CHAPTER X

IN THE TOILS

Suzanne thought she was very clever--and not without reason; but by being too clever people often defeat their own ends. Accustomed to confound love and mere gallantry, she knew nothing of the generous expansion of feeling to be found in one so young as the object of her semi-romantic, semi-sensual caprice. She presumed that the insidious accusation she had thrown out against Claude would put René on his guard. It resulted, however, in giving the poet an irresistible desire to talk to Larcher. It grieved him to think that the latter should entertain a false opinion of Madame Moraines. Which of us, at twenty-five, has not felt a desire that our dearest friend should reserve a special place in his esteem for the woman we loved? It is as strong then as is at forty the wise desire to hide ourselves most of all from that same friend.

René's first act on leaving Suzanne was to proceed at once to the Rue de Varenne. He had not been to see Claude since the day when he had met Colette in his rooms, and as he passed through the gateway and made his way across the spacious courtyard he could not help comparing this visit with his last. They were separated by a very few hours only, but yet by what a gulf! The poet was a prey to that fever of delight which makes reasoning impossible. He did not reflect that his Madonna had been wonderfully clever in bringