Collected Works of Booth Tarkington

by Booth Tarkington

  ELOISE [stunned]. Oh!

  VALSIN [going on, cheerily]. No one else can do that, Citizeness. Jacobins, Cordeliers, Hébertists, even the shattered relics of the Gironde itself, all alike join in the colossal laughter at this Tricoteuse in Sèvres — this Jeanne d’Arc in rice-powder!

  ELOISE [tragically]. They laugh — and proclaim her an outlaw!

  VALSIN [waving his hand carelessly]. Oh, it is only that we are sweeping up the last remnants of aristocracy, and she goes with the rest — into the dust-heap. She should have remained a royalist; the final spectacle might have had dignity. As it is, she is not of her own class, not of ours: neither fish nor flesh nor — but yes, perhaps, after all, she is a fowl.

  ELOISE [brokenly]. Alas! — Homing — with wounded wing!

  [She sinks into a chair with pathetic grace, her face in her hands.]

  VALSIN [surreptitiously grinning]. Not at all what I meant. [Brutally.] Peacocks don’t fly.

  ELOISE [regaining her feet at a bound]. You imitation dandy! You —

  VALSIN [with benevolence]. My dear, your indignation for your friend is chivalrous. It is admirable; but she is not worth it. You do not understand her: you have probably seen her so much that you have never seen her as she is.

  ELOISE [witheringly]. But you, august Zeus, having never seen her, will reveal her to me!

  VALSIN [smoothly urbane]. If you have ears. You see, she is not altogether unique, but of a variety known to men who are wise enough to make a study of women.

  ELOISE [snapping out a short, loud laugh in his face]. Pouf!

  VALSIN [unruffled]. I profess myself an apprentice. The science itself is but in its infancy. Women themselves understand very well that they are to be classified, and they fear that we shall perceive it: they do not really wish to be known. Yet it is coming; some day our cyclopedists will have you sorted, classed, and defined with precision; but the d’Alembert of the future will not be a woman, because no woman so disloyal will ever be found. Men have to acquire loyalty to their sex: yours is an instinct. Citizen governess, I will give you a reading of the little d’Anville from this unwritten work. To begin —

  ELOISE [feverishly interested, but affecting languor]. Must you?

  VALSIN. TO Eloise d’Anville the most interesting thing about a rose-bush has always been that Eloise d’Anville could smell it. Moonlight becomes important when it falls upon her face; sunset is worthy when she grows rosy in it. To her mind, the universe was set in motion to be the background for a decoration, and she is the decoration. She believes that the cathedral was built for the fresco. And when a dog interests her, it is because he would look well beside her in a painting. Such dogs have no minds. I refer you to all the dogs in the portraits of Beauties.

  ELOISE [not at all displeased; pretending carelessness]. Ah, you have heard that she is beautiful?

  VALSIN. Far worse: that she is a Beauty. Let nothing ever tempt you, my dear, into setting up in that line. For you are very wellappearing, I assure you; and if you had been surrounded with all the disadvantages of the d’Anville, who knows but that you might have become as famous a Beauty as she? What makes a Beauty is not the sumptuous sculpture alone, but a very peculiar arrogance — not in the least arrogance of mind, my little governess. In this, your d’Anville emerged from childhood full-panoplied indeed; and the feather- head court fell headlong at her feet. It was the fated creature’s ruin.

  ELOISE [placidly]. And it is because of her beauty that you drag her to the guillotine?

  VALSIN. Bless you, I merely convey her!

  ELOISE. Tell me, logician, was it not her beauty that inspired her to give her property to the Nation?

  VALSIN. It was.

  ELOISE. What perception! I am faint with admiration. And no doubt it was her beauty that made her a Republican?

  VALSIN. What else?

  ELOISE. Hail, oracle!

  [She releases an arpeggio of satiric laughter.]

  VALSIN. That laugh is diaphanous. I see you through it, already convinced.

  [She stops laughing immediately.] Ha! we may proceed. Remark this, governess: a Beauty is the living evidence of man’s immortality; the one plain proof that he has a soul.

  ELOISE. It is not so bad then, after all?

  VALSIN. It is utterly bad. But of all people a Beauty is most conscious of her duality. Her whole life is based upon her absolute knowledge that her Self and her body are two. She sacrifices all things to her beauty because her beauty feeds her Self with a dreadful food which it has made her unable to live without.

