In the Days of My Youth: A Novel
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CHAPTER XL
THE ENIGMA OF THE THIRD STORY.
Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?--MARLOWE.
In Paris, a lodging-house (or, as they prefer to style it, a _hotelmeuble_) is a little town in itself; a beehive swarming from basement toattic; a miniature model of the great world beyond, with all its lovesand hatreds, jealousies, aspirations, and struggles. Like that world, itcontains several grades of society, but with this difference, that thosewho therein occupy the loftiest position are held in the lowestestimation. Thus, the fifth-floor lodgers turn up their noses at theinhabitants of the attics; while the fifth-floor is in its turn scornedby the fourth, and the fourth is despised by the third, and the third bythe second, down to the magnificent dwellers on _the premier etage_, wholive in majestic disdain of everybody above or beneath them, from thegrisettes in the garret, to the _concierge_ who has care of the cellars.
The house in which I lived in the Cite Bergere was, in fact, a doublehouse, and contained no fewer than thirty tenants, some of whom hadwives, children, and servants. It consisted of six floors, and eachfloor contained from eight to ten rooms. These were let in singlechambers, or in suites, as the case might be; and on the outer doorsopening round the landings were painted the names, or affixed thevisiting-cards, of the dwellers within. My own third-floor neighborswere four in number. To my left lived a certain Monsieur and MadameLemercier, a retired couple from Alsace. Opposite their door, on theother side of the well staircase, dwelt one Monsieur Cliquot, an elderly_employe_ in some public office; next to him, Signor Milanesi, anItalian refugee who played in the orchestra at the _Varietes_ everynight, was given to practising the violoncello by day, and wore as muchhair about his face as a Skye-terrier. Lastly, in the apartment to myright, resided a lady, upon whose door was nailed a small visiting-cardengraved with these words:--
MLLE. HORTENSE DUFRESNOY.
_Teacher of Languages_.
I had resided in the house for months before I ever beheld thisMademoiselle Hortense Dufresnoy. When I did at last encounter her uponthe stairs one dusk autumnal evening, she wore a thick black veil, and,darting past me like a bird on the wing, disappeared down the staircasein fewer moments than I take to write it. I scarcely observed her at thetime. I had no more curiosity to learn whether the face under that veilwas pretty or plain than I cared to know whether the veil itself wasShetland or Chantilly. At that time Paris was yet new to me: Madame deMarignan's evil influence was about me; and, occupied as my time andthoughts were with unprofitable matters, I took no heed of myfellow-lodgers. Save, indeed, when the groans of that much-torturedvioloncello woke me in the morning to an unwelcome consciousness of thevicinity of Signor Milanesi, I should scarcely have remembered that Iwas not the only inhabitant of the third story.
Now, however, that I spent all my evenings in my own quiet room, Ibecame, by imperceptible degrees, interested in the unseen inhabitant ofthe adjoining apartment. Sometimes, when the house was so still that thevery turning of the page sounded unnaturally loud, and the mere fallingof a cinder startled me, I heard her in her chamber, singing softly toherself. Every night I saw the light from her window streaming out overthe balcony and touching the evergreens with a midnight glow. Often andoften, when it was so late that even I had given up study and gone tobed, I heard her reading aloud, or pacing to and fro to the measure ofher own recitations. Listen as I would, I could only make out that theserecitations were poetical fragments--I could only distinguish a certainchanted metre, the chiming of an occasional rhyme, the rising andfalling of a voice more than commonly melodious.
This vague interest gave place by-and-by to active curiosity. I resolvedto question Madame Bouisse, the _concierge_; and as she, good soul!loved gossip not wisely, but too well, I soon knew all the little shehad to tell.
Mademoiselle Hortense, it appeared, was the enigma of the third story.She had resided in the house for more than two years. She earned herliving by her labor; went out teaching all the day; sat up at night,studying and writing; had no friends; received no visitors; was asindustrious as a bee, and as proud as a princess. Books and flowers wereher only friends, and her only luxuries. Poor as she was, she wascontinually filling her shelves with the former, and supplying herbalcony with the latter. She lived frugally, drank no wine, wassingularly silent and reserved, and "like a real lady," said the fat_concierge_, "paid her rent to the minute."
