever know?" + +And seeing the face of her lover darken: + +"Would you be more content with a woman who would swear to love only you +for all time?" + +He remained anxious, with a wretched air. She was kind and she reassured +him: + +"You know very well, my friend, that I am not fickle." + +Almost at the end of the lane they said good-by. He kept the carriage to +return to the Rue Royale. He was to dine at the club and go to the +theatre, and had no time to lose. + +Therese returned home on foot. Opposite the Trocadero she remembered +what the old flower-woman had said: "One can see that you are young." +The words came back to her with a significance not immoral but sad. "One +can see that you are young!" Yes, she was young, she was loved, and she +was bored to death. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A DISCUSSION ON THE LITTLE CORPORAL + +In the centre of the table flowers were disposed in a basket of gilded +bronze, decorated with eagles, stars, and bees, and handles formed like +horns of plenty. On its sides winged Victorys supported the branches of +candelabra. This centrepiece of the Empire style had been given by +Napoleon, in 1812, to Count Martin de l'Aisne, grandfather of the present +Count Martin-Belleme. Martin de l'Aisne, a deputy to the Legislative +Corps in 1809, was appointed the following year member of the Committee +on Finance, the assiduous and secret works of which suited his laborious +temperament. Although a Liberal, he pleased the Emperor by his +application and his exact honesty. For two years he was under a rain of +favors. In 1813 he formed part of the moderate majority which approved +the report in which Laine censured power and misfortune, by giving to the +Empire tardy advice. January 1, 1814, he went with his colleagues to +the Tuileries. The Emperor received them in a terrifying manner. +He charged on their ranks. Violent and sombre, in the horror of his +present strength and of his coming fall, he stunned them with his anger +and his contempt. + +He came and went through their lines, and suddenly took Count Martin by +the shoulders, shook him and dragged him, exclaiming: "A throne is four +pieces of wood covered with velvet? No! A throne is a man, and that man +is I. You have tried to throw mud at me. Is this the time to +remonstrate with me when there are two hundred thousand Cossacks at the +frontiers? Your Laine is a wicked man. One should wash one's dirty +linen at home." And while in his anger he twisted in his hand the +embroidered collar of the deputy, he said: "The people know me. They do +not know you. I am the elect of the nation. You are the obscure +delegates of a department." He predicted to them the fate of the +Girondins. The noise of his spurs accompanied the sound of his voice. +Count Martin remained trembling the rest of his life, and tremblingly +recalled the Bourbons after the defeat of the Emperor. The two +restorations were in vain; the July government and the Second Empire +covered his oppressed breast with crosses and cordons. Raised to the +highest functions, loaded with honors by three kings and one emperor, he +felt forever on his shoulder the hand of the Corsican. He died a senator +of Napoleon III, and left a son agitated by the same fear. + +This son had married Mademoiselle Belleme, daughter of the first +president of the court of Bourges, and with her the political glories of +a family which gave three ministers to the moderate monarch. The +Bellemes, advocates in the time of Louis XV, elevated the Jacobin origins +of the Martins. The second Count Martin was a member of all the +Assemblies until his death in 1881. His son took without trouble his +seat in the Chamber of Deputies. Having married Mademoiselle Therese +Montessuy, whose dowry supported his political fortune, he appeared +discreetly among the four or five bourgeois, titled and wealthy, who +rallied to democracy, and were received without much bad grace by the +republicans, whom aristocracy flattered. + +In the dining-room, Count Martin-Belleme was doing the honors of his +table with the good grace, the sad politeness, recently prescribed at the +Elysee to represent isolated France at a great northern court. From time +to time he addressed vapid phrases to Madame Garain at his right; to the +Princess Seniavine at his left, who, loaded with diamonds, felt bored. +Opposite him, on the other side of the table, Countess Martin, having by +her side General Lariviere and M. Schmoll, member of the Academie des +Inscriptions, caressed with her fan her smooth white shoulders. At the +two semicircles, whereby the dinner-table was prolonged, were +M. Montessuy, robust, with blue eyes and ruddy complexion; a young +cousin, Madame Belleme de Saint-Nom, embarrassed by her long, thin arms; +the painter Duviquet; M. Daniel Salomon; then Paul Vence and Garain the +deputy; Belleme de Saint-Nom; an unknown senator; and Dechartre, who was +dining at the house for the first time. The conversation, at first +trivial and insignificant, was prolonged into a confused murmur, above +which rose Garain's voice: + +"Every false idea is dangerous. People think that dreamers do no harm. +They are mistaken: dreamers do a great heal of harm. Even apparently +inoffensive utopian ideas really exercise a noxious influence. They tend +to inspire disgust at reality." + +"It is, perhaps, because reality is not beautiful," said Paul Vence. + +M. Garain said that he had always been in favor of all possible +improvements. He had asked for the suppression of permanent armies in +the time of the Empire, for the separation of church and state, and had +remained always faithful to democracy. His device, he said, was "Order +and Progress." He thought he had discovered that device. + +Montessuy said: + +"Well, Monsieur Garain, be sincere. Confess that there are no reforms to +be made, and that it is as much as one can do to change the color of +postage-stamps. Good or bad, things are as they should be. Yes, things +are as they should be; but they change incessantly. Since 1870 the +industrial and financial situation of the country has gone through four +or five revolutions which political economists had not foreseen and which +they do not yet understand. In society, as in nature, transformations +are accomplished from within." + +As to matters of government his ideas were terse and decided. He was +strongly attached to the present, heedless of the future, and the +socialists troubled him little. Without caring whether the sun and +capital should be extinguished some day, he enjoyed them. According to +him, one should let himself be carried. None but fools resisted the +current or tried to go in front of it. + +But Count Martin, naturally sad, had, dark presentiments. In veiled +words he announced catastrophes. His timorous phrases came through the +flowers, and irritated M. Schmoll, who began to grumble and to prophesy. +He explained that Christian nations were incapable, alone and by +themselves, of throwing off barbarism, and that without the Jews and the +Arabs Europe would be to-day, as in the time of the Crusades, sunk in +ignorance, misery, and cruelty. + +"The Middle Ages," he said, "are closed only in the historical manuals +that are given to pupils to spoil their minds. In reality, barbarians +are always barbarians. Israel's mission is to instruct nations. It was +Israel which, in the Middle Ages, brought to Europe the wisdom of ages. +Socialism frightens you. It is a Christian evil, like priesthood. And +anarchy? Do you not recognize in it the plague of the Albigeois and of +the Vaudois? The Jews, who instructed and polished Europe, are the only +ones who can save it to-day from the evangelical evil by which it is +devoured. But they have not fulfilled their duty. They have made +Christians of themselves among the Christians. And God punishes them. +He permits them to be exiled and to be despoiled. Anti-Semitism is +making fearful progress everywhere. From Russia my co-religionists are +expelled like savage beasts. In France, civil and military employments +are closing against Jews. They have no longer access to aristocratic +circles. My nephew, young Isaac Coblentz, has had to renounce a +diplomatic career, after passing brilliantly his admission examination. +The wives of several of my colleagues, when Madame Schmoll calls on them, +display with intention, under her eyes, anti-Semitic newspapers. And +would you believe that the Minister of Public Instruction has refused to +give me the cross of the Legion of Honor for which I have applied? +There's ingratitude! Anti-Semitism is death--it is death, do you hear? +to European civilization." + +The little man had a natural manner which surpassed all the art in the +world. Grotesque and terrible, he threw the table into consternation by +his sincerity. Madame Martin, whom he amused, complimented him on this: + +"At least," she said, "you defend your co-religionists. You are not, +Monsieur Schmoll, like a beautiful Jewish lady of my acquaintance who, +having read in a journal that she received the elite of Jewish society, +went everywhere shouting that she had been insulted." + +"I am sure, Madame, that you do not know how beautiful and superior to +all other moralities is Jewish morality. Do you know the parable of the +three rings?" + +This question was lost in the murmur of the dialogues wherein were +mingled foreign politics, exhibitions of paintings, fashionable scandals, +and Academy speeches. They talked of the new novel and of the coming +play. This was a comedy. Napoleon was an incidental character in it. + +The conversation settled upon Napoleon I, often placed on the stage and +newly studied in books--an object of curiosity, a personage in the +fashion, no longer a popular hero, a demi-god, wearing boots for his +country, as in the days when Norvins and Beranger, Charlet and Raffet +were composing his legend; but a curious personage, an amusing type in +his living infinity, a figure whose style is pleasant to artists, whose +movements attract thoughtless idlers. + +Garain, who had founded his political fortune on hatred of the Empire, +judged sincerely that this return of national taste was only an absurd +infatuation. He saw no danger in it and felt no fear about it. In him +fear was sudden and ferocious. For the moment he was very quiet; he +talked neither of prohibiting performances nor of seizing books, of +imprisoning authors, or of suppressing anything. Calm and severe, he saw +in Napoleon only Taine's 'condottiere' who kicked Volney in the stomach. +Everybody wished to define the true Napoleon. Count Martin, in the face +of the imperial centrepiece and of the winged Victorys, talked suitably +of Napoleon as an organizer and administrator, and placed him in a high +position as president of the state council, where his words threw light +upon obscure questions. Garain affirmed that in his sessions, only too +famous, Napoleon, under pretext of taking snuff, asked the councillors to +pass to him their gold boxes ornamented with miniatures and decked with +diamonds, which they never saw again. The anecdote was told to him by +the son of Mounier himself. + +Montessuy esteemed in Napoleon the genius of order. "He liked," he said, +"work well done. That is a taste most persons have lost." + +The painter Duviquet, whose ideas were those of an artist, was +embarrassed. He did not find on the funeral mask brought from St. +Helena the characteristics of that face, beautiful and powerful, which +medals and busts have consecrated. One must be convinced of this now +that the bronze of that mask was hanging in all the old shops, among +eagles and sphinxes made of gilded wood. And, according to him, since +the true face of Napoleon was not that of the ideal Napoleon, his real +soul may not have been as idealists fancied it. Perhaps it was the soul +of a good bourgeois. Somebody had said this, and he was inclined to +think that it was true. Anyway, Duviquet, who flattered himself with +having made the best portraits of the century, knew that celebrated men +seldom resemble the ideas one forms of them. + +M. Daniel Salomon observed that the fine mask about which Duviquet +talked, the plaster cast taken from the inanimate face of the Emperor, +and brought to Europe by Dr. Antommarchi, had been moulded in bronze and +sold by subscription for the first time in 1833, under Louis Philippe, +and had then inspired surprise and mistrust. People suspected the +Italian chemist, who was a sort of buffoon, always talkative and +famished, of having tried to make fun of people. Disciples of Dr. Gall, +whose system was then in favor, regarded the mask as suspicious. They +did not find in it the bumps of genius; and the forehead, examined in +accordance with the master's theories, presented nothing remarkable in +its formation. + +"Precisely," said Princess Seniavine. "Napoleon was remarkable only for +having kicked Volney in the stomach and stealing a snuffbox ornamented +with