CHAPTER III.
Sentiment and Passion.
Two months later, Frederick, having debarked one morning in the RueCoq-Heron, immediately thought of paying his great visit.
Chance came to his aid. Pere Roque had brought him a roll of papers andrequested him to deliver them up himself to M. Dambreuse; and the worthyman accompanied the package with an open letter of introduction inbehalf of his young fellow-countryman.
Madame Moreau appeared surprised at this proceeding. Frederick concealedthe delight that it gave him.
M. Dambreuse's real name was the Count d'Ambreuse; but since 1825,gradually abandoning his title of nobility and his party, he had turnedhis attention to business; and with his ears open in every office, hishand in every enterprise, on the watch for every opportunity, as subtleas a Greek and as laborious as a native of Auvergne, he had amassed afortune which might be called considerable. Furthermore, he was anofficer of the Legion of Honour, a member of the General Council of theAube, a deputy, and one of these days would be a peer of France.However, affable as he was in other respects, he wearied the Ministerby his continual applications for relief, for crosses, and licences fortobacconists' shops; and in his complaints against authority he wasinclined to join the Left Centre.
His wife, the pretty Madame Dambreuse, of whom mention was made in thefashion journals, presided at charitable assemblies. By wheedling theduchesses, she appeased the rancours of the aristocratic faubourg, andled the residents to believe that M. Dambreuse might yet repent andrender them some services.
The young man was agitated when he called on them.
"I should have done better to take my dress-coat with me. No doubt theywill give me an invitation to next week's ball. What will they say tome?"
His self-confidence returned when he reflected that M. Dambreuse wasonly a person of the middle class, and he sprang out of the cab brisklyon the pavement of the Rue d'Anjou.
When he had pushed forward one of the two gateways he crossed thecourtyard, mounted the steps in front of the house, and entered avestibule paved with coloured marble. A straight double staircase, withred carpet, fastened with copper rods, rested against the high walls ofshining stucco. At the end of the stairs there was a banana-tree, whosewide leaves fell down over the velvet of the baluster. Two bronzecandelabra, with porcelain globes, hung from little chains; theatmosphere was heavy with the fumes exhaled by the vent-holes of thehot-air stoves; and all that could be heard was the ticking of a bigclock fixed at the other end of the vestibule, under a suit of armour.
A bell rang; a valet made his appearance, and introduced Frederick intoa little apartment, where one could observe two strong boxes, withpigeon-holes filled with pieces of pasteboard. In the centre of it, M.Dambreuse was writing at a roll-top desk.
He ran his eye over Pere Roque's letter, tore open the canvas in whichthe papers had been wrapped, and examined them.
At some distance, he presented the appearance of being still young,owing to his slight figure. But his thin white hair, his feeble limbs,and, above all, the extraordinary pallor of his face, betrayed ashattered constitution. There was an expression of pitiless energy inhis sea-green eyes, colder than eyes of glass. His cheek-bonesprojected, and his finger-joints were knotted.
At length, he arose and addressed to the young man a few questions withregard to persons of their acquaintance at Nogent and also with regardto his studies, and then dismissed him with a bow. Frederick went outthrough another lobby, and found himself at the lower end of thecourtyard near the coach-house.
A blue brougham, to which a black horse was yoked, stood in front of thesteps before the house. The carriage door flew open, a lady sprang in,and the vehicle, with a rumbling noise, went rolling along the gravel.Frederick had come up to the courtyard gate from the other side at thesame moment. As there was not room enough to allow him to pass, he wascompelled to wait. The young lady, with her head thrust forward past thecarriage blind, talked to the door-keeper in a very low tone. All hecould see was her back, covered with a violet mantle. However, he took aglance into the interior of the carriage, lined with blue rep, with silklace and fringes. The lady's ample robes filled up the space within. Hestole away from this little padded box with its perfume of iris, and, soto speak, its vague odour of feminine elegance. The coachman slackenedthe reins, the horse brushed abruptly past the starting-point, and alldisappeared.
Frederick returned on foot, following the track of the boulevard.
