“Well, Minna, well, Sophia.”
Frederick, arriving during the afternoon, seemed instantly felled into taking it for granted that his wife and his mistress should be seated together on the pink sofa, knit into this fathomless intimacy, and turning from it to entertain him with an identical patient politeness. Stroking his hat as though it were a safe domestic animal he told them of Guizot’s resignation, of the National Guards singing the Marseillaise in the Place de la Bastille, of the preparations for a universal illumination, and how the funeral of a young lady of the aristocracy had been interrupted and her coffin requisitioned for a barricade. Everything, he implied, was proceeding nicely though it was no affair of his; and now he would be going.
Pausing at the door, “By the way, Sophia,” said he, “if you are putting up at your respectable Meurice, you won’t get much sleep to-night. There are troops all round the Tuileries, and there’s sure to be a dust-up. I should stay here with Minna, if I were you.”
And with a bland glassy sweep of the eye over the blue slippers, he closed the door as on a sickroom.
Instantly forgetting his existence, save as a character in her narrative, Sophia went on talking. Minna’s clasp tightened upon her hand.
A more effectual interruption came later when the concierge appeared, remarking sternly,
“Excuse me. But illuminations are obligatory.”
“Illuminations?” said Minna.
“To celebrate the fall of the tyrant. It is all one to me,” he added, “but one cannot have the windows broken.”
“No, no, of course not. I will see to it. Natalia! Bring all the candles you can find. What news have you heard?”
“They have extinguished the gas in the outer boulevards.”
As the door closed behind him they laughed. It was the first laugh that had passed between them, and its occurrence momentarily remade them as strangers to each other. Minna averted her eyes, and began a rambling, unconvinced account of the absurdities of Égisippe Coton. Forgetting to answer, Sophia stared at her hostess. Under the scrutiny Minna began to wilt. Talking with nervous suppliant emphasis she had a harassed, a hunted expression.
They have extinguished the gas on the outer boulevards. The words were insultingly applicable to this wearied visage, jostled with speech. Using the cool patronage and consideration with which she would attend to the needs of something useful and inferior, order a bran-mash for a horse or send a servant to bed, she found herself thinking that for Minna, conscripted all day on this strange impulse to expound her heart, something must be done.
“I should like to take you out to dinner,” she said. “Where can we get a good meal?”
Hearing this loud British incivility proceeding so plumply from a good heart and a healthy appetite — and indeed, they had eaten nothing all day save hors-d’œuvres and pastries — her sense of shame was followed by an inward hysteria.
“That would be charming, there would be nothing I should like better. I am not sure if it can be managed, I expect everything is shut. Perhaps Natalia would know, she could go out and fetch something. No, that would not do, though, she shops abominably, she would bring us pickled herrings and lemonade. She has had such a sad life, poor Natalia, it seems to have turned her naturally towards brine. Has it ever struck you that unhappy women always crave for sour pickles?”
Sophia said,
“But why should everything be shut?”
“The Revolution ——”
She had overlooked the Revolution again — an affair of foreign politics. But to Minna, of course, being a revolutionary, it must mean a great deal; and she must be allowed to see something of it.
“If we went out we might see what’s going on. But we must have a good dinner first, for I suppose we should have to walk.”
It was only when she had ordered the fillet-steak that Sophia realised that she had commandeered Minna’s evening as high-handedly as she had taken her day. Never in my life, thought she, studying the wine list, have I acted quite like this. For though no doubt I have always been strong-minded, and lately seeing no one but my inferiors, may have got into a trick of domineering, nothing in my past, nothing in my upbringing, parallels this. For she is older than I am, and she is a woman of some eminence, and she is my husband’s mistress — and here am I, taking her out to dinner and allowing her to see a little of her revolution as though she were a child to be given a treat — as though she were Caspar.
“A bottle of eighteen,” she said.
It had been an axiom of Papa’s that under doubtful circumstances it was best to order Beaujolais. These circumstances were admittedly doubtful, nor was this a place where one might hope much of the wine. Nothing in her past, nothing in her upbringing, would have prepared her to sit unescorted in a restaurant, or to walk at night through the streets of Paris. However, with the probable poorness of the wine went probable security from molestation. The restaurant was crowded, humble, and uninterested in the two women.
I wish I knew, thought Sophia, if I seem as odd to you as I do to myself.
As though overhearing the thought Minna remarked,
“How much I like being with English people! They manage everything so quietly and so well.”
“And am I as good as Frederick?”
“You are much better.”
For an answer to an outrageous, to an unprovoked, insult, it was dexterous. It was more; for the words were spoken with a composure and candour that seemed, in that stroke of speech, to dismiss for ever any need to insult or be insulted, and the smile that accompanied them, a smile of unalloyed pleasure at successful performance, was as absolving as any caper of triumph from a menaced and eluding animal.