diamonds. Monsieur Garain has just taught us." + +"And yet," said Madame Martin, "nobody is sure that he kicked Volney." + +"Everything becomes known in the end," replied the Princess, gayly. +"Napoleon did nothing at all. He did not even kick Volney, and his head +was that of an idiot." + +General Lariviere felt that he should say something. He hurled this +phrase: + +"Napoleon--his campaign of 1813 is much discussed." + +The General wished to please Garain, and he had no other idea. However, +he succeeded, after an effort, in formulating a judgment: + +"Napoleon committed faults; in his situation he should not have committed +any." And he stopped abruptly, very red. + +Madame Martin asked: + +"And you, Monsieur Vence, what do you think of Napoleon?" + +"Madame, I have not much love for sword-bearers, and conquerors seem to +me to be dangerous fools. But in spite of everything, that figure of the +Emperor interests me as it interests the public. I find character and +life in it. There is no poem or novel that is worth the Memoirs of Saint +Helena, although it is written in ridiculous fashion. What I think of +Napoleon, if you wish to know, is that, made for glory, he had the +brilliant simplicity of the hero of an epic poem. A hero must be human. +Napoleon was human." + +"Oh, oh!" every one exclaimed. + +But Paul Vence continued: + +"He was violent and frivolous; therefore profoundly human. I mean, +similar to everybody. He desired, with singular force, all that most men +esteem and desire. He had illusions, which he gave to the people. This +was his power and his weakness; it was his beauty. He believed in glory. +He had of life and of the world the same opinion as any one of his +grenadiers. He retained always the infantile gravity which finds +pleasure in playing with swords and drums, and the sort of innocence +which makes good military men. He esteemed force sincerely. He was a +man among men, the flesh of human flesh. He had not a thought that was +not in action, and all his actions were grand yet common. It is this +vulgar grandeur which makes heroes. And Napoleon is the perfect hero. +His brain never surpassed his hand--that hand, small and beautiful, which +grasped the world. He never had, for a moment, the least care for what +he could not reach." + +"Then," said Garain, "according to you, he was not an intellectual +genius. I am of your opinion." + +"Surely," continued Paul Vence, "he had enough genius to be brilliant in +the civil and military arena of the world. But he had not speculative +genius. That genius is another pair of sleeves, as Buffon says. We have +a collection of his writings and speeches. His style has movement and +imagination. And in this mass of thoughts one can not find a philosophic +curiosity, not one expression of anxiety about the unknowable, not an +expression of fear of the mystery which surrounds destiny. At Saint +Helena, when he talks of God and of the soul, he seems to be a little +fourteen-year-old school-boy. Thrown upon the world, his mind found +itself fit for the world, and embraced it all. Nothing of that mind was +lost in the infinite. Himself a poet, he knew only the poetry of action. +He limited to the earth his powerful dream of life. In his terrible and +touching naivete he believed that a man could be great, and neither time +nor misfortune made him lose that idea. His youth, or rather his sublime +adolescence, lasted as long as he lived, because life never brought him a +real maturity. Such is the abnormal state of men of action. They live +entirely in the present, and their genius concentrates on one point. +The hours of their existence are not connected by a chain of grave and +disinterested meditations. They succeed themselves in a series of acts. +They lack interior life. This defect is particularly visible in +Napoleon, who never lived within himself. From this is derived the +frivolity of temperament which made him support easily the enormous load +of his evils and of his faults. His mind was born anew every day. He +had, more than any other person, a capacity for diversion. The first day +that he saw the sun rise on his funereal rock at Saint Helena, he jumped +from his bed, whistling a romantic air. It was the peace of a mind +superior to fortune; it was the frivolity of a mind prompt in +resurrection. He lived from the outside." + +Garain, who did not like Paul Vence's ingenious turn of wit and language, +tried to hasten the conclusion: + +"In a word," he said, "there was something of the monster in the man." + +"There are no monsters," replied Paul Vence; "and men who pass for +monsters inspire horror. Napoleon was loved by an entire people. He had +the power to win the love of men. The joy of his soldiers was to die for +him." + +Countess Martin would have wished Dechartre to give his opinion. But he +excused himself with a sort of fright. + +"Do you know," said Schmoll again, "the parable of the three rings, +sublime inspiration of a Portuguese Jew." + +Garain, while complimenting Paul Vence on his brilliant paradox, +regretted that wit should be exercised at the expense of morality and +justice. + +"One great principle," he said, "is that men should be judged by their +acts." + +"And women?" asked Princess Seniavine, brusquely; "do you judge them by +their acts? And how do you know what they do?" + +The sound of voices was mingled with the clear tintinabulation of +silverware. A warm air bathed the room. The roses shed their leaves on +the cloth. More ardent thoughts mounted to the brain. + +General Lariviere fell into dreams. + +"When public clamor has split my ears," he said to his neighbor, "I shall +go to live at Tours. I shall cultivate flowers." + +He flattered himself on being a good gardener; his name had been given to +a rose. This pleased him highly. + +Schmoll asked again if they knew the parable of the three rings. + +The Princess rallied the Deputy. + +"Then you do not know, Monsieur Garain, that one does the same things for +very different reasons?" + +Montessuy said she was right. + +"It is very true, as you say, Madame, that actions prove nothing. This +thought is striking in an episode in the life of Don Juan, which was +known neither to Moliere nor to Mozart, but which is revealed in an +English legend, a knowledge of which I owe to my friend James Russell +Lowell of London. One learns from it that the great seducer lost his +time with three women. One was a bourgeoise: she was in love with her +husband; the other was a nun: she would not consent to violate her vows; +the third, who had for a long time led a life of debauchery, had become +ugly, and was a servant in a den. After what she had done, after what +she had seen, love signified nothing to her. These three women behaved +alike for very different reasons. An action proves nothing. It is the +mass of actions, their weight, their sum total, which makes the value of +the human being." + +"Some of our actions," said Madame Martin, "have our look, our face: they +are our daughters. Others do not resemble us at all." + +She rose and took the General's arm. + +On the way to the drawing-room the Princess said: + +"Therese is right. Some actions do not express our real selves at all. +They are like the things we do in nightmares." + +The nymphs of the tapestries smiled vainly in their faded beauty at the +guests, who did not see them. + +Madame Martin served the coffee with her young cousin, Madame Belleme de +Saint-Nom. She complimented Paul Vence on what he had said at the table. + +"You talked of Napoleon with a freedom of mind that is rare in the +conversations I hear. I have noticed that children, when they are +handsome, look, when they pout, like Napoleon at Waterloo. You have made +me feel the profound reasons for this similarity." + +Then, turning toward Dechartre: + +"Do you like Napoleon?" + +"Madame, I do not like the Revolution. And Napoleon is the Revolution in +boots." + +"Monsieur Dechartre, why did you not say this at dinner? But I see you +prefer to be witty only in tete-a-tetes." + +Count Martin-Belleme escorted the men to the smoking-room. Paul Vence +alone remained with the women. Princess Seniavine asked him if he had +finished his novel, and what was the subject of it. It was a study in +which he tried to reach the truth through a series of plausible +conditions. + +"Thus," he said, "the novel acquires a moral force which history, in its +heavy frivolity, never had." + +She inquired whether the book was written for women. He said it was not. + +"You are wrong, Monsieur Vence, not to write for women. A superior man +can do nothing else for them." + +He wished to know what gave her that idea. + +"Because I see that all the intelligent women love fools." + +"Who bore them." + +"Certainly! But superior men would weary them more. They would have +more resources to employ in boring them. But tell me the subject of your +novel." + +"Do you insist?" + +"Oh, I insist upon nothing." + +"Well, I will tell you. It is a study of popular manners; the history of +a young workman, sober and chaste, as handsome as a girl, with the mind +of a virgin, a sensitive soul. He is a carver, and works well. At +night, near his mother, whom he loves, he studies, he reads books. In +his mind, simple and receptive, ideas lodge themselves like bullets in a +wall. He has no desires. He has neither the passions nor the vices that +attach us to life. He is solitary and pure. Endowed with strong +virtues, he becomes conceited. He lives among miserable people. He sees +suffering. He has devotion without humanity. He has that sort of cold +charity which is called altruism. He is not human because he is not +sensual." + +"Oh! One must be sensual to be human?" + +"Certainly, Madame. True pity, like tenderness, comes from the heart. +He is not intelligent enough to doubt. He believes what he has read. +And he has read that to establish universal happiness society must be +destroyed. Thirst for martyrdom devours him. One morning, having kissed +his mother, he goes out; he watches for the socialist deputy of his +district, sees him, throws himself on him, and buries a poniard in his +breast. Long live anarchy! He is arrested, measured, photographed, +questioned, judged, condemned to death, and guillotined. That is my +novel." + +"It is not very amusing," said the Princess; "but that is not your fault. +Your anarchists are as timid and moderate as other Frenchmen. The +Russians have more audacity and more imagination." + +Countess Martin asked Paul Vence whether he knew a silent, timid-looking +man among the guests. Her husband had invited him. She knew nothing of +him, not even his name. Paul Vence could only say that he was a senator. +He had seen him one day by chance in the Luxembourg, in the gallery that +served as a library. + +"I went there to look at the cupola, where Delacroix has painted, in a +wood of bluish myrtles, heroes and sages of antiquity. That gentleman +was there, with the same wretched and pitiful air. His coat was damp and +he was warming himself. He was talking with old colleagues and saying, +while rubbing his hands: 'The proof that the Republic is the best of +governments is that in 1871 it could kill in a week sixty thousand +insurgents without becoming unpopular. After such a repression any other +regime would have been impossible.'" + +"He is a very wicked man," said Madame Martin. "And to think that I was +pitying him!" + +Madame Garain, her chin softly dropped on her chest, slept in the peace +of her housewifely mind, and dreamed of her vegetable garden on the banks +of the Loire, where singing-societies came to serenade her. + +Joseph Schmoll and General Lariviere came out of the smoking-room. The +General took a seat between Princess Seniavine and Madame Martin. + +"I met this morning, in the park, Baronne Warburg, mounted on a +magnificent horse. She said, 'General, how do you manage to have such +fine horses?' I replied: Madame, to have fine horses, you must be either +very wealthy or very clever.'" + +He was so well satisfied with his reply that he repeated it twice. + +Paul Vence came near Countess Martin: + +"I know that senator's name: it is Lyer. He is the vice-president of a +political society, and author of a book entitled, The Crime of December +Second." + +The General continued: + +"The weather was horrible. I went into a hut and found Le Menil there. +I was in a bad humor. He was making fun of me, I saw, because I sought +shelter. He imagines that because I am a general I must like wind and +snow. He said that he liked bad weather, and that he was to go +foxhunting with friends next week." + +There was a pause; the General continued: + +"I wish him much joy, but I don't envy him. Foxhunting is not +agreeable." + +"But it is useful," said Montessuy. + +The General shrugged his shoulders. + +"Foxes are dangerous for chicken-coops in the spring when the fowls have +to feed their families." + +"Foxes are sly poachers, who do less harm to farmers than to hunters. +I know something of this." + +Therese was not listening to the Princess, who was talking to her. She +was thinking: + +"He did not tell me that he was going away!" + +"Of what are you thinking, dear?" inquired the Princess. + +"Of nothing interesting," Therese replied. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +THE END OF A DREAM + +In the little shadowy room, where sound was deadened by curtains, +portieres, cushions, bearskins, and carpets from the Orient, the +firelight shone on glittering swords hanging among the faded favors of +the cotillons of three winters. The rosewood chiffonier was surmounted +by a silver cup, a prize from some sporting club. On a porcelain plaque, +in the centre of the table, stood a crystal vase which held branches of +white lilacs; and lights palpitated in the warm shadows. Therese and +Robert, their eyes accustomed to obscurity, moved easily among these +familiar objects. He lighted a cigarette while she arranged her hair, +standing before the mirror, in a corner so dim she could hardly see +herself. She took pins from the little Bohemian glass cup standing on +the table, where she had kept it for three years. He looked at her, +passing her light fingers quickly through the gold ripples of her hair, +while her face, hardened and bronzed by the shadow, took on a mysterious +expression. She did not speak. + +He said to her: + +"You are not cross now, my dear?" + +And, as he insisted upon having an answer, she said: + +"What do you wish me to say, my friend? I can only repeat what I said at +first. I think it strange that I have to learn of your projects from +General Lariviere." + +He knew very well that she had not forgiven him; that she had remained +cold and reserved toward him. But he affected to think that she only +pouted. + +"My dear, I have explained it to you. I have told you that when I met +Lariviere I had just received a letter from Caumont, recalling my promise +to hunt the fox in his woods, and I replied by return post. I meant to +tell you about it to-day. I am sorry that General Lariviere told you +first, but there was no significance in that." + +Her arms were lifted like the handles of a vase. She turned toward him a +glance from her tranquil eyes, which he did not understand. + +"Then you are going?" + +"Next week, Tuesday or Wednesday. I shall be away only ten days at +most." + +She put on her sealskin toque, ornamented with a branch of holly. + +"Is it something that you can not postpone?" + +"Oh, yes. Fox-skins would not be worth anything in a month. Moreover, +Caumont has invited good friends of mine, who would regret my absence." + +Fixing her toque on her head with a long pin, she frowned. + +"Is fox-hunting interesting?" + +"Oh, yes, very. The fox has stratagems that one must fathom. The +intelligence of that animal is really marvellous. I have observed at +night a fox hunting a rabbit. He had organized a real hunt. I assure +you it is not easy to dislodge a fox. Caumont has an excellent cellar. +I do not care for it, but it is generally appreciated. I will bring you +half a dozen skins." + +"What do you wish me to do with them?" + +"Oh, you can make rugs of them." + +"And you will be hunting eight days?" + +"Not all the time. I shall visit my aunt, who expects me. Last year at +this time there was a delightful reunion at her house. She had with her +her two daughters and her three nieces with their husbands. All five +women are pretty, gay, charming, and irreproachable. I shall probably +find them at the beginning of next month, assembled for my aunt's +birthday, and I shall remain there two days." + +"My friend, stay as long as it may please you. I should be inconsolable +if you shortened on my account a sojourn which is so agreeable." + +"But you, Therese?" + +"I, my friend? I can take care of myself." + +The fire was languishing. The shadows were deepening between them. She +said, in a dreamy tone: + +"It is true, however, that it is never prudent to leave a woman alone." + +He went near her, trying to see her eyes in the darkness. He took her +hand. + +"You love me?" he said. + +"Oh, I assure you that I do not love another but--" + +"What do you mean?" + +"Nothing. I am thinking--I am thinking that we are separated all through +the summer; that in winter you live with your parents and your friends +half the time; and that, if we are to see so little of each other, it is +better not to see each other at all." + +He lighted the candelabra. His frank, hard face was illuminated. He +looked at her with a confidence that came less from the conceit common to +all lovers than from his natural lack of dignity. He believed in her +through force of education and simplicity of intelligence. + +"Therese, I love you, and you love me, I know. Why do you torment me? +Sometimes you are painfully harsh." + +She shook her little head brusquely. + +"What will you have? I am harsh and obstinate. It is in the blood. I +take it from my father. You know Joinville; you have seen the castle, +the ceilings, the tapestries, the gardens, the park, the hunting-grounds, +you have said that none better were in France; but you have not seen my +father's workshop--a white wooden table and a mahogany bureau. +Everything about me has its origin there. On that table my father made +figures for forty years; at first in a little room, then in the apartment +where I was born. We were not very wealthy then. I am a parvenu's +daughter, or a conqueror's daughter, it's all the same. We are people of +material interests. My father wanted to earn money, to possess what he +could buy--that is, everything. I wish to earn and keep--what? I do not +know--the happiness that I have--or that I have not. I have my own way +of being exacting. I long for dreams and illusions. Oh, I know very +well that all this is not worth the trouble that a woman takes in giving +herself to a man; but it is a trouble that is worth something, because my +trouble is myself, my life. I like to enjoy what I like, or think what I +like. I do not wish to lose. I am like papa: I demand what is due to +me. And then--" + +She lowered her voice: + +"And then, I have--impulses! Now, my dear, I bore you. What will you +have? You shouldn't have loved me." + +This language, to which she had accustomed him, often spoiled his +pleasure. But it did not alarm him. He was sensitive to all that she +did, but not at all to what she said; and he attached no importance to a +woman's words. Talking little himself, he could not imagine that often +words are the same as actions. + +Although he loved her, or, rather, because he loved her with strength and +confidence, he thought it his duty to resist her whims, which he judged +absurd. Whenever he played the master, he succeeded with her; and, +naively, he always ended by playing it. + +"You know very well, Therese, that I wish to do nothing except to be +agreeable to you. Don't be capricious with me." + +"And why should I not be capricious? If I gave myself to you, it was not +because I was logical, nor because I thought I must. It was because I +was capricious." + +He looked at her, astonished and saddened. + +"The word is not pleasant to you, my friend? Well let us say that it was +love. Truly it was, with all my heart, and because I felt that you loved +me. But love must be a pleasure, and if I do not find in it the +satisfaction of what you call my capriciousness, but which is really my +desire, my life, my love, I do not want it; I prefer to live alone. You +are astonishing! My caprices! Is there anything else in life? Your +foxhunt, isn't that capricious?" + +He replied, very sincerely: + +"If I had not promised, I swear to you, Therese, that I would sacrifice +that small pleasure with great joy." + +She felt that he spoke the truth. She knew how exact he was in filling +the most trifling engagements, yet realized that if she insisted he would +not go. But it was too late: she did not wish to win. She would seek +hereafter only the violent pleasure of losing. She pretended to take his +reason seriously, and said: + +"Ah, you have promised!" + +And she affected to yield. + +Surprised at first, he congratulated himself at last on having made her +listen to reason. He was grateful to her for not having been stubborn. +He put his arm around her waist and kissed her on the neck and eyelids as +a reward. He said: + +"We may meet three or four times before I go, and more, if you wish. +I will wait for you as often as you wish to come. Will you meet me here +to-morrow?" + +She gave herself the satisfaction of saying that she could not come the +next day nor any other day. + +Softly she mentioned the things that prevented her. + +The obstacles seemed light; calls, a gown to be tried on, a charity fair, +exhibitions. As she dilated upon the difficulties they seemed to +increase. The calls could not be postponed; there were three fairs; the +exhibitions would soon close. In fine, it was impossible for her to see +him again before his departure. + +As he was well accustomed to making excuses of that sort, he failed to +observe that it was not natural for Therese to offer them. Embarrassed +by this tissue of social obligations, he did not persist, but remained +silent and unhappy. + +With her left arm she raised the portiere, placed her right hand on the +key of the door; and, standing against the rich background of the +sapphire and ruby-colored folds of the Oriental draperies, she turned her +head toward the friend she was leaving, and said, a little mockingly, yet +with a touch of tragic emotion: + +"Good-by, Robert. Enjoy yourself. My calls, my errands, your little +visits are nothing. Life is made up of just such trifles. Good-by!" + +She went out. He would have liked to accompany her, but he made it a +point not to show himself with her in the street, unless she absolutely +forced him to do so. + +In the street, Therese felt suddenly that she was alone in the world, +without joy and without pain. She returned to her house on foot, as was +her habit. It was night; the air was frozen, clear, and tranquil. But +the avenues through which she walked, in shadows studded with lights, +enveloped her with that mild atmosphere of the queen of cities, so +agreeable to its inhabitants, which makes itself felt even in the cold of +winter. She walked between the lines of huts and old houses, remains of +the field-days of Auteuil, which tall houses interrupted here and there. +These small shops, these monotonous windows, were nothing to her. Yet +she felt that she was under the mysterious spell of the friendship of +inanimate things; and it seemed to her that the stones, the doors of +houses, the lights behind the windowpanes, looked kindly upon her. She +was alone, and she wished to be alone. The steps she was taking between +the two houses wherein her habits were almost equal, the steps she had +taken so often, to-day seemed to her irrevocable. Why? What had that +day brought? Not exactly a quarrel. And yet the words spoken that day +had left a subtle, strange, persistent sting, which would never leave +her. What had happened? Nothing. And that nothing had effaced +everything. She had a sort of obscure certainty that she would never +return to that room which had so recently enclosed the most secret and +dearest phases of her life. She had loved Robert with the seriousness of +a necessary joy. Made to be loved, and very reasonable, she had not lost +in the abandonment of herself that instinct of reflection, that necessity +for security, which was so strong in her. She had not chosen: one seldom +chooses. She had not allowed herself to be taken at random and by +surprise. She had done what she had wished to do, as much as one ever +does what one wishes to do in such cases. She had nothing to regret. +He had been to her what it was his duty to be. She felt, in spite of +everything, that all was at an end. She thought, with dry sadness, +that three years of her life had been given to an honest man who had +loved her and whom she had loved. "For I loved him. I must have loved +him in order to give myself to him." But she could not feel again the +sentiments of early days, the movements of her mind when she had yielded. +She recalled small and insignificant circumstances: the flowers on the +wall-paper and the pictures in the room. She recalled the words, +a little ridiculous and almost touching, that he had said to her. +But it seemed to her that the adventure had occurred to another woman, +to a stranger whom she did not like and whom she hardly understood. +And what had happened only a moment ago seemed far distant now. +The room, the lilacs in the crystal vase, the little cup of Bohemian +glass where she found her pins--she saw all these things as if through a +window that one passes in the street. She was without bitterness, +and even without sadness. She had nothing to forgive, alas! +This absence for a week was not a betrayal, it was not a fault against +her; it was nothing, yet it was