This, and no more, had Madame Bouisse to tell. I had sought her in herown little retreat at the foot of the public staircase. It was a verywet afternoon, and under pretext of drying my boots by the fire, Istayed to make conversation and elicit what information I could. NowMadame Bouisse's sanctuary was a queer, dark, stuffy little cupboarddevoted to many heterogeneous uses, and it "served her for parlor,kitchen, and all." In one corner stood that famous article of furniturewhich became "a bed by night, a chest of drawers by day." Adjoining thebed was the fireplace; near the fireplace stood a corner cupboard filledwith crockery and surmounted by a grand ormolu clock, singularly atvariance with the rest of the articles. A table, a warming-pan, and acouple of chairs completed the furniture of the room, which, with allits contents, could scarcely have measured more than eight feet square.On a shelf inside the door stood thirty flat candlesticks; and on a rowof nails just beneath them, hung two and twenty bright brasschamber-door keys--whereby an apt arithmetician might have divined thatexactly two-and-twenty lodgers were out in the rain, and only eighthoused comfortably within doors.
"And how old should you suppose this lady to be?" I asked, leaning idlyagainst the table whereon Madame Bouisse was preparing an unsavory dishof veal and garlic.
The _concierge_ shrugged her ponderous shoulders.
"Ah, bah, M'sieur, I am no judge of age," said she.
"Well--is she pretty?"
"I am no judge of beauty, either," grinned Madame Bouisse.
"But, my dear soul," I expostulated, "you have eyes!"
"Yours are younger than mine, _mon enfant_," retorted the fat_concierge_; "and, as I see Mam'selle Hortense coming up to the door,I'd advise you to make use of them for yourself."
And there, sure enough, was a tall and slender girl, dressed all inblack, pausing to close up her umbrella at the threshold of the outerdoorway. A porter followed her, carrying a heavy parcel. Havingdeposited this in the passage, he touched his cap and stated his charge.The young lady took out her purse, turned over the coins, shook herhead, and finally came up to Madame's little sanctuary.
"Will you be so obliging, Madame Bouisse," she said, "as to lend me apiece of ten sous? I have no small change left in my purse."
How shall I describe her? If I say that she was not particularlybeautiful, I do her less than justice; for she was beautiful, with apale, grave, serious beauty, unlike the ordinary beauty of woman. Buteven this, her beauty of feature, and color, and form, was eclipsed andoverborne by that "true beauty of the soul" which outshines all other,as the sun puts out the stars.
There was in her face--or, perhaps, rather in her expression--anindefinable something that came upon me almost like a memory. Had I seenthat face in some forgotten dream of long ago? Brown-haired was she, andpale, with a brow "as chaste ice, as pure as snow," and eyes--
"In whose orb a shadow lies, Like the dusk in evening skies!"
Eyes lit from within, large, clear, lustrous, with a meaning in them soprofound and serious that it was almost sorrowful,--like the eyes ofGiotto's saints and Cimabue's Madonnas.
But I cannot describe her--
"For oh, her looks had something excellent That wants a name!"
I can only look back upon her with "my mind's eye," trying to see her asI saw her then for the first time, and striving to recall my firstimpressions.
Madame Bouisse, meanwhile, searched in all the corners of her amplepockets, turned out her table-drawer, dived into the recesses of herhusband's empty garments, and peeped into every ornament upon thechimney-piece; but in vain. There was no such thing as a ten-sous
pieceto be found.
"Pray, M'sieur Basil," said she, "have you one?"
"One what?" I ejaculated, startled out of my reverie.
"Why, a ten-sous piece, to be sure. Don't you see that Mam'selleHortense is waiting in her wet shoes, and that I have been hunting forthe last five minutes, and can't find one anywhere?"