  ELOISE. My little gentleman, you talk like a sentimental waiter. Your metaphors are all hot from the kitchen.

  VALSIN [nettled]. It is natural; unlike your Eloise, I am really of “the People” — and starved much in my youth.

  ELOISE. But, like her, you are still hungry.

  VALSIN. A Beauty is a species of cannibal priestess, my dear. She will make burnt-offerings of her father and her mother, her sisters — her lovers — to her beauty, that it may in turn bring her the food she must have or perish.

  ELOISE. Bourn!

  [She snaps her fingers.]

  And of course she bathes in the blood of little children?

  VALSIN [grimly]. Often.

  ELOISE [averting her gaze from his]. This mysterious food —

  VALSIN. Not at all mysterious. Sensation.

  There you have it. And that is why Eloise d’Anville is a renegade. You understand perfectly.

  ELOISE. YOU are too polite. No.

  VALSIN [gaily]. Behold, then! Many women who are not Beauties are beautiful, but in such women you do not always discover beauty at your first glance: it is disclosed with a subtle tardiness. It does not dazzle; it is reluctant; but it grows as you look again and again. You get a little here, a little there, like glimpses of children hiding in a garden. It is shy, and sometimes closed in from you altogether, and then, unexpectedly, this belated loveliness springs into bloom before your very eyes. It retains the capacity of surprise, the vital element of charm. But the Beauty lays all waste before her at a stroke: it is soon over. Thus your Eloise, brought to court, startled Versailles; the sensation was overwhelming. Then Versailles got used to her, just as it had to its other prodigies: the fountains were there, the King was there, the d’An ville was there; and naturally, one had seen them; saw them every day — one talked of matters less accepted. That was horrible to Eloise. She had tasted; the appetite, once stirred, was insatiable. At any cost she must henceforth have always the sensation of being a sensation. She must be the pivot of a reeling world. So she went into politics. Ah, Citizeness, there was one man who understood Beauties — not Homer, who wrote of Helen! Romance is gallant by profession, and Homer lied like a poet. For the truth about the Trojan War is that the wise Ulysses made it, not because Paris stole Helen, but because the Trojans were threatening to bring her back.

  ELOISE [unwarily]. Who was the man that understood Beauties?

  VALSIN. Bluebeard.

  [He crosses the room to the dressing-table, leans his back against it in an easy attitude, his elbows resting upon the top.]

  ELOISE [slowly, a little tremulously]. And so Eloise d’An ville should have her head cut off?

  VALSIN. Well, she thought she was in politics, didn’t she? [Suavely.] You may be sure she thoroughly enjoyed her hallucination that she was a great figure in the Revolution — which was cutting off the heads of so many of her relatives and old friends! Don’t waste your pity, my dear.

  ELOISE [looking at him fixedly]. Citizen, you must have thought a great deal about my unhappy friend. She might be flattered by so searching an interest.

  VALSIN [negligently]. Not interest in her, governess, but in the Emigrant who cools his heels on the other side of that door, greatly to my enjoyment, waiting my pleasure to arrest him. The poor wretch is the one remaining lover of this girl: faithful because he let his passion for her become a habit; and he will never get over it until he has had possession. She has ma
de him suffer frightfully, but I shall never forgive her for not having dealt him the final stroke. It would have saved me all the bother I have been put to in avenging the injury he did me.

  ELOISE [frowning]. What “final stroke” could she have “dealt” him?

  VALSIN [with sudden vehement intensity]. She could have loved him!

  [He strikes the table with his fist.]

  I see it! I see it! Beauty’s husband! [Pound in g the table with each exclamation, his voice rising in excitement.] What a vision! This damned, proud, loving Louis, a pomade bearer! A buttoner! An errand-boy to the perfumer’s, to the chemist’s, to the milliner’s! A groom of the powder-closet —

  ELOISE [snatching at the opportunity]. How noisy you are!

  VALSIN [discomfited, apologetically]. You see, it is only so lately that we of “the People” have dared even to whisper. Of course, now that we are free to shout, we overdo it. We let our voices out, we let our joys out, we let our hates out. We let everything out — except our prisoners!