everything. It was the end. She knew +it. She wished to cease. It was the consent of all the forces of her +being. She said to herself: "I have no reason to love him less. Do I +love him no more? Did I ever love him?" She did not know and she did +not care to know. Three years, during which there had been months when +they had seen each other every day--was all this nothing? Life is not a +great thing. And what one puts in it, how little that is! + +In fine, she had nothing of which to complain. But it was better to end +it all. All these reflections brought her back to that point. It was +not a resolution; resolutions may be changed. It was graver: it was a +state of the body and of the mind. + +When she arrived at the square, in the centre of which is a fountain, and +on one side of which stands a church of rustic style, showing its bell in +an open belfry, she recalled the little bouquet of violets that he had +given to her one night on the bridge near Notre Dame. They had loved +each other that day--perhaps more than usual. Her heart softened at that +reminiscence. But the little bouquet remained alone, a poor little +flower skeleton, in her memory. + +While she was thinking, passers-by, deceived by the simplicity of her +dress, followed her. One of them made propositions to her: a dinner and +the theatre. It amused her. She was not at all disturbed; this was not +a crisis. She thought: "How do other women manage such things? And I, +who promised myself not to spoil my life. What is life worth?" + +Opposite the Greek lantern of the Musee des Religions she found the soil +disturbed by workmen. There were paving-stones crossed by a bridge made +of a narrow flexible plank. She had stepped on it, when she saw at the +other end, in front of her, a man who was waiting for her. He recognized +her and bowed. It was Dechartre. She saw that he was happy to meet her; +she thanked him with a smile. He asked her permission to walk a few +steps with her, and they entered into the large and airy space. In this +place the tall houses, set somewhat back, efface themselves, and reveal a +glimpse of the sky. + +He told her that he had recognized her from a distance by the rhythm of +her figure and her movements, which were hers exclusively. + +"Graceful movements," he added, "are like music for the eyes." + +She replied that she liked to walk; it was her pleasure, and the cause of +her good health. + +He, too, liked to walk in populous towns and beautiful fields. The +mystery of highways tempted him. He liked to travel. Although voyages +had become common and easy, they retained for him their powerful charm. +He had seen golden days and crystalline nights, Greece, Egypt, and the +Bosporus; but it was to Italy that he returned always, as to the mother +country of his mind. + +"I shall go there next week," he said. "I long to see again Ravenna +asleep among the black pines of its sterile shore. Have you seen +Ravenna, Madame? It is an enchanted tomb where sparkling phantoms appear. +The magic of death lies there. The mosaic works of Saint Vitale, with +their barbarous angels and their aureolated empresses, make one feel the +monstrous delights of the Orient. Despoiled to-day of its silver lamels, +the grave of Galla Placidia is frightful under its crypt, luminous yet +gloomy. When one looks through an opening in the sarcophagus, it seems +as if one saw the daughter of Theodosius, seated on her golden chair, +erect in her gown studded with stones and embroidered with scenes from +the Old Testament; her beautiful, cruel face preserved hard and black +with aromatic plants, and her ebony hands immovable on her knees. For +thirteen centuries she retained this funereal majesty, until one day a +child passed a candle through the opening of the grave and burned the +body." + +Madame Martin-Belleme asked what that dead woman, so obstinate in her +conceit, had done during her life. + +"Twice a slave," said Dechartre, "she became twice an empress." + +"She must have been beautiful," said Madame Martin. "You have made me +see her too vividly in her tomb. She frightens me. Shall you go to +Venice, Monsieur Dechartre? Or are you tired of gondolas, of canals +bordered by palaces, and of the pigeons of Saint Mark? I confess that +I still like Venice, after being there three times." + +He said she was right. He, too, liked Venice. + +Whenever he went there, from a sculptor he became a painter, and made +studies. He would like to paint its atmosphere. + +"Elsewhere," he said, "even in Florence, the sky is too high. At Venice +it is everywhere; it caresses the earth and the water. It envelops +lovingly the leaden domes and the marble facades, and throws into the +iridescent atmosphere its pearls and its crystals. The beauty of Venice +is in its sky and its women. What pretty creatures the Venetian women +are! Their forms are so slender and supple under their black shawls. +If nothing remained of these women except a bone, one would find in that +bone the charm of their exquisite structure. Sundays, at church, they +form laughing groups, agitated, with hips a little pointed, elegant +necks, flowery smiles, and inflaming glances. And all bend, with the +suppleness of young animals, at the passage of a priest whose head +resembles that of Vitellius, and who carries the chalice, preceded by two +choir-boys." + +He walked with unequal step, following the rhythm of his ideas, sometimes +quick, sometimes slow. She walked more regularly, and almost outstripped +him. He looked at her sidewise, and liked her firm and supple carriage. +He observed the little shake which at moments her obstinate head gave to +the holly on her toque. + +Without expecting it, he felt a charm in that meeting, almost intimate, +with a young woman almost unknown. + +They had reached the place where the large avenue unfolds its four rows +of trees. They were following the stone parapet surmounted by a hedge of +boxwood, which entirely hides the ugliness of the buildings on the quay. +One felt the presence of the river by the milky atmosphere which in misty +days seems to rest on the water. The sky was clear. The lights of the +city were mingled with the stars. At the south shone the three golden +nails of the Orion belt. Dechartre continued: + +"Last year, at Venice, every morning as I went out of my house, I saw at +her door, raised by three steps above the canal, a charming girl, with +small head, neck round and strong, and graceful hips. She was there, in +the sun and surrounded by vermin, as pure as an amphora, fragrant as a +flower. She smiled. What a mouth! The richest jewel in the most +beautiful light. I realized in time that this smile was addressed to a +butcher standing behind me with his basket on his head." + +At the corner of the short street which goes to the quay, between two +lines of small gardens, Madame Martin walked more slowly. + +"It is true that at Venice," she said, "all women are pretty." + +"They are almost all pretty, Madame. I speak of the common girls--the +cigar-girls, the girls among the glass-workers. The others are +commonplace enough." + +"By others you mean society women; and you don't like these?" + +"Society women? Oh, some of them are charming. As for loving them, +that's a different affair." + +"Do you think so?" + +She extended her hand to him, and suddenly turned the corner. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +A DINNER 'EN FAMILLE' + +She dined that night alone with her husband. The narrow table had not +the basket with golden eagles and winged Victorys. The candelabra did +not light Oudry's paintings. While he talked of the events of the day, +she fell into a sad reverie. It seemed to her that she floated in a +mist. It was a peaceful and almost sweet suffering. She saw vaguely +through the clouds the little room of the Rue Spontini transported by +angels to one of the summits of the Himalaya Mountains, and Robert Le +Menil--in the quaking of a sort of world's end--had disappeared while +putting on his gloves. She felt her pulse to see whether she were +feverish. A rattle of silverware on the table awoke her. She heard her +husband saying: + +"My dear friend Gavaut delivered to-day, in the Chamber, an excellent +speech on the question of the reserve funds. It's extraordinary how his +ideas have become healthy and just. Oh, he has improved a great deal." + +She could not refrain from smiling. + +"But Gavaut, my friend, is a poor devil who never thought of anything +except escaping from the crowd of those who are dying of hunger. Gavaut +never had any ideas except at his elbows. Does anybody take him +seriously in the political world? You may be sure that he never gave an +illusion to any woman, not even his wife. And yet to produce that sort +of illusion a man does not need much." She added, brusquely: + +"You know Miss Bell has invited me to spend a month with her at Fiesole. +I have accepted; I am going." + +Less astonished than discontented, he asked her with whom she was going. + +At once she answered: + +"With Madame Marmet." + +There was no objection to make. Madame Marmet was a proper companion, +and it was appropriate for her to visit Italy, where her husband had made +some excavations. He asked only: + +"Have you invited her? When are you going?" + +"Next week." + +He had the wisdom not to make any objection, judging that opposition +would only make her capriciousness firmer, and fearing to give impetus to +that foolish idea. He said: + +"Surely, to travel is an agreeable pastime. I thought that we might in +the spring visit the Caucasus and Turkestan. There is an interesting +country. General Annenkoff will place at our disposal carriages, trains, +and everything else on his railway. He is a friend of mine; he is quite +charmed with you. He will provide us with an escort of Cossacks." + +He persisted in trying to flatter her vanity, unable to realize that her +mind was not worldly. She replied, negligently, that it might be a +pleasant trip. Then he praised the mountains, the ancient cities, the +bazaars, the costumes, the armor. + +He added: + +"We shall take some friends with us--Princess Seniavine, General +Lariviere, perhaps Vence or Le Menil." + +She replied, with a little dry laugh, that they had time to select their +guests. + +He became attentive to her wants. + +"You are not eating. You will injure your health." + +Without yet believing in this prompt departure, he felt some anxiety +about it. Each had regained freedom, but he did not like to be alone. +He felt that he was himself only when his wife was there. And then, he +had decided to give two or three political dinners during the session. +He saw his party growing. This was the moment to assert himself, to make +a dazzling show. He said, mysteriously: + +"Something might happen requiring the aid of all our friends. You have +not followed the march of events, Therese?" + +"No, my dear." + +"I am sorry. You have judgment, liberality of mind. If you had followed +the march of events you would have been struck by the current that is +leading the country back to moderate opinions. The country is tired of +exaggerations. It rejects the men compromised by radical politics and +religious persecution. Some day or other it will be necessary to make +over a Casimir-Perier ministry with other men, and that day--" + +He stopped: really she listened too inattentively. + +She was thinking, sad and disenchanted. It seemed to her that the pretty +woman, who, among the warm shadows of a closed room, placed her bare feet +in the fur of the brown bear rug, and to whom her lover gave kisses while +she twisted her hair in front of a glass, was not herself, was not even a +woman that she knew well, or that she desired to know, but a person whose +affairs were of no interest to her. A pin badly set in her hair, one of +the pins from the Bohemian glass cup, fell on her neck. She shivered. + +"Yet we really must give three or four dinners to our good political +friends," said M. Martin-Belleme. "We shall invite some of the ancient +radicals to meet the people of our circle. It will be well to find some +pretty women. We might invite Madame Berard de la Malle; there has been +no gossip about her for two years. What do you think of it?" + +"But, my dear, since I am to go next week--" + +This filled him with consternation. + +They went, both silent and moody, into the drawing-room, where Paul Vence +was waiting. He often came in the evening. + +She extended her hand to him. + +"I am very glad to see you. I am going out of town. Paris is cold and +bleak. This weather tires and saddens me. I am going to Florence, for +six weeks, to visit Miss Bell." + +M. Martin-Belleme then lifted his eyes to heaven. + +Vence asked whether she had been in Italy often. + +"Three times; but I saw nothing. This time I wish to see, to throw +myself into things. From Florence I shall take walks into Tuscany, into +Umbria. And, finally, I shall go to Venice." + +"You will do well. Venice suggests