Complete Works of George Moore

by George Moore

  “Darling, I was thinking of a very strange story I once heard”; and Lewis asked her to tell this story, but she said she did not like to tell it, for he did not believe that the world of the spirit and the world of the flesh were but two aspects of the same thing.

  “Don’t stir, Lucy,” he cried; “but just look. Which are your legs and which are mine? Is that leg yours? Is this one mine?”

  “Our legs are alike,” she said; “but what has your question to do with what I was saying?”

  “Well, nothing,” he answered; “I was only struck by the similarity. Our legs are indistinguishable in black stockings.”

  “If you were interested in what I was saying, you wouldn’t have noticed our legs.”

  “I was most interested,” he answered, “and am longing to hear your story, and you must know quite well that the thought wanders, but returns quickly. Isn’t that what you were saying — that our thoughts were set wandering lest the past might never become the past?”

  “I did say that, and was going to tell you a story about a wonderful thing that befell two gentlemen walking in the fields about the Petit Trianon. But I’ll not tell you.”

  “Because I admired your legs. How unjust you are! “He could read in her face that she would tell him the story, and was only doubtful how he might effectually persuade her to relate it; to do so he allowed their talk to drop, and during the intervals of silence he said: “Very well, Lucy, of course if you don’t like to tell the story, don’t tell it; but I’m sorry you should think that I deny altogether the spiritual side of life.”

  “Tell me,” she answered—” you are not altogether a cynic, are you?”

  He begged her to believe that he was not; and she told how two gentlemen walking in the gardens and woodland of the Petit Trianon became aware suddenly that they were looking upon a garden and woodland similar to those they had seen before, but not altogether the same. “For instance,” said one, “there is a brook, and I am certain it was not there last year.”

  “I was thinking the same,” his companion answered. “That brook is new to me.” A little farther on they came to a staircase, and saw a page running down the steps. “Nor was that flight of steps there last year. Let us follow the page and perhaps he will solve the mystery.” And they went in search of the theatricals, deeming that the page must be a performer in them. “It must be so,” each said to the other, “but not having an invitation we shall be intruders”; and, on leaving the gardens, they began to relate to each other their experiences in detail, becoming more and more convinced that a vision had been vouchsafed to them. To put the matter to the test they returned to the garden next day, wondering how they should see it — as it was or as it had once been; and not being able to discover any of the things they had seen yesterday — neither the brook nor the flight of steps — they went to the National Library and asked for plans of the gardens as they existed in the days of Marie Antoinette; and to their great surprise they found the brook and the flight of steps; likewise information to the effect that the Queen’s pages were always running down that flight of steps they had seen.

  “But, Lucy, to substantiate your theory, the two gentlemen should have gone to the Petit Trianon desiring so ardently to see Marie Antoinette that their desires were able to call her out of the shades.”

  “They saw her painting,” Lucy interjected.

  “And your explanation is that the two men were thinking so intently of the time when Marie Antoinette went forth with her ladies to milk the cows that the past returned responsive to their prayer?”

  “No; that is not my explanation. As far as I remember, the gentlemen declared that they were not thinking of Marie Antoinette. The page they saw was a phantom, a ghost, an image thrown back from the past. But of what are you thinking, Lewis?”

  “Of you, dear — of your figure; you are as slender as a young girl. You could pose in the studio. Your breasts are the same as they always were.”

  “I’m a little thicker in the hips than I used to be; but I don’t think I’ve changed much. We both have long slim legs, undistinguishable in black stockings. But tell me, why do you wear black stockings?”

  “Because I used to wear shoes, and my socks kept slipping, and the suspenders that men wear to hold up their socks hurt.”

  “Is that the only reason, Lewis?... And now, Lewis, we are both very tired; we have talked and talked again, and it is broad daylight, and neither you nor I can keep our eyes open. Good-bye, darling, till the afternoon. When the studio closes, you will find us about five o’clock.”

  And, kissing her, he said he would not go to the studio. He might go there in the afternoon for an hour or two; but perhaps it would be better to forego the studio. “Every dog deserves a holiday, and I haven’t missed an hour for many and many a month. I will let to-morrow be a holiday — a thanksgiving for last night.” He kissed her again, and in a revival of love they lay in each other’s arms for quite a long while, and it was through a happy weariness of spirit and flesh that she heard the door sweep over the carpet, and thought that she would fall asleep at once. But as soon as he was gone thought began to quicken in her, and she remembered that she had gotten at last something to live for, something to love. She would see Lewis every day. Only a few hours and she would see him again. He had said he was not going to the studio, and might come to breakfast. After breakfast they might go for a drive, as he was not working in the studio that day. And after dinner they might go to the opera. How delightful the returning would be: to hear him talking to her and to know that she was talking to him! How wonderful! And to forget all the world! She had almost forgotten it already. Nothing seemed to matter but this fever of anticipation; never to sink back into the lethargy she had come out of, but to have Lewis always present before her in her mind. How wonderful! She had been seeking him always; he had been her quest, and she had found him.

  CHAP. XX.

  “ARE YOU SURE, Lewis, that French history — this hobby of mine — has any interest for you?”