He regretted not having been able to get a proper view of MadameDambreuse. A little higher than the Rue Montmartre, a regular jumble ofvehicles made him turn round his head, and on the opposite side, facinghim, he read on a marble plate:
"JACQUES ARNOUX."
How was it that he had not thought about her sooner? It was Deslauriers'fault; and he approached the shop, which, however, he did not enter. Hewas waiting for _her_ to appear.
The high, transparent plate-glass windows presented to one's gazestatuettes, drawings, engravings, catalogues and numbers of _L'ArtIndustriel_, arranged in a skilful fashion; and the amounts of thesubscription were repeated on the door, which was decorated in thecentre with the publisher's initials. Against the walls could be seenlarge pictures whose varnish had a shiny look, two chests laden withporcelain, bronze, alluring curiosities; a little staircase separatedthem, shut off at the top by a Wilton portiere; and a lustre of oldSaxe, a green carpet on the floor, with a table of marqueterie, gave tothis interior the appearance rather of a drawing-room than of a shop.
Frederick pretended to be examining the drawings. After hesitating for along time, he went in. A clerk lifted the portiere, and in reply to aquestion, said that Monsieur would not be in the shop before fiveo'clock. But if the message could be conveyed----
"No! I'll come back again," Frederick answered blandly.
The following days were spent in searching for lodgings; and he fixedupon an apartment in a second story of a furnished mansion in the RueHyacinthe.
With a fresh blotting-case under his arm, he set forth to attend theopening lecture of the course. Three hundred young men, bare-headed,filled an amphitheatre, where an old man in a red gown was delivering adiscourse in a monotonous voice. Quill pens went scratching over thepaper. In this hall he found once more the dusty odour of the school, areading-desk of similar shape, the same wearisome monotony! For afortnight he regularly continued his attendance at law lectures. But heleft off the study of the Civil Code before getting as far as Article 3,and he gave up the Institutes at the _Summa Divisio Personarum_.
The pleasures that he had promised himself did not come to him; and whenhe had exhausted a circulating library, gone over the collections in theLouvre, and been at the theatre a great many nights in succession, hesank into the lowest depths of idleness.
His depression was increased by a thousand fresh annoyances. He found itnecessary to count his linen and to bear with the door keeper, a borewith the figure of a male hospital nurse who came in the morning to makeup his bed, smelling of alcohol and grunting. He did not like hisapartment, which was ornamented with an alabaster time-piece. Thepartitions were thin; he could hear the students making punch, laughingand singing.
Tired of this solitude, he sought out one of his old schoolfellows namedBaptiste Martinon; and he discovered this friend of his boyhood in amiddle-class boarding-house in the Rue Saint-Jacques, cramming up legalprocedure before a coal fire. A woman in a print dress sat opposite himdarning his socks.
Martinon was what people call a very fine man--big, chubby, with aregular physiognomy, and blue eyes far up in his face. His father, anextensive land-owner, had destined him for the magistracy; and wishingalready to present a grave exterior, he wore his beard cut like a collarround his neck.
As there was no rational foundation for Frederick's complaints, and ashe could not give evidence of any misfortune, Martinon was unable in anyway to understand his lamentations about existence. As for him, he wentevery morning to the school, after that took a wal
k in the Luxembourg,in the evening swallowed his half-cup of coffee; and with fifteenhundred francs a year, and the love of this workwoman, he felt perfectlyhappy.
"What happiness!" was Frederick's internal comment.
At the school he had formed another acquaintance, a youth ofaristocratic family, who on account of his dainty manners, suggested aresemblance to a young lady.
M. de Cisy devoted himself to drawing, and loved the Gothic style. Theyfrequently went together to admire the Sainte-Chapelle and Notre Dame.But the young patrician's rank and pretensions covered an intellect ofthe feeblest order. Everything took him by surprise. He laughedimmoderately at the most trifling joke, and displayed such uttersimplicity that Frederick at first took him for a wag, and finallyregarded him as a booby.
The young man found it impossible, therefore, to be effusive withanyone; and he was constantly looking forward to an invitation from theDambreuses.