the peace of the Sabbath-day in the +grand week of creative and divine Italy." + +"Your friend Dechartre talked very prettily to me of Venice, of the +atmosphere of Venice, which sows pearls." + +"Yes, at Venice the sky is a colorist. Florence inspires the mind. +An old author has said: 'The sky of Florence is light and subtle, and +feeds the beautiful ideas of men.' I have lived delicious days in +Tuscany. I wish I could live them again." + +"Come and see me there." + +He sighed. + +The newspaper, books, and his daily work prevented him. + +M. Martin-Belleme said everyone should bow before such reasons, and that +one was too happy to read the articles and the fine books written by M. +Paul Vence to have any wish to take him from his work. + +"Oh, my books! One never says in a book what one wishes to say. It is +impossible to express one's self. I know how to talk with my pen as well +as any other person; but, after all, to talk or to write, what futile +occupations! How wretchedly inadequate are the little signs which form +syllables, words, and phrases. What becomes of the idea, the beautiful +idea, which these miserable hieroglyphics hide? What does the reader +make of my writing? A series of false sense, of counter sense, and of +nonsense. To read, to hear, is to translate. There are beautiful +translations, perhaps. There are no faithful translations. Why should I +care for the admiration which they give to my books, since it is what +they themselves see in them that they admire? Every reader substitutes +his visions in the place of ours. We furnish him with the means to +quicken his imagination. It is a horrible thing to be a cause of such +exercises. It is an infamous profession." + +"You are jesting," said M. Martin-Belleme. + +"I do not think so," said Therese. "He recognizes that one mind is +impenetrable to another mind, and he suffers from this. He feels that he +is alone when he is thinking, alone when he is writing. Whatever one may +do, one is always alone in the world. That is what he wishes to say. +He is right. You may always explain: you never are understood." + +"There are signs--" said Paul Vence. + +"Don't you think, Monsieur Vence, that signs also are a form of +hieroglyphics? Give me news of Monsieur Choulette. I do not see him any +more." + +Vence replied that Choulette was very busy in forming the Third Order of +Saint Francis. + +"The idea, Madame, came to him in a marvellous fashion one day when he +had gone to call on his Maria in the street where she lives, behind the +public hospital--a street always damp, the houses on which are tottering. +You must know that he considers Maria the saint and martyr who is +responsible for the sins of the people. + +"He pulled the bell-rope, made greasy by two centuries of visitors. +Either because the martyr was at the wine-shop, where she is familiarly +known, or because she was busy in her room, she did not open the door. +Choulette rang for a long time, and so violently that the bellrope +remained in his hand. Skilful at understanding symbols and the hidden +meaning of things, he understood at once that this rope had not been +detached without the permission of spiritual powers. He made of it a +belt, and realized that he had been chosen to lead back into its +primitive purity the Third Order of Saint Francis. He renounced the +beauty of women, the delights of poetry, the brightness of glory, and +studied the life and the doctrine of Saint Francis. However, he has sold +to his editor a book entitled 'Les Blandices', which contains, he says, +the description of all sorts of loves. He flatters himself that in it he +has shown himself a criminal with some elegance. But far from harming +his mystic undertakings, this book favors them in this sense, that, +corrected by his later work, he will become honest and exemplary; and the +gold that he has received in payment, which would not have been paid to +him for a more chaste volume, will serve for a pilgrimage to Assisi." + +Madame Martin asked how much of this story was really true. Vence +replied that she must not try to learn. + +He confessed that he was the idealist historian of the poet, and that the +adventures which he related of him were not to be taken in the literal +and Judaic sense. + +He affirmed that at least Choulette was publishing Les Blandices, and +desired to visit the cell and the grave of St. Francis. + +"Then," exclaimed Madame Martin, "I will take him to Italy with me. +Find him, Monsieur Vence, and bring him to me. I am going next week." + +M. Martin then excused himself, not being able to remain longer. He had +to finish a report which was to be laid before the Chamber the next day. + +Madame Martin said that nobody interested her so much as Choulette. +Paul Vence said that he was a singular specimen of humanity. + +"He is not very different from the saints of whose extraordinary lives +we read. He is as sincere as they. He has an exquisite delicacy of +sentiment and a terrible violence of mind. If he shocks one by many of +his acts, the reason is that he is weaker, less supported, or perhaps +less closely observed. And then there are unworthy saints, just as there +are bad angels: Choulette is a worldly saint, that is all. But his poems +are true poems, and much finer than those written by the bishops of the +seventeenth century." + +She interrupted him: + +"While I think of it, I wish to congratulate you on your friend +Dechartre. He has a charming mind." + +She added: + +"Perhaps he is a little too timid." + +Vence reminded her that he had told her she would find Dechartre +interesting. + +"I know him by heart; he has been my friend since our childhood." + +"You knew his parents?" + +"Yes. He is the only son of Philippe Dechartre." + +"The architect?" + +"The architect who, under Napoleon III, restored so many castles and +churches in Touraine and the Orleanais. He had taste and knowledge. +Solitary and quiet in his life, he had the imprudence to attack Viollet- +le-Duc, then all-powerful. He reproached him with trying to reestablish +buildings in their primitive plan, as they had been, or as they might +have been, at the beginning. Philippe Dechartre, on the contrary, wished +that everything which the lapse of centuries had added to a church, an +abbey, or a castle should be respected. To abolish anachronisms and +restore a building to its primitive unity, seemed to him to be a +scientific barbarity as culpable as that of ignorance. He said: 'It is a +crime to efface the successive imprints made in stone by the hands of our +ancestors. New stones cut in old style are false witnesses.' He wished +to limit the task of the archaeologic architect to that of supporting and +consolidating walls. He was right. Everybody said that he was wrong. +He achieved his ruin by dying young, while his rival triumphed. He +bequeathed an honest fortune to his widow and his son. Jacques Dechartre +was brought up by his mother, who adored him. I do not think that +maternal tenderness ever was more impetuous. Jacques is a charming +fellow; but he is a spoiled child." + +"Yet he appears so indifferent, so easy to understand, so distant from +everything." + +"Do not rely on this. He has a tormented and tormenting imagination." + +"Does he like women?" + +"Why do you ask?" + +"Oh, it isn't with any idea of match-making." + +"Yes, he likes them. I told you that he was an egoist. Only selfish men +really love women. After the death of his mother, he had a long liaison +with a well-known actress, Jeanne Tancrede." + +Madame Martin remembered Jeanne Tancrede; not very pretty, but graceful +with a certain slowness of action in playing romantic roles. + +"They lived almost together in a little house at Auteuil," Paul Vence +continued. "I often called on them. I found him lost in his dreams, +forgetting to model a figure drying under its cloths, alone with himself, +pursuing his idea, absolutely incapable of listening to anybody; she, +studying her roles, her complexion burned by rouge, her eyes tender, +pretty because of her intelligence and her activity. She complained to +me that he was inattentive, cross, and unreasonable. She loved him and +deceived him only to obtain roles. And when she deceived him, it was +done on the spur of the moment. Afterward she never thought of it. +A typical woman! But she was imprudent; she smiled upon Joseph Springer +in the hope that he would make her a member of the Comedie Francaise. +Dechartre left her. Now she finds it more practical to live with her +managers, and Jacques finds it more agreeable to travel." + +"Does he regret her?" + +"How can one know the things that agitate a mind anxious and mobile, +selfish and passionate, desirous to surrender itself, prompt in +disengaging itself, liking itself most of all among the beautiful things +that it finds in the world?" + +Brusquely she changed the subject. + +"And your novel, Monsieur Vence?" + +"I have reached the last chapter, Madame. My little workingman has been +guillotined. He died with that indifference of virgins without desire, +who never have felt on their lips the warm taste of life. The journals +and the public approve the act of justice which has just been +accomplished. But in another garret, another workingman, sober, sad, and +a chemist, swears to himself that he will commit an expiatory murder." + +He rose and said good-night. + +She called him back. + +"Monsieur Vence, you know that I was serious. Bring Choulette to me." + +When she went up to her room, her husband was waiting for her, in his +red-brown plush robe, with a sort of doge's cap framing his pale and +hollow face. He had an air of gravity. Behind him, by the open door of +his workroom, appeared under the lamp a mass of documents bound in blue, +a collection of the annual budgets. Before she could reach her room he +motioned that he wished to speak to her. + +"My dear, I can not understand you. You are very inconsequential. It +does you a great deal of harm. You intend to leave your home without any +reason, without even a pretext. And you wish to run through Europe with +whom? With a Bohemian, a drunkard--that man Choulette." + +She replied that she should travel with Madame Marmet, in which there +could be nothing objectionable. + +"But you announce your going to everybody, yet you do not even know +whether Madame Marmet can accompany you." + +"Oh, Madame Marmet will soon pack her boxes. Nothing keeps her in Paris +except her dog. She will leave it to you; you may take care of it." + +"Does your father know of your project?" + +It was his last resource to invoke the authority of Montessuy. He knew +that his wife feared to displease her father. He insisted: + +"Your father is full of sense and tact. I have been happy to find him +agreeing with me several times in the advices which I have permitted +myself to give you. He thinks as I do, that Madame Meillan's house is +not a fit place for you to visit. The company that meets there is mixed, +and the mistress of the house favors intrigue. You are wrong, I must +say, not to take account of what people think. I am mistaken if your +father does not think it singular that you should go away with so much +frivolity, and the absence will be the more remarked, my dear, since +circumstances have made me eminent in the course of this legislature. +My merit has nothing to do with the case, surely. But if you had +consented to listen to me at dinner I should have demonstrated to you +that the group of politicians to which I belong has almost reached power. +In such a moment you should not renounce your duties as mistress of the +house. You must understand this yourself." + +She replied "You annoy me." And, turning her back to him, she shut the +door of her room between them. That night in her bed she opened a book, +as she always did before going to sleep. It was a novel. She was +turning the leaves with indifference, when her eyes fell on these lines: + +"Love is like devotion: it comes late. A woman is hardly in love or +devout at twenty, unless she has a special disposition to be either, a +sort of native sanctity. Women who are predestined to love, themselves +struggle a long time against that grace of love which is more terrible +than the thunderbolt that fell on the road to Damascus. A woman oftenest +yields to the passion of love only when age or solitude does not frighten +her. Passion is an arid and burning desert. Passion is profane +asceticism, as harsh as religious asceticism. Great woman lovers are as +rare as great penitent women. Those who know life well know that women +do not easily bind themselves in the chains of real love. They know that +nothing is less common than sacrifice among them. And consider how much +a worldly woman must sacrifice when she is in love--liberty, quietness, +the charming play of a free mind, coquetry, amusement, pleasure--she +loses everything. + +"Coquetry is permissible. One may conciliate that with all the +exigencies of fashionable life. Not so love. Love is the least mundane +of passions, the most anti-social, the most savage, the most barbarous. +So the world judges it more severely than mere gallantry or looseness of +manners. In one sense the world is right. A woman in love betrays her +nature and fails in her function, which is to be admired by all men, like +a work of art. A woman is a work of art, the most marvellous that man's +industry ever has produced. A woman is a wonderful artifice, due to the +concourse of all the arts mechanical and of all the arts liberal. She is +the work of everybody, she belongs to the world." + +Therese closed the book and thought that these ideas were only the dreams +of novelists who did not know life. She knew very well that there was in +reality neither a Carmel of passion nor a chain of love, nor a beautiful +and terrible vocation against which the predestined one resisted in vain; +she knew very well that love was only a brief intoxication from which one +recovered a little sadder. And yet, perhaps, she did not know +everything; perhaps there were loves in which one was deliciously lost. +She put out her lamp. The dreams of her first youth came back to her. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +A DISTINGUISHED RELICT + +It was raining. Madame Martin-Belleme saw confusedly through the glass +of her coupe the multitude of passing umbrellas, like black turtles under +the watery skies. She was thinking. Her thoughts were gray and +indistinct, like the aspect of the streets and the squares. + +She no longer knew why the idea had come to her to spend a month with +Miss Bell. Truly, she never had known. The idea had been like a spring, +at first hidden by leaves, and now forming the current of a deep and +rapid stream. She remembered that Tuesday night at dinner she had said +suddenly that she wished to go, but she could not remember the first +flush of that desire. It was not the wish to act toward Robert Le Menil +as he was acting toward her. Doubtless she thought it excellent to go +travelling in Italy while he went fox-hunting. This seemed to her a fair +arrangement. Robert, who was always pleased to see her when he came +back, would not find her on his return. She thought this would be right. +She had not thought of it at first. And since then she had thought +little of it, and really she was not going for the pleasure of making him +grieve. She had against him a thought less piquant, and more harsh. +She did not wish to see him soon. He had become to her almost a +stranger. He seemed to her a man like others--better than most others-- +good-looking, estimable, and who did not displease her; but he did not +preoccupy her. Suddenly he had gone out of her life. She could not +remember how he had become mingled with it. The idea of belonging to him +shocked her. The thought that they might meet again in the small +apartment of the Rue Spontini was so painful to her that she discarded it +at once. She preferred to think that an unforeseen event would prevent +their meeting again--the end of the world, for example. M. Lagrange, +member of the Academie des Sciences, had told her the day before of a +comet which some day might meet the earth, envelop it with its flaming +hair, imbue animals and plants with unknown poisons, and make all men die +in a frenzy of laughter. She expected that this, or something else, +would happen next month. It was not inexplicable that she wished to go. +But that her desire to go should contain a vague joy, that she should +feel the charm of what she was to find, was inexplicable to her. + +Her carriage left her at the corner of a street. + +There, under the roof of a tall house, behind five windows, in a small, +neat apartment, Madame Marmet had lived since the death of her husband. + +Countess Martin found her in her modest drawing-room, opposite +M. Lagrange, half asleep in a deep armchair. This worldly old savant had +remained ever faithful to her. He it was who, the day after M. Marmet's +funeral, had conveyed to the unfortunate widow the poisoned speech +delivered by Schmoll. She had fainted in his arms. Madame Marmet +thought that he lacked judgment, but he was her best friend. They +dined together often with rich friends. + +Madame Martin, slender and erect in her zibeline corsage opening on a +flood of lace, awakened with the charming brightness of her gray eyes the +good man, who was susceptible to the graces of women. He had told her +the day before how the world would come to an end. He asked her whether +she had not been frightened at night by pictures of the earth devoured by +flames or frozen to a mass of ice. While he talked to her with affected +gallantry, she looked at the mahogany bookcase. There were not many +books in it, but on one of the shelves was a skeleton in armor. It +amazed one to see in this good lady's house that Etruscan warrior wearing +a green bronze helmet and a cuirass. He slept among boxes of bonbons, +vases of gilded porcelain, and carved images of the Virgin, picked up at +Lucerne and on the Righi. Madame Marmet, in her widowhood, had sold the +books which her husband had left. Of all the ancient objects collected +by the archaeologist, she had retained nothing except the Etruscan. Many +persons had tried to sell it for her. Paul Vence had obtained from the +administration a promise to buy it for the Louvre, but the good widow +would not part with it. It seemed to her that if she lost that warrior +with his green bronze helmet she would lose the name that she wore +worthily, and would cease to be the widow of Louis Marmet of the Academie +des Inscriptions. + +"Do not be afraid, Madame; a comet will not soon strike the earth. Such +a phenomenon is very improbable." + +Madame Martin replied that she knew no serious reason why the earth and +humanity should not be annihilated at once. + +Old Lagrange exclaimed with profound sincerity that he hoped the +cataclysm would come as late as possible. + +She looked at him. His bald head could boast only a few hairs dyed +black. His eyelids fell like rags over eyes still smiling; his cheeks +hung in loose folds, and one divined that his body was equally withered. +She thought, "And even he likes life!" + +Madame Marmet hoped, too, that the end of the world was not near at hand. + +"Monsieur Lagrange," said Madame Martin, "you live, do you not, in a +pretty little house, the windows of which overlook the Botanical Gardens? +It seems to me it must be a joy to live in that garden, which makes me +think of the Noah's Ark of my infancy, and of the terrestrial paradises +in the old Bibles." + +But he was not at all charmed with his house. It was small, unimproved, +infested with rats. + +She acknowledged that one seldom felt at home anywhere, and that rats +were found everywhere, either real or symbolical, legions of pests that +torment us. Yet she liked the Botanical Gardens; she had always wished +to go there, yet never had gone. There was also the museum, which she +was curious to visit. + +Smiling, happy, he offered to escort her there. He considered it his +house. He would show her rare specimens, some of which were superb. + +She did not know what a bolide was. She recalled that some one had said +to her that at the museum were bones carved by primitive men, and plaques +of ivory on which were engraved pictures of animals, which were long ago +extinct. She asked whether that were true. Lagrange ceased to smile. +He replied indifferently that such objects concerned one of his +colleagues. + +"Ah!" said Madame Martin, "then they are not in your showcase." + +She observed that learned men were not curious, and that it is indiscreet +to question them on things that are not in their own showcases. It is +true that Lagrange had made a scientific fortune in studying meteors. +This had led him to study comets. But he was wise. For twenty years he +had been preoccupied by nothing except dining out. + +When he had left, Countess Martin told Madame Marmet what she expected of +her. + +"I am going next week to Fiesole, to visit Miss Bell, and you are coming +with me." + +The good Madame Marmet, with placid brow yet searching eyes, was silent +for a moment; then she refused gently, but finally consented. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +MADAME HAS HER WAY + +The Marseilles express was ready on the quay, where the postmen ran, and +the carriages rolled amid smoke and noise, under the light that fell from +the windows. Through the open doors travellers in long cloaks came and +went. At the end of the station, blinding with soot and dust, a small +rainbow could be discerned, not larger than one's hand. Countess Martin +and the good Madame Marniet were already in their carriage, under the +rack loaded with bags, among newspapers thrown on the cushions. +Choulette had not appeared, and Madame Martin expected him no longer. +Yet he had promised to be at the station. He had made his arrangements +to go, and had received from his publisher the price of Les Blandices. +Paul Vence had brought him one evening to Madame Martin's house. He had +been sweet, polished, full of witty gayety and naive joy. She had +promised herself much pleasure in travelling with a man of genius, +original, picturesquely ugly, with an amusing simplicity; like a child +prematurely old and abandoned, full of vices, yet with a certain degree +of innocence. The doors closed. She expected him no longer. She should +not have counted on his impulsive and vagabondish mind. At the moment +when the engine began to breathe hoarsely, Madame Marmet, who was looking +out of the window, said, quietly: + +"I think that Monsieur Choulette is coming." + +He was walking along the quay, limping, with his hat on the back of his +head, his beard unkempt, and dragging an old carpet-bag. He was almost +repulsive; yet, in spite of his fifty years of age, he looked young, so +clear and lustrous were his eyes, so much ingenuous audacity had been +retained in his yellow, hollow face, so vividly did this old man express +the eternal adolescence of the poet and artist. When she saw him, +Therese regretted having invited so strange a companion. He walked +along, throwing a hasty glance into every carriage--a glance which, +little by little, became sullen and distrustful. But when he recognized +Madame Martin, he smiled so sweetly and said good-morning to her in so +caressing a voice that nothing was left of the ferocious old vagabond +walking on the quay, nothing except the old carpet-bag, the handles of +which were half broken. + +He placed it in the rack with great care, among the elegant bags +enveloped with gray cloth, beside which it looked conspicuously sordid. +It was studded with yellow flowers on a blood-colored background. + +He was soon perfectly at ease, and complimented Madame Martin on the +elegance of her travelling attire. + +"Excuse me, ladies," he added, "I was afraid I should be late. I went to +six o'clock mass at Saint Severin, my parish, in the Virgin Chapel, under +those pretty, but absurd columns that point toward heaven though frail as +reeds-like us, poor sinners that we are." + +"Ah," said Madame Martin, "you are pious to-day." + +And she asked him whether he wore the cordon of the order which he was +founding. He assumed a grave and penitent air. + +"I am afraid, Madame, that Monsieur Paul Vence has told you many absurd +stories about me. I have heard that he goes about circulating rumors +that my ribbon is a bell-rope--and of what a bell! I should be pained if +anybody believed so wretched a story. My ribbon, Madame, is a symbolical +ribbon. It is represented by a simple thread, which one wears under +one's clothes after a pauper has touched it, as a sign that poverty is +holy, and that it will save the world. There is nothing good except in +poverty; and since I have received the price of Les Blandices, I feel +that I am unjust and harsh. It is a good thing that I have placed in my +bag several of these mystic ribbons." + +And, pointing to the horrible carpet-bag: + +"I have also placed in it a host which a bad priest gave to me, the works +of Monsieur de Maistre, shirts, and several other things:" + +Madame Martin lifted her eyebrows, a little ill at ease. But the good +Madame Marmet retained her habitual placidity. + +As the train rolled through the homely scenes of the outskirts, that +black fringe which makes an unlovely border to the city, Choulette took +from his pocket an old book which he began to fumble. The writer, hidden +under the vagabond, revealed himself. Choulette, without wishing to +appear to be careful of his papers, was very orderly about them. He +assured himself that he had not lost the pieces of paper on which he +noted at the coffeehouse his ideas for poems, nor the dozen of flattering +letters which, soiled and spotted, he carried with him continually, to +read them to his newly-made companions at night. After assuring himself +that nothing was missing, he took from the book a letter folded in an +open