  Lewis answered that he could not go through life without knowing who built Versailles, and who milked the cows at Trianon and made the butter; and he said that he was impatient to hear how the shrieks of Madame du Barry on the scaffold brought the Reign of Terror to an end. In answer to his asseverations Lucy told him that the King and Queen and all their nobles met their deaths with stoic indifference — Marie Antoinette without a sigh, without a tear. She had suffered so much that the day of her death must have seemed to her happy; if not happy, at least less terrible than many days she had lived through.

  “We are now going,” she continued, “to the Conciergerie”; and as they drove to it she told him it was originally the palace of the early Kings of France — of the Crusader, St. Louis, the King who went to Palestine several times and killed many Arabs in his attempt to recover the Holy Sepulchre, and place it for evermore in Christian hands. She said that the chapel still existed in ruins or intact — she did not know which; but remembered that during the Revolution the Conciergerie was the principal prison. “We shall be taken,” she continued, “through the kitchens of St. Louis’s palace, now the Buvette des Avocats; and it was in that room every prisoner was received, and it was from that room every prisoner went to the tumbril that waited to take him to the scaffold. Aren’t you moved?”

  “Yes, indeed, I am,” he said; but in truth the walls were mute to him, and without Lucy’s face to read would have had no meaning at all.

  After leaving the Conciergerie he hoped she would propose a visit to the Louvre, but they drove to the Convent des Carmes, and Lewis learnt that it was here the prelates were all massacred. After the priest was tried and acquitted of all wrongdoing, the formula was, “Laissez passer monsieur”; and thinking that he had escaped both prison and guillotine, the priest walked out into the open air to be killed by the pikemen. One priest managed to escape into the garden, and Lucy related how the assassins allowed the priest to think he had succeeded in eluding them
, uttering words to deceive him, asking each other if he had escaped over the wall, knowing well that no escape was possible. “He must,” they said, “have climbed up some tree, and from thence dropped from a branch on to the wall.” These words were spoken to inspire hope, it being judged that his punishment could be increased by the false hopes. “So there he is!” was the cry as soon as the man emerged from his hiding-place; and the hunting began again. “These huntings were known as the cassock-hunting,” Lucy said.

  As soon as they returned to the victoria the coachman asked them whither they would like to go, and to please Lucy Lewis said that he would like to see other rememberable places; but Lucy told him that they had seen the two principal places — many others there had been, but these were swept away, everybody being anxious to rid himself of the painful associated memories. But there were old palaces that she would like to show him, and they drove about, visiting different sights. La Place des Vosges, she told him, was the most fashionable quarter in Paris at one time; it was now given up to small tradesmen and their families. The last great man that had lived there was Victor Hugo. Lewis cried out, “Paris is wonderful!” and they drove day after day through Paris, visiting old streets and churches and inns, Lucy relating stories, till at length she began to speak of the French country of which Lewis knew nothing, and she told him of the palaces that the Kings of France had built in the country of the Loire: if he wished to learn French history in an agreeable manner they might journey from castle to castle, and from the guide that would conduct them through the rooms he would learn a good deal more of the history of France than she could tell him.

  “Blois is but an hour or two from Paris,” she said; and the next day the train took them to a pleasant sunny town by a deep river, at the sight of which Lewis said, “Is that really the Loire?” and he thought that if he ever made sufficient money by painting he would like to buy a house in Blois with a large garden about it. The house and garden of his imagination occupied his thoughts more than the castle did; Lucy thought that he hardly saw it, but he assured her that he admired the spiral staircase designed — so it was said — by Leonardo da Vinci. The state-rooms seemed to him too formal, and he said that life must have been dreary in the castle; but he was interested in the pictures, especially in one of a holy family painted by Ingres, in the manner of Raphael. He thought it better than Raphael; and they went away to Souches and went through many rooms and heard stories of the Kings of France: how they lived and died — very often murdered. From thence they proceeded to Amboise, and heard more stories of Kings and Princes and great nobles, and the impression left upon their minds was that all these rich people lived in cold palaces insufficiently warmed by great wood fires, scenting themselves instead of washing, for bathrooms were almost unknown in the eighteenth century, only bidets; “and that shallow vessel,” Lewis said, “has become the symbol of the eighteenth century... of its ideas and sensations,” he added after a pause. “Isn’t that so?” he asked, and as she did not answer, he concluded that she was dreaming of the discomfort of living without a bath, she saw the great nobles going forth on palfreys with hawks on their wrists. One day, as they emerged from a close of ancient walls, Lewis said: “Lucy, the country is beautiful, but it is smug. Even our South of England is not as smug as the country of the Loire, in which the men seem to fish admirably from morning to evening, watching their floats carried down by the slow current — emblems of hope and patience.”

  “But do they catch anything?” she asked, and he said that was a secondary consideration.

  “It is plain that they fish admirably”; and the joke became one of their little intimacies, a little secret to which they could return with pleasure, and which united them — a sort of communion.

  “You will like Fontainebleau better,” she said, and he answered:

  “Fontainebleau is in a forest country, and I’ve never seen a forest. We have no forests in England of any great extent, and who wouldn’t like to visit a palace in a forest?”