Blushing like a school-boy, and stammering some unintelligible excuse, Ipulled out a handful of francs and half-francs, and produced thecoin required.
"_Dame_!" said the _concierge_. "This comes of using one's eyes toowell, my young Monsieur. Hem! I'm not so blind but that I can see as faras my neighbors."
Mademoiselle Hortense had fortunately gone back to settle with theporter, so this observation passed unheard. The man being dismissed, shecame back, carrying the parcel. It was evidently heavy, and she put itdown on the nearest chair.
"I fear, Madame Bouisse," she said, "that I must ask you to help me withthis. I am not strong enough to carry it upstairs."
More alert this time, I took a step in advance, and offered my services.
"Will Mademoiselle permit me to take it?" I said. "I am goingupstairs."
She hesitated.
"Many thanks," she said, reluctantly, "but...."
"But Madame Bouisse is busy," I urged, "and the _pot au feu_ will spoilif she leaves it on the fire."
The fat _concierge_ nodded, and patted me on the shoulder.
"Let him carry the parcel, Mam'selle Hortense," she chuckled. "Let himcarry it. M'sieur is your neighbor, and neighbors should be neighborly.Besides," she added, in an audible aside, "he is a _bon garcon_--anEnglishman--and a book-student like yourself."
The young lady bent her head, civilly, but proudly. Compelled, as itseemed, to accept my help, she evidently wished to show me that I mustnevertheless put forward no claim to further intercourse--not even onthe plea of neighborhood. I understood her, and taking up the parcel,followed her in silence to her door on the third story. Here she pausedand thanked me.
"Pray let me carry it in for you," I said.
Again she hesitated; but only for an instant. Too well-bred not to seethat a refusal would now be a discourtesy, she unlocked the door, andheld it open.
The first room was an ante-chamber; the second a _salon_ somewhat largerthan my own, with a door to the right, leading into what I supposedwould be her bedroom. At a glance, I took in all the details of herhome. There was her writing-table laden with books and papers, her desk,and her pile of manuscripts. At one end of the room stood a piano doingduty as a side-board, and looking as if it were seldom opened. Somewater-color drawings were pinned against the walls, and a well-filledbookcase stood in a recess beside the fireplace. Nothing escaped me--not even the shaded reading-lamp, nor the plain ebony time-piece, northe bronze Apollo on the bracket above the piano, nor the sword over themantelpiece, which seemed a strange ornament in the study of a gentlelady. Besides all this, there were books everywhere, heaped upon thetables, ranged on shelves, piled in corners, and scattered hither andthither in most admired disorder. It was, however, the onlydisorder there.
I longed to linger, but dared not. Having laid the parcel down upon thenearest chair, there was nothing left for me to do but to take my leave.Mademoiselle Dufresnoy still kept her hand upon the door.
"Accept my best thanks, sir," she said in English, with a pretty foreignaccent, that seemed to give new music to the dear familiar tongue.
"You have nothing to thank me for, Mademoiselle," I replied.
She smiled, proudly still, but very sweetly, and closed the door uponme.
I went back to my room; it had become suddenly dark and desolate. Itried to read; but all subjects seemed alike tedious and unprofitable. Icould fix my attention to nothing; and so, becoming restless, I went outagain, and wandered about the dusky streets till evening fairly set in,and the shops were lighted, and the tide of passers-by began to flowfaster in the direction of boulevard and theatre.
The soft light of her shaded lamp streamed from her window when I cameback, nor faded thence till two hours after midnight. I watched it allthe long evening, stealing out from time to time upon my balcony, whichadjoined her own, and welcoming the cool night air upon my brow. For Iwas fevered and disquieted, I knew not why, and my heart was stirredwithin me, strangely and sweetly.
Such was my first meeting with Hortense Dufresnoy. No incident of it hassince faded from my memory. Brief as it was, it had already turned allthe current of my life. I had fallen in love at first sight. Yes--inlove; for love it was--real, passionate, earnest; a love destined to bethe master-passion of all my future years.