envelope. He waved it for a while, with an air of mysterious +impudence, then handed it to the Countess Martin. It was a letter of +introduction from the Marquise de Rieu to a princess of the House of +France, a near relative of the Comte de Chambord, who, old and a widow, +lived in retirement near the gates of Florence. Having enjoyed the +effect which he expected to produce, he said that he should perhaps visit +the Princess; that she was a good person, and pious. + +"A truly great lady," he added, "who does not show her magnificence in +gowns and hats. She wears her chemises for six weeks, and sometimes +longer. The gentlemen of her train have seen her wear very dirty white +stockings, which fell around her heels. The virtues of the great queens +of Spain are revived in her. Oh, those soiled stockings, what real glory +there is in them!" + +He took the letter and put it back in his book. Then, arming himself +with a horn-handled knife, he began, with its point, to finish a figure +sketched in the handle of his stick. He complimented himself on it: + +"I am skilful in all the arts of beggars and vagabonds. I know how to +open locks with a nail, and how to carve wood with a bad knife." + +The head began to appear. It was the head of a thin woman, weeping. + +Choulette wished to express in it human misery, not simple and touching, +such as men of other times may have felt it in a world of mingled +harshness and kindness; but hideous, and reflecting the state of ugliness +created by the free-thinking bourgeois and the military patriots of the +French Revolution. According to him the present regime embodied only +hypocrisy and brutality. + +"Their barracks are a hideous invention of modern times. They date from +the seventeenth century. Before that time there were only guard-houses +where the soldiers played cards and told tales. Louis XIV was a +precursor of Bonaparte. But the evil has attained its plenitude since +the monstrous institution of the obligatory enlistment. The shame of +emperors and of republics is to have made it an obligation for men to +kill. In the ages called barbarous, cities and princes entrusted their +defence to mercenaries, who fought prudently. In a great battle only +five or six men were killed. And when knights went to the wars, at least +they were not forced to do it; they died for their pleasure. They were +good for nothing else. Nobody in the time of Saint Louis would have +thought of sending to battle a man of learning. And the laborer was not +torn from the soil to be killed. Nowadays it is a duty for a poor +peasant to be a soldier. He is exiled from his house, the roof of which +smokes in the silence of night; from the fat prairies where the oxen +graze; from the fields and the paternal woods. He is taught how to kill +men; he is threatened, insulted, put in prison and told that it is an +honor; and, if he does not care for that sort of honor, he is fusilladed. +He obeys because he is terrorized, and is of all domestic animals the +gentlest and most docile. We are warlike in France, and we are citizens. +Another reason to be proud, this being a citizen! For the poor it +consists in sustaining and preserving the wealthy in their power and +their laziness. The poor must work for this, in presence of the majestic +quality of the law which prohibits the wealthy as well as the poor from +sleeping under the bridges, from begging in the streets, and from +stealing bread. That is one of the good effects of the Revolution. +As this Revolution was made by fools and idiots for the benefit of those +who acquired national lands, and resulted in nothing but making the +fortune of crafty peasants and financiering bourgeois, the Revolution +only made stronger, under the pretence of making all men equal, the +empire of wealth. It has betrayed France into the hands of the men of +wealth. They are masters and lords. The apparent government, composed +of poor devils, is in the pay of the financiers. For one hundred years, +in this poisoned country, whoever has loved the poor has been considered +a traitor to society. A man is called dangerous when he says that there +are wretched people. There are laws against indignation and pity, and +what I say here could not go into print." + +Choulette became excited and waved his knife, while under the wintry +sunlight passed fields of brown earth, trees despoiled by winter, and +curtains of poplars beside silvery rivers. + +He looked with tenderness at the figure carved on his stick. + +"Here you are," he said, "poor humanity, thin and weeping, stupid with +shame and misery, as you were made by your masters--soldiers and men of +wealth." + +The good Madame Marmet, whose nephew was a captain in the artillery, was +shocked at the violence with which Choulette attacked the army. Madame +Martin saw in this only an amusing fantasy. Choulette's ideas did not +frighten her. She was afraid of nothing. But she thought they were a +little absurd. She did not think that the past had ever been better than +the present. + +"I believe, Monsieur Choulette, that men were always as they are to-day, +selfish, avaricious, and pitiless. I believe that laws and manners were +always harsh and cruel to the unfortunate." + +Between La Roche and Dijon they took breakfast in the dining-car, and +left Choulette in it, alone with his pipe, his glass of benedictine, and +his irritation. + +In the carriage, Madame Marmet talked with peaceful tenderness of the +husband she had lost. He had married her for love; he had written +admirable verses to her, which she had kept, and never shown to any one. +He was lively and very gay. One would not have thought it who had seen +him later, tired by work and weakened by illness. He studied until the +last moment. Two hours before he died he was trying to read again. He +was affectionate and kind. Even in suffering he retained all his +sweetness. Madame Martin said to her: + +"You have had long years of happiness; you have kept the reminiscence of +them; that is a share of happiness in this world." + +But good Madame Marmet sighed; a cloud passed over her quiet brow. + +"Yes," she said, "Louis was the best of men and the best of husbands. +Yet he made me very miserable. He had only one fault, but I suffered +from it cruelly. He was jealous. Good, kind, tender, and generous as +he was, this horrible passion made him unjust, ironical, and violent. +I can assure you that my behavior gave not the least cause for suspicion. +I was not a coquette. But I was young, fresh; I passed for beautiful. +That was enough. He would not let me go out alone, and would not let me +receive calls in his absence. Whenever we went to a reception, I +trembled in advance with the fear of the scene which he would make later +in the carriage." + +And the good Madame Marmet added, with a sigh: + +"It is true that I liked to dance. But I had to renounce going to balls; +it made him suffer too much." + +Countess Martin expressed astonishment. She had always imagined Marmet +as an old man, timid, and absorbed by his thoughts; a little ridiculous, +between his wife, plump, white, and amiable, and the skeleton wearing a +helmet of bronze and gold. But the excellent widow confided to her that, +at fifty-five years of age, when she was fifty-three, Louis was just as +jealous as on the first day of their marriage. + +And Therese thought that Robert had never tormented her with jealousy. +Was it on his part a proof of tact and good taste, a mark of confidence, +or was it that he did not love her enough to make her suffer? She did +not know, and she did not have the heart to try to know. She would have +to look through recesses of her mind which she preferred not to open. + +She murmured carelessly: + +"We long to be loved, and when we are loved we are tormented or worried." + +The day was finished in reading and thinking. Choulette did not +reappear. Night covered little by little with its gray clouds the +mulberry-trees of the Dauphine. Madame Marmet went to sleep peacefully, +resting on herself as on a mass of pillows. Therese looked at her and +thought: + +"She is happy, since she likes to remember." + +The sadness of night penetrated her heart. And when the moon rose on the +fields of olive-trees, seeing the soft lines of plains and of hills pass, +Therese, in this landscape wherein everything spoke of peace and +oblivion, and nothing spoke of her, regretted the Seine, the Arc de +Triomphe with its radiating avenues, and the alleys of the park where, +at least, the trees and the stones knew her. + +Suddenly Choulette threw himself into the carriage. Armed with his +knotty stick, his face and head enveloped in red wool and a fur cap, he +almost frightened her. It was what he wished to do. His violent +attitudes and his savage dress were studied. Always seeking to produce +effects, it pleased him to seem frightful. + +He was a coward himself, and was glad to inspire the fears he often felt. +A moment before, as he was smoking his pipe, he had felt, while seeing +the moon swallowed up by the clouds, one of those childish frights that +tormented his light mind. He had come near the Countess to be reassured. + +"Arles," he said. "Do you know Arles? It is a place of pure beauty. +I have seen, in the cloister, doves resting on the shoulders of statues, +and I have seen the little gray lizards warming themselves in the sun on +the tombs. The tombs are now in two rows on the road that leads to the +church. They are formed like cisterns, and serve as beds for the poor at +night. One night, when I was walking among them, I met a good old woman +who was placing dried herbs in the tomb of an old maid who had died on +her wedding-day. We said goodnight to her. She replied: 'May God hear- +you! but fate wills that this tomb should open on the side of the +northwest wind. If only it were open on the other side, I should be +lying as comfortably as Queen Jeanne.'" + +Therese made no answer. She was dozing. And Choulette shivered in the +cold of the night, in the fear of death. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE LADY OF THE BELLS + +In her English cart, which she drove herself, Miss Bell had brought over +the hills, from the railway station at Florence, the Countess Martin- +Belleme and Madame Marmet to her pink-tinted house at Fiesole, which, +crowned with a long balustrade, overlooked the incomparable city. The +maid followed with the luggage. Choulette, lodged, by Miss Bell's +attention, in the house of a sacristan's widow, in the shadow of the +cathedral of Fiesole, was not expected until dinner. Plain and gentle, +wearing short hair, a waistcoat, a man's shirt on a chest like a boy's, +almost graceful, with small hips, the poetess was doing for her French +friends the honors of the house, which reflected the ardent delicacy of +her taste. On the walls of the drawing-room were pale Virgins, with long +hands, reigning peacefully among angels, patriarchs, and saints in +beautiful gilded frames. On a pedestal stood a Magdalena, clothed only +with her hair, frightful with thinness and old age, some beggar of the +road to Pistoia, burned by the suns and the snows, whom some unknown +precursor of Donatello had moulded. And everywhere were Miss Bell's +chosen arms-bells and cymbals. The largest lifted their bronze clappers +at the angles of the room; others formed a chain at the foot of the +walls. Smaller ones ran along the cornices. There were bells over the +hearth, on the cabinets, and on the chairs. The shelves were full of +silver and golden bells. There were big bronze bells marked with the +Florentine lily; bells of the Renaissance, representing a lady wearing a +white gown; bells of the dead, decorated with tears and bones; bells +covered with symbolical animals and leaves, which had rung in the +churches in the time of St. Louis; table-bells of the seventeenth +century, having a statuette for a handle; the flat, clear cow-bells of +the Ruth Valley; Hindu bells; Chinese bells formed like cylinders--they +had come from all countries and all times, at the magic call of little +Miss Bell. + +"You look at my speaking arms," she said to Madame Martin. "I think that +all these Misses Bell are pleased to be here, and I should not be +astonished if some day they all began to sing together. But you must not +admire them all equally. Reserve your purest and most fervent praise for +this one." + +And striking with her finger a dark, bare bell which gave a faint sound: + +"This one," she said, "is a holy village-bell of the fifth century. +She is a spiritual daughter of Saint Paulin de Nole, who was the first to +make the sky sing over our heads. The metal is rare. Soon I will show +to you a gentle Florentine, the queen of bells. She is coming. But I +bore you, darling, with my babble. And I bore, too, the good Madame +Marmet. It is wrong." + +She escorted them to their rooms. + +An hour later, Madame Martin, rested, fresh, in a gown of foulard and +lace, went on the terrace where Miss