  And a few days after this remark they were in Fontainebleau walking towards the palace, and having listened to the guide’s patter till their brains were weary of it, they walked into the gardens and stood leaning over the balustrade, conscious of the great history that lay behind. They had seen the room in which Napoleon had signed the treaty of abdication. But he was, after all, only an intruder, not having added one high roof to the castle, nor brought a statue hither; nor was he even responsible for the furniture in the castle, nor for the designs of the gardens. This was Lewis’s view, but Lucy would have been only faintly interested in Fontainebleau if Napoleon had not been there, and if the treaty of abdication had not been signed in the castle. The French Kings had looked upon Fontainebleau as a hunting-lodge; so there must have always been a place of some sort at Fontainebleau.

  One of the Henrys built a house for his mistress in the environs of the town, and Lewis, always interested in mistresses, cried aloud that they must go to see her house. “La belle Gabrielle,” he repeated again and again. “Who knows but we may see her vanish at the end of a gallery, or come upon her leaning over a balcony, watching the sun setting? Do you know any other story, Lucy, of the past returning suddenly? “ and, after thinking a moment, she remembered another revival of the past, coming suddenly upon a party of Florentines that had gone into some woods and were sitting at breakfast under the trees. A naked woman came through the brambles torn and bleeding, and the dogs that hunted her were followed by a huntsman in green hat and jerkin. And when he was asked why he urged the hounds to attack the woman, he related that it was his privilege to wreak vengeance through eternity upon the woman who had deceived him. “An Italian folk-tale, no doubt, but containing, perhaps, a little truth,” she said to herself, and at that moment became conscious that the evening closing slowly over the gardens had befallen not once, but ten thousand times before — the same blue fading into roseate grey, without a cloud, without a wind, had been admired by ladies in hoops and powders and high wigs. Nor was she the first woman that had followed her lover round these fish-ponds admiring the evening. The same evening and the same dreams had been entertained by how many women? At every moment she felt the vision to be imminent. As none appeared, she inclined to the belief that her thoughts were not intent. If she could only detach her mind from the present, the past might reappear — if not to Lewis, to her. She asked herself if it be not true that every eye sees things that no other eye sees.... If Lewis was away she might have been able to detach herself from the present, but he was by her side, and she in the joy of living. A year and a half, nearly two years, had passed since the day she saw Lewis for the first time in Mr. Carver’s shop. She was then thirty-four, now she was thirty-six. A year of the short time of life allowed a woman for love had been wasted, and in ten years she would be no longer fit for love. She might keep him for ten years, but after ten years she would have to hand him over to another woman, whom he would marry, and who would bear him children; and she wondered who this woman would be, and if the wife would suffer when she learnt that she was not his first love, Lewis having had a mistress for many years. Would she, the mistress, hate the wife? And would she suffer at this surrender of her happiness, and retire gracefully into middle age?

  She turned to admire the young man by her side, and his grace as he leaned over the balustrade brought a swimming behind the eyes. She might retain him for some ten or a dozen years, till she was forty-five; at fifty a woman’s life is really over, and she began to wonder how the sensual coil would break; if weariness or some accident would break it; or the arrival of another woman, a misfortune that might befall her at any moment, for she could see that all attracted him, he being a very young man.

  One of the first pieces of worldly wisdom she learned from her husband was that a man did not care for a woman for more than a year or eighteen months unless she produced a child. If she did, love began again, and on a new lease. He had a good knowledge of human nature, and what he said had a ring of
truth about it; he had had experience among women, and said they were the same as men. Women had tired of him sometimes before he had begun to tire of them: he had been flung out. The words “flung out” frightened her, and she asked herself if it could be her fate to be flung out. Would it not be better to break with Lewis? But that she could not do, any more than she could throw herself over the balustrade into the fish-ponds; and she took refuge in the thought that we continue to live though we know we shall die some day for certain; and, despite the possibility of dying of some painful disease, we continue to live because it is such a natural thing to live, and in like manner it is a natural thing for a woman to yield to a man and to love him despite his faults.... She knows them, but knowledge does not help us to shape our lives wisely; they are shapen for us; and she fell to thinking of the progress Lewis had made during the year and the success he had been in Paris. He was thought highly of by the professors, for they had adjudged to him prizes, saying that his natural genius was of the decorative order, and the essential now was for him to try to improve the quality of his painting. The quality of his painting had improved — her own eyes told her that: “The Road in the Woods” was beautiful, the best thing he had done; he thought so himself, and she liked to think that her influence had counted for something in the development of his talent. It was she who had discovered the lake, high up on the top of the rocky hill; and seeing in it a subject for a picture, she had brought him to it. It was her point of view he had painted. A man usually owed a good deal of his inspiration to his mistress. The Fornarina revealed to Raphael the beauty of women, and Rubens’s artistic debt to his wives is admitted by everybody. It was a pity she was not ten years older; if she were forty-five she would adopt Lewis. But the part of a mother would be a cold portion; and overcome by a sudden remembrance, she cried out within herself, “Only one relation is possible.”