  [He smiles winningly.]

  ELOISE [slowly]. Do you guess what all this bluster — this tirade upon the wickedness of beauty — makes me think?

  VALSIN. Certainly. Being a woman, you cannot imagine a bitterness which is not “personal.”

  ELOISE [laughing]. “Being a woman,” I think that the person who has caused you the greatest suffering in your life must be very good-looking!

  VALSIN [calmly]. Quite right. It was precisely this d’Anville. I will tell you.

  [He sits on the arm of a chair near her, and continues briskly.]

  I was not always a politician. Six years ago I was a soldier in the Valny regiment of cavalry. That was the old army, that droll army, that royal army; so ridiculous that it was truly majestic. In the Valny regiment we had some rouge-pots for officers — and for a colonel, who but our Emigrant yonder! Aha! we suffered in the ranks, let me tell you, when Eloise had been coy; and one morning it was my turn. You may have heard that she was betrothed first to Louis and later to several others? My martyrdom occurred the day after she had announced to the court her betrothal to the young Duc de Creil, whose father afterward interfered. Louis put us on drill in a hard rain: he had the habit of relieving his chagrin like that. My horse fell, and happened to shower our commander with mud. Louis let out all his rage upon me: it was an excuse, and, naturally, he disliked mud. But I was rolling in it, with my horse: I also disliked it — and I was indiscreet enough to attempt some small reply.

  That finished my soldiering, Citizeness. He had me tied to a post before the barracks for the rest of the day. I remember with remarkable distinctness that the valets of heaven had neglected to warm the rain for that bath; that it was February; and that Louis’s orders had left me nothing to wear upon my back except an unfulsome descriptive placard and my modesty. Altogether it was a disadvantageous position, particularly for the exchange of repartee with such of my comrades as my youthful amiability had not endeared; I have seldom seen more cheerful indifference to bad weather. Inclement skies failed to injure the spectacle: it was truly the great performance of my career; some people would not even go home to eat, and peddlers did a good trade in cakes and wine. In the evening they whipped me conscientiously — my tailor has never since made me an entirely comfortable coat. Then they gave me the place of honor at the head of a procession by torchlight and drummed me out of camp with my placard upon my back. So I adopted another profession: I had a friend who was a doctor in the stables of d’Artois; and I knew horses. He made me his assistant.

  ELOISE [shuddering]. You are a veterinarian!

  VALSIN [smiling]. No; a horse-doctor. It was thus I “retired” from the army and became a politician. My friend was only a horse-doctor himself, but his name happened to be Marat.

  ELOISE. Ah, frightful!

  [For the first time she begins to feel genuine alarm.]

  VALSIN. The sequence is simple. If Eloise d’Anville hadn’t coquetted with young Creil I shouldn’t be Commissioner here to-day, settling my account with Louis. I am in his debt for more than the beating: I should tell you there was a woman in my case, a slender lace-maker with dark eyes — very pretty eyes. She had furnished me with a rival, a corporal; and he brought her for a stroll in the rain past our barracks that day when I was attracting so much unsought attention. They waited for the afterpiece, enjoyed a pasty and a bottle of Beaune, and went away laughing cozily together. I did not see my pretty lace-maker again, not for years — not until a month ago. Her corporal was still with her, and it was their turn to be undesirably conspicuous. They were part of a procession passing along the Rue St. Honoré on its way to the Place of the Revolution. They were standing up in the cart; the lace-maker had grown fat, and she was scolding her poor corporal bitterly. What a habit that must have been! — they were not five minutes from the guillotine. I own that a thrill of gratitude to Louis temporarily softened me toward him, though at the very moment I was following him through the crowd. At least he saved me from the lace-maker!

  ELOISE [shrinking from him]. You are horrible!

  VALSIN. TO my regret you must find me more and more so.

  ELOISE [panting]. You are going to take us back to Paris, then? To the Tribunal — and to the —

  [She covers her eyes with her hands.]

  VALSIN [gravely]. I can give you no comfort, governess. You are involved with the Emigrant, and, to be frank, I am going to do as horrible things to Louis as I can invent — and I am an ingenious man. [His manner becomes sinister.] I am near the top. The cinders of Marat are in the Pantheon, but Robespierre still flames; and he claims me as his friend. I can do what I will. And I have much in store for Louis before he shall be so fortunate as to die!