She lives on her own applause, thought Sophia, watching Minna’s revival into charm. This is what it is, I suppose, to be an artist, cheered and checked by the April of one’s own mind. For she is an artist, though there is nothing to show for it but a collection of people going home from an evening party through the streets of a city in revolution, each one carrying with him the picture of a child standing beside a river in Lithuania. Yes, she is an artist, what they call a Bohemian. And I, in this strange holiday from my natural self, am being a Bohemian too, she thought with pride, staring about her at the walls painted with dashing views of Italy, at the worn red velvet of the benches, at the other diners, who expressed, all of them, a sort of shabby weariness countered by excitement, at the waiters, darting nimble as fish through the wreaths of tobacco smoke; and yielding again to that wine-like sensation of ease and accomplished triumph which had been with her all day, she said,
“But Frederick would never bring you to a place like this.”
“No, indeed. He would bring a nice bunch of lilies of the valley, and dine with me.”
Damn him, was Sophia’s instant thought.
“It is difficult,” continued Minna, “for people like us not to misjudge people like Frederick. There is much that is admirable, much that is touching, in such gentleness and domesticity.”
“I have not had much opportunity to muse over Frederick’s domesticity for the last three years,” said Sophia.
“No. And for part of that time I had perhaps rather too much. So you see we must both be biassed.”
“Poor Frederick!”
“Poor Frederick!”
Minna echoed the words but not the tone of irony.
“However,” she added, “our faulty appreciation would not trouble him. Frederick completely despises all women. I think that is why he seems so dull and ineffectual.”
The artless analysis coming from lips on which rumour had heaped so many kisses distracted Sophia from the rage she naturally felt on hearing that Frederick despised all women. But the rage was there, and prompted the thought that she should not lag behind in comments of a kind and tolerant sort.
“However dull you found him, you did him an immense amount of good. I have never known him so pleasant, so rational, as he was on his last visit to England — his las
t visit to me, I mean. I do not know if he has visited England since then.”
“When was that?”
“When my children were dying.”
“Ah, no wonder! He would be at his best then, you see. For he felt an emotion that was perfectly genuine, and which he could express without any constraint, any mauvaise honte. Men, who are so suspicious, so much ashamed, of any other emotion, have no shame in the feeling of fatherhood. It was his Volkslied he was singing then. It was no wonder he sang it well.
“I too,” she added, drooping her glance, holding tightly to the stem of her wine-glass, “was very sorry.”
You are embarrassed, or you are making yourself feel so, thought Sophia. And that is a pity, for the moment you are embarrassed I lose my liking for you.
“This is horrible coffee,” she said. “Coffee is a thing we manage much better in England, where we drink it strong. At this moment when I think of my children my chiefest regret is that their lives were so limited, so dreary. Nothing but restrictions and carefully prepared pap. When I was listening to you last night I thought with bitter reproach that they had never walked over a heath in their lives or seen the shedding of blood.”
But they were unreal to her at this moment, her children; and Augusta’s remembered face, consuming in a rather stodgy resolute excitement as she begged to be allowed to watch the pig-killing, less actual than the sunburned shag-haired visage of the child in Lithuania chanting in her wild treble against the roaring voice of the bloodied river.
Later in the evening she had good bodily reason to remember the Lithuanian childhood, the free wanderings over the heath. Minna still walked as though her foot were on a heath, and as though conducting her from one bird’s-nest to another she led Sophia by innumerable short-cuts to various places where the Revolution might be expected to make a good showing. At least a dozen barricades were visited, and over these they had been handed with great civility; falling in with a procession they followed it to the Place de la Bastille, where they waited for some time, listening to the singing, and then in the wake of another procession they had trudged to the Hôtel de Ville and listened to shouting. The shouting was all, presumably, that revolutionary shouting should be — loud, confident, and affable. Here and there, bursting upwards from the level of the crowd, an orator would emerge, twine like some short-lived flower to railings, and sum up in a more polished and blossom-like fashion the sentiments of the shouters.
But shaking her head in critical dissatisfaction, Minna said, “There is more to see than this.”
“Shall we try the Champs-Élysées?” For there at any rate, thought Sophia, there will be a chance to sit down. She was intolerably footsore, and in the reality of that sensation could feel nothing but despising for a revolution that was no concern of hers.
“No.”
Minna turned northward again. As they went farther it began to seem as though they were the only people walking that way. Here there was little uproar, no illuminations, no processions — but like leaves blown on some steady wind a man, or three men, or six men, would come towards them and pass them. They spoke very little, their faces wore no particular expression except the look of wariness which comes on the faces of all those who have to strive for a living. They seemed in no great hurry, tramping on as though they were going to their work. Among them, moving more swiftly as though they were lighter leaves on the same steady wind, came coveys of children, and groups of women, marching abreast with linked arms. And while their following shadows still trailed on the pavement, on into the circle of lamplight would come one man, three men, six men.
“Do you see,” whispered Minna. “It is the same yet, the old nursery of revolutions.”