On New Year's Day, he sent them visiting-cards, but received none inreturn.
He made his way back to the office of _L'Art Industriel_.
A third time he returned to it, and at last saw Arnoux carrying on anargument with five or six persons around him. He scarcely responded tothe young man's bow; and Frederick was wounded by this reception. Nonethe less he cogitated over the best means of finding his way to herside.
His first idea was to come frequently to the shop on the pretext ofgetting pictures at low prices. Then he conceived the notion of slippinginto the letter-box of the journal a few "very strong" articles, whichmight lead to friendly relations. Perhaps it would be better to gostraight to the mark at once, and declare his love? Acting on thisimpulse, he wrote a letter covering a dozen pages, full of lyricmovements and apostrophes; but he tore it up, and did nothing, attemptednothing--bereft of motive power by his want of success.
Above Arnoux's shop, there were, on the first floor, three windows whichwere lighted up every evening. Shadows might be seen moving about behindthem, especially one; this was hers; and he went very far out of his wayin order to gaze at these windows and to contemplate this shadow.
A negress who crossed his path one day in the Tuileries, holding alittle girl by the hand, recalled to his mind Madame Arnoux's negress.She was sure to come there, like the others; every time he passedthrough the Tuileries, his heart began to beat with the anticipation ofmeeting her. On sunny days he continued his walk as far as the end ofthe Champs-Elysees.
Women seated with careless ease in open carriages, and with their veilsfloating in the wind, filed past close to him, their horses advancing ata steady walking pace, and with an unconscious see-saw movement thatmade the varnished leather of the harness crackle. The vehicles becamemore numerous, and, slackening their motion after they had passed thecircular space where the roads met, they took up the entire track. Thehorses' manes and the carriage lamps were close to each other. The steelstirrups, the silver curbs and the brass rings, flung, here and there,luminous points in the midst of the short breeches, the white gloves,and the furs, falling over the blazonry of the carriage doors. He feltas if he were lost in some far-off world. His eyes wandered along therows of female heads, and certain vague resemblances brought back MadameArnoux to his recollection. He pictured her to himself, in the midst ofthe others, in one of those little broughams like Madame Dambreuse'sbrougham.
But the sun was setting, and the cold wind raised whirling clouds ofdust. The coachmen let their chins sink into their neckcloths; thewheels began to revolve more quickly; the road-metal grated; and all theequipages descended the long sloping avenue at a quick trot, touching,sweeping past one another, getting out of one another's way; then, atthe Place de la Concorde, they went off in different directions. Behindthe Tuileries, there was a patch of slate-coloured sky. The trees of thegarden formed two enormous masses violet-hued at their summits. Thegas-lamps were lighted; and the Seine, green all over, was torn intostrips of silver moire, near the piers of the bridges.
He went to get a dinner for forty-three sous in a restaurant in the Ruede la Harpe. He glanced disdainfully at the old mahogany counter, thesoiled napkins, the dingy silver-plate, and the hats hanging up on thewall.
Those around him were students like himself. They talked about theirprofessors, and about their mistresses. Much he cared about professors!Had he a mistress? To avoid being a witness of their enjoyment, he cameas late as possible. The tables were all strewn with remnants of food.The two waiters, worn out with attendance on customers, lay asleep, eachin a corner of his own; and an odour of cooking, of an argand lamp, andof tobacco, filled the deserted dining-room. Then he slowly toiled upthe streets again. The gas lamps vibrated, casting on the mud longyellowish shafts of flickering light. Shadowy forms surmounted byumbrellas glided along the footpaths. The pavement was slippery; the foggrew thicker, and it seemed to him that the moist gloom, wrapping himaround, descended into the depths of his heart.
He was smitten with a vague remorse. He renewed his attendance atlectures. But as he was entirely ignorant of the matters which formedthe subject of explanation, things of the simplest description puzzledhim. He set about writing a novel entitled _Sylvio, the Fisherman'sSon_. The scene of the story was Venice. The hero was himself, andMadame Arnoux was the heroine. She was called Antonia; and, to getpossession of her, he assassinated a number of noblemen, and burned aportion of the city; after which achievements he sang a serenade underher balcony, where fluttered in the breeze the red damask curtains ofthe Boulevard Montmartre.