  ELOISE [faintly]. And — and Eloise — d’Anville?

  [Her hands fall from her face: he sees large, beautiful tears upon her cheeks.]

  VALSIN [coldly]. Yes.

  [She is crushed for the moment; then, recovering herself with a violent effort, lifts her head defiantly and stands erect, facing him.]

  ELOISE. YOU take her head because your officer punished you, six years ago, for a breach of military discipline!

  VALSIN [in a lighter tone]. Oh no. I take it, just as she injured me — incidentally. In truth, Citizeness, it isn’t I who take it: I only arrest her because the government has proscribed her.

  ELOISE. And you’ve just finished telling me you were preparing tortures for her! I thought you an intelligent man. Pah! You’re only a gymnast.

  [She turns away from him haughtily and moves toward the door.] VALSIN [touching his scarf of office]. True. I climb.

  [She halts suddenly, as if startled by this; she stands as she is, her back to him, for several moments, and does not change her attitude when she speaks.]

  ELOISE [slowly]. You climb alone.

  VALSIN [with a suspicious glance at her]. Yes — alone.

  ELOISE [in a low voice]. Why didn’t you take the lace-maker with you? You might have been happier.

  [Very slowly she turns and comes toward him, her eyes full upon his: she moves deliberately and with incomparable grace. He seems to be making an effort to look away, and failing: he cannot release his eyes from the glorious and starry glamour that holds them. She comes very close to him, so close that she almost touches him.]

  ELOISE [in a half-whisper]. You might have been happier with — a friend — to climb with you.

  VALSIN [demoralized]. Citizeness — I am — I —

  ELOISE [in a voice of velvet]. Yes. Say it. You are —

  VALSIN [desperately]. I have told you that I am the most susceptible of men.

  ELOISE [impulsively putting her hand on his shoulder]. Is it a crime? Come, my friend, you are a man who does climb: you will go over all. You believe in the Revolution because you have used it to lift you. But other things can help you, too. Don’t you need them?

  VALSIN [understanding perfectly, gasping]. Need what?

  [She draws her hand from his shoulder,
moves back from him slightly, and crosses her arms upon her bosom with a royal meekness.]

  ELOISE [grandly]. Do I seem so useless?

  VALSIN [in a distracted voice]. Heaven help me! What do you want?

  ELOISE. Let these people go.

  [Hurriedly, leaning near him.]

  I have promised to save them: give them their permit to embark, and I —

  [She pauses, flushing beautifully, but does not take her eyes from him.]

  I — I do not wish to leave France. My place is in Paris. You will go into the National Committee. You can be its ruler. You will rule it! I believe in you! [Glowing like a rose of fire.] I will go with you. I will help you! I will marry you!

  VALSIN [in a fascinated whisper]. Good Lord!

  [He stumbles back from her, a strange light in his eyes.]

  ELOISE. YOU are afraid —

  VALSIN [with sudden loudness]. I am! Upon my soul, I am afraid!

  ELOISE [smiling gloriously upon him]. Of what, my friend? Tell me of what?

  VALSIN [explosively]. Of myself! I am afraid of myself because I am a prophet. This is precisely what I foretold to myself you would do! I knew it, yet I am aghast when it happens — aghast at my own cleverness!

  ELOISE [bewildered to blankness]. What? VALSIN [half hysterical with outrageous vanity]. I swear I knew it, and it fits so exactly that I am afraid of myself! Aha, Valsin, you rogue! I should hate to have you on my track! Citizen governess, you are a wonderful person, but not so wonderful as this devil of a Valsin!

  ELOISE [vaguely, in a dead voice]. I cannot understand what you are talking about. Do you mean —

  VALSIN. And what a spell was upon me! I was near calling Dossonville to preserve me.

  ELOISE [speaking with a strange naturalness, like a child’s]. You mean — you don’t want me?

  VALSIN. Ah, Heaven help me, I am going to laugh again! Oh, ho, ho! I am spent!

  [He drops into a chair and gives way to another attack of uproarious hilarity.] Ah, ha, ha, ha! Oh, my liver, ha, ha! No, Citizeness, I do not want you! Oh, ha, ha, ha!