“It frightens me,” said Sophia. “And I believe that you, even, are a little afraid.”
“A little? I am horribly afraid. How is it possible to have a good bed to sleep in, food in the larder, furs against the cold, books on one’s shelves, money in one’s purse, a taste for music, and not be afraid? It is ten years and more, thanks to my good fortune, since I could have looked at these without feeling afraid.”
“But you believe in revolution?”
“With all my heart.”
They turned back, walking on the same wind as those others. Sophia began to make conversation about Socialism, endeavouring to blame it as coolly as possible, pointing out that equality was a delusion, that the poor in office were the cruellest oppressors of the poor, etc. By the time they struck into the boulevard des Capucines the changed character of the crowd had restored to her enough confidence to let the conversation drop. For here they were back once more in the heartiest display of comic opera. Earlier in the day the property rooms of the theatres had been raided by some enterprising collectors of arms, and under the light of the illuminations gilded spears and pasteboard helmets still wreathed with artificial flowers mingled their classical elegance with the morions and pikes which had last appeared in performances of I Puritani. Moving slowly through the crowd were family groups of sight-seers, who had come out to enjoy the illuminations.
“That’s nice, that one,” said a woman behind Sophia, pointing to a housefront garlanded with little coloured lamps, hanging on wires like festoons of fruit and centring in a large and miscellaneous trophy of flags.
“They should include the ground-floor,” her companion answered with a laugh of superior sarcasm; and looking more attentively, Sophia saw that the ground-floor windows had been boarded up, and that a detachment of soldiers was on guard before the house.
Cheerfully, politely, as though the information would make amends for the partial embellishment only, the woman exclaimed,
“Look, Anatole! Another procession, and this one with torches!”
“They’ve been quadrilling outside the National,” replied the well-informed Anatole. “Old Marrast has been letting off another of his speeches to them.”
“Children, too. The little darlings, how pleased they look! I hope they won’t set fire to anything with those torches. I’m glad now that we left Louise and Albertine at home. They would never be content until ——”
The surging of the crowd carried them away from the words. Sophia tightened her hold on Minna’s elbow, and stiffened herself protectively. Weary, footsore, sleepy, and bored, she still retained a core of carefulness for her companion, the last ember of emotion left waking from the earlier day.
“Did that fool jostle you?” she asked in a cross voice.
There was no answer. Minna, very pale, her mouth held stiffly open, was staring through the crowd at the approaching procession. It had neared the house with the boarded windows now, and while the children in shrill weary voices continued to sing the Marseillaise, its leader seemed to be haranguing the soldiers who stood before the boarded-up windows. “Minions,” he exclaimed. And added something about tyranny.
“How bored those poor soldiers look,” said Sophia.
Every hair of the orator’s head seemed to be standing on end, and the torchlight, wavering in the children’s inattentive grasp, passed romantic shadows and revelations across his pale face, and the faces massed behind him. She recognised him as Minna’s hairy friend of the previous evening, the man who had ranted so on the stairs, and had been greeted as Gaston. A wave of jealousy swept over her — of prim, disapproving, schoolmistressly jealousy. She bent a sharp glance upon Minna’s countenance.
Minna shut her eyes.
At the same moment there was the crack of a pistol-shot. Upon it came the most extraordinary sound, a unanimous, multiplied gasping intake of breath, a sound like the recoil of a wave. Into this avid awaiting gasp from the crowd, plumped, as though compelled thither, a word of command, and a volley.
“Ah!”
Before the cries or the exclamations of the wounded could be heard the crowd had spoken, uttering its first word, not of rage or horror, but of profound physical satisfaction, a cry of relief. As though the shock of fulfilment had annihilated every lesser desire there was sca
rcely a movement around. The children with their torches, the knot of soldiers, the patriots and the sight-seers stood grouped as though for ever, staring at the only movement left — the jerks and writhings of the wounded and dying. Into this silence and immobility Gaston began to launch another oration. On his words followed a rising hubbub of anger and sympathy and denunciation; but as it increased Sophia saw the soldiers relax, as it were, from their official inhumanity, and into their abashed and embarrassed looks there came a growing tincture of relief. Only their officer continued to stare before him with an expression of unmitigated dismay.
The crowd began to break up, swinging this way and that; some to escape homewards, others to gather round the bodies on the pavement. Sighing profoundly Minna disentangled herself from Sophia’s clutch, ran forward, and joined herself to those who were attending to the wounded. Gaston swooped downward from his harangue to say something to her as she knelt on the pavement, but it was not possible to see how she answered him, for the crowd thickened, and swallowed them up.
“Here, take these,” said Sophia, thrusting her smelling-salts, a handkerchief, and a long ribbon ripped from her dress into the hands of a shop-girl who was holding out bloodied hands and demanding bandages for the wounded. And when, soon after, a hat was passed round, she put money into it, wishing that at the same time she could offer drinks to the soldiers.
Summer Will Show Page 15