The reminiscences, far too numerous, on which he dwelt produced adisheartening effect on him; he went no further with the work, and hismental vacuity redoubled.
After this, he begged of Deslauriers to come and share his apartment.They might make arrangements to live together with the aid of hisallowance of two thousand francs; anything would be better than thisintolerable existence. Deslauriers could not yet leave Troyes. He urgedhis friend to find some means of distracting his thoughts, and, withthat end in view, suggested that he should call on Senecal.
Senecal was a mathematical tutor, a hard-headed man with republicanconvictions, a future Saint-Just, according to the clerk. Frederickascended the five flights, up which he lived, three times in succession,without getting a visit from him in return. He did not go back to theplace.
He now went in for amusing himself. He attended the balls at the OperaHouse. These exhibitions of riotous gaiety froze him the moment he hadpassed the door. Besides, he was restrained by the fear of beingsubjected to insult on the subject of money, his notion being that asupper with a domino, entailing considerable expense, was rather a bigadventure.
It seemed to him, however, that he must needs love her. Sometimes heused to wake up with his heart full of hope, dressed himself carefullyas if he were going to keep an appointment, and started on interminableexcursions all over Paris. Whenever a woman was walking in front of him,or coming in his direction, he would say: "Here she is!" Every time itwas only a fresh disappointment. The idea of Madame Arnoux strengthenedthese desires. Perhaps he might find her on his way; and he conjured updangerous complications, extraordinary perils from which he would saveher, in order to get near her.
So the days slipped by with the same tiresome experiences, andenslavement to contracted habits. He turned over the pages of pamphletsunder the arcades of the Odeon, went to read the _Revue des Deux Mondes_at the cafe, entered the hall of the College de France, and for an hourstopped to listen to a lecture on Chinese or political economy. Everyweek he wrote long letters to Deslauriers, dined from time to time withMartinon, and occasionally saw M. de Cisy. He hired a piano and composedGerman waltzes.
One evening at the theatre of the Palais-Royal, he perceived, in one ofthe stage-boxes, Arnoux with a woman by his side. Was it she? The screenof green taffeta, pulled over the side of the box, hid her face. Atlength, the curtain rose, and the screen was drawn aside. She was a tallwoman of about thirty, rather faded, and, when she laughed, her thicklips uncovered a row of shining teeth. She chatted familia
rly withArnoux, giving him, from time to time, taps, with her fan, on thefingers. Then a fair-haired young girl with eyelids a little red, as ifshe had just been weeping, seated herself between them. Arnoux afterthat remained stooped over her shoulder, pouring forth a stream of talkto which she listened without replying. Frederick taxed his ingenuity tofind out the social position of these women, modestly attired in gownsof sober hue with flat, turned-up collars.
At the close of the play, he made a dash for the passages. The crowd ofpeople going out filled them up. Arnoux, just in front of him, wasdescending the staircase step by step, with a woman on each arm.
Suddenly a gas-burner shed its light on him. He wore a crape hat-band.She was dead, perhaps? This idea tormented Frederick's mind so much,that he hurried, next day, to the office of _L'Art Industriel_, andpaying, without a moment's delay, for one of the engravings exposed inthe window for sale, he asked the shop-assistant how was MonsieurArnoux.
The shop-assistant replied:
"Why, quite well!"
Frederick, growing pale, added:
"And Madame?"
"Madame, also."
Frederick forgot to carry off his engraving.
The winter drew to an end. He was less melancholy in the spring time,and began to prepare for his examination. Having passed itindifferently, he started immediately afterwards for Nogent.
He refrained from going to Troyes to see his friend, in order to escapehis mother's comments. Then, on his return to Paris at the end of thevacation, he left his lodgings, and took two rooms on the Quai Napoleonwhich he furnished. He had given up all hope of getting an invitationfrom the Dambreuses. His great passion for Madame Arnoux was beginningto die out.
Sentimental Education; Or, The History of a Young Man. Volume 1 Page 3