Bell was waiting for her. The humid +air, warmed by the sun, exhaled the restless sweetness of spring. +Therese, resting on the balustrade, bathed her eyes in the light. At her +feet, the cypress-trees raised their black distaffs, and the olive-trees +looked like sheep on the hills. In the valley, Florence extended its +domes, its towers, and the multitudes of its red roofs, through which the +Arno showed its undulating line. Beyond were the soft blue hills. + +She tried to recognize the Boboli Gardens, where she had walked at her +first visit; the Cascine, which she did not like; the Pitti Palace. Then +the charming infinity of the sky attracted her. She looked at the forms +in the clouds. + +After a long silence, Vivian Bell extended her hand toward the horizon. + +"Darling, I do not know how to say what I wish. But look, darling, look +again. What you see there is unique in the world. Nature is nowhere +else so subtle, elegant, and fine. The god who made the hills of +Florence was an artist. Oh, he was a jeweller, an engraver, a sculptor, +a bronze-founder, and a painter; he was a Florentine. He did nothing +else in the world, darling. The rest was made by a hand less delicate, +whose work was less perfect. How can you think that that violet hill of +San Miniato, so firm and so pure in relief, was made by the author of +Mont Blanc? It is not possible. This landscape has the beauty of an +antique medal and of a precious painting. It is a perfect and measured +work of art. And here is another thing that I do not know how to say, +that I can not even understand, but which is a real thing. In this +country I feel--and you will feel as I do, darling--half alive and half +dead; in a condition which is sad, noble, and very sweet. Look, look +again; you will realize the melancholy of those hills that surround +Florence, and see a delicious sadness ascend from the land of the dead." + +The sun was low over the horizon. The bright points of the mountain- +peaks faded one by one, while the clouds inflamed the sky. Madame Marmet +sneezed. + +Miss Bell sent for some shawls, and warned the French women that the +evenings were fresh and that the night-air was dangerous. + +Then suddenly she said: + +"Darling, you know Monsieur Jacques Dechartre? Well, he wrote to me that +he would be at Florence next week. I am glad Monsieur Jacques Dechartre +is to meet you in our city. He will accompany us to the churches and to +the museums, and he will be a good guide. He understands beautiful +things, because he loves them. And he has an exquisite talent as a +sculptor. His figures in medallions are admired more in England than in +France. Oh, I am so glad Monsieur Jacques Dechartre and you are to meet +at Florence, darling!" + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +CHOULETTE FINDS A NEW FRIEND + +She next day, as they were traversing the square where are planted, in +imitation of antique amphitheatres, two marble pillars, Madame Marmet +said to the Countess Martin: + +"I think I see Monsieur Choulette." + +Seated in a shoemaker's shop, his pipe in his hand, Choulette was making +rhythmic gestures, and appeared to be reciting verses. The Florentine +cobbler listened with a kind smile. He was a little, bald man, and +represented one of the types familiar to Flemish painters. On a table, +among wooden lasts, nails, leather, and wax, a basilic plant displayed +its round green head. A sparrow, lacking a leg, which had been replaced +by a match, hopped on the old man's shoulder and head. + +Madame Martin, amused by this spectacle, called Choulette from the +threshold. He was softly humming a tune, and she asked him why he had +not gone with her to visit the Spanish chapel. + +He arose and replied: + +"Madame, you are preoccupied by vain images; but I live in life and in +truth." + +He shook the cobbler's hand and followed the two ladies. + +"While going to church," he said, "I saw this old man, who, bending over +his work, and pressing a last between his knees as in a vise, was sewing +coarse shoes. I felt that he was simple and kind. I said to him, in +Italian: 'My father, will you drink with me a glass of Chianti?' He +consented. He went for a flagon and some glasses, and I kept the shop." + +And Choulette pointed to two glasses and a flagon placed on a stove. + +"When he came back we drank together; I said vague but kind things to +him, and I charmed him by the sweetness of sounds. I will go again to +his shop; I will learn from him how to make shoes, and how to live +without desire. After which, I shall not be sad again. For desire and +idleness alone make us sad." + +The Countess Martin smiled. + +"Monsieur Choulette, I desire nothing, and, nevertheless, I am not +joyful. Must I make shoes, too?" + +Choulette replied, gravely: + +"It is not yet time for that." + +When they reached the gardens of the Oricellari, Madame Marmet sank +on a bench. She had examined at Santa Maria-Novella the frescoes of +Ghirlandajo, the stalls of the choir, the Virgin of Cimabue, the +paintings in the cloister. She had done this carefully, in memory of her +husband, who had greatly liked Italian art. She was tired. Choulette +sat by her and said: + +"Madame, could you tell me whether it is true that the Pope's gowns are +made by Worth?" + +Madame Marmet thought not. Nevertheless, Choulette had heard people say +this in cafes. Madame Marmet was astonished that Choulette, a Catholic +and a socialist, should speak so disrespectfully of a pope friendly to +the republic. But he did not like Leo XIII. + +"The wisdom of princes is shortsighted," he said; "the salvation of the +Church must come from the Italian republic, as Leo XIII believes and +wishes; but the Church will not be saved in the manner which this pious +Machiavelli thinks. The revolution will make the Pope lose his last sou, +with the rest of his patrimony. And it will be salvation. The Pope, +destitute and poor, will then become powerful. He will agitate the +world. We shall see again Peter, Lin, Clet, Anaclet, and Clement; the +humble, the ignorant; men like the early saints will change the face of +the earth. If to-morrow, in the chair of Peter, came to sit a real +bishop, a real Christian, I would go to him, and say: 'Do not be an old +man buried alive in a golden tomb; quit your noble guards and your +cardinals; quit your court and its similacrums of power. Take my arm and +come with me to beg for your bread among the nations. Covered with rags, +poor, ill, dying, go on the highways, showing in yourself the image of +Jesus. Say, "I am begging my bread for the condemnation of the wealthy." +Go into the cities, and shout from door to door, with a sublime +stupidity, "Be humble, be gentle, be poor!" Announce peace and charity +to the cities, to the dens, and to the barracks. You will be disdained; +the mob will throw stones at you. Policemen will drag you into prison. +You shall be for the humble as for the powerful, for the poor as for the +rich, a subject of laughter, an object of disgust and of pity. Your +priests will dethrone you, and elevate against you an anti-pope, or will +say that you are crazy. And it is necessary that they should tell the +truth; it is necessary that you should be crazy; the lunatics have saved +the world. Men will give to you the crown of thorns and the reed +sceptre, and they will spit in your face, and it is by that sign that you +will appear as Christ and true king; and it is by such means that you +will establish Christian socialism, which is the kingdom of God on +earth.'" + +Having spoken in this way, Choulette lighted one of those long and +tortuous Italian cigars, which are pierced with a straw. He drew from it +several puffs of infectious vapor, then he continued, tranquilly: + +"And it would be practical. You may refuse to acknowledge any quality in +me except my clear view of situations. Ah, Madame Marmet, you will never +know how true it is that the great works of this world were always +achieved by madmen. Do you think, Madame Martin, that if Saint Francis +of Assisi had been reasonable, he would have poured upon the earth, for +the refreshment of peoples, the living water of charity and all the +perfumes of love?" + +"I do not know," replied Madame Martin; "but reasonable people have +always seemed to me to be bores. I can say this to you, Monsieur +Choulette." + +They returned to Fiesole by the steam tramway which goes up the hill. +The rain fell. Madame Marmet went to sleep and Choulette complained. +All his ills came to attack him at once: the humidity in the air gave him +a pain in the knee, and he could not bend his leg; his carpet-bag, lost +the day before in the trip from the station to Fiesole, had not been +found, and it was an irreparable disaster; a Paris review had just +published one of his poems, with typographical errors as glaring as +Aphrodite's shell. + +He accused men and things of being hostile to him. He became puerile, +absurd, odious. Madame Martin, whom Choulette and the rain saddened, +thought the trip would never end. When she reached the house she found +Miss Bell in the drawing-room, copying with gold ink on a leaf of +parchment, in a handwriting formed after the Aldine italics, verses which +she had composed in the night. At her friend's coming she raised her +little face, plain but illuminated by splendid eyes. + +"Darling, permit me to introduce to you the Prince Albertinelli." + +The Prince possessed a certain youthful, godlike beauty, that his black +beard intensified. He bowed. + +"Madame, you would make one love France, if that sentiment were not +already in our hearts." + +The Countess and Choulette asked Miss Bell to read to them the verses she +was writing. She excused herself from reciting her uncertain cadence to +the French poet, whom she liked best after Francois Villon. Then she +recited in her pretty, hissing, birdlike voice. + +"That is very pretty," said Choulette, "and bears the mark of Italy +softly veiled by the mists of Thule." + +"Yes," said the Countess Martin, "that is pretty. But why, dear Vivian, +did your two beautiful innocents wish to die?" + +"Oh, darling, because they felt as happy as possible, and desired nothing +more. It was discouraging, darling, discouraging. How is it that you do +not understand that?" + +"And do you think that if we live the reason is that we hope?" + +"Oh, yes. We live in the hope of what to-morrow, tomorrow, king of the +land of fairies, will bring in his black mantle studded with stars, +flowers, and tears. Oh, bright king, To-morrow!" + + + + +ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS: + +A hero must be human. Napoleon was human +Anti-Semitism is making fearful progress everywhere +Brilliancy of a fortune too new +Curious to know her face of that day +Do you think that people have not talked about us? +Each had regained freedom, but he did not like to be alone +Fringe which makes an unlovely border to the city +Gave value to her affability by not squandering it +He could not imagine that often words are the same as actions +He does not bear ill-will to those whom he persecutes +He is not intelligent enough to doubt +He studied until the last moment +Her husband had become quite bearable +His habit of pleasing had prolonged his youth +I feel in them (churches) the grandeur of nothingness +I gave myself to him because he loved me +I haven't a taste, I have tastes +It was too late: she did not wish to win +Knew that life is not worth so much anxiety nor so much hope +Laughing in every wrinkle of his face +Learn to live without desire +Life as a whole is too vast and too remote +Life is made up of just such trifles +Life is not a great thing +Love was only a brief intoxication +Made life give all it could yield +Miserable beings who contribute to the grandeur of the past +None but fools resisted the current +Not everything is known, but everything is said +One would think that the wind would put them out: the stars +Picturesquely ugly +Recesses of her mind which she preferred not to open +Relatives whom she did not know and who irritated her +She is happy, since she likes to remember +She pleased society by appearing to find pleasure in it +Should like better to do an immoral thing than a cruel one +So well satisfied with his reply that he repeated it twice +That if we live the reason is that we hope +That sort of cold charity which is called altruism +The discouragement which the irreparable gives +The most radical breviary of scepticism since Montaigne +The violent pleasure of losing +Umbrellas, like black turtles under the watery skies +Was I not warned enough of the sadness of everything? +Whether they know or do not know, they talk + + + + +End of this Project Gutenberg Etext of The Red Lily, v1 +by Anatole France + diff --git a/3919.zip b/3919.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1cb9e5e --- /dev/null +++ b/3919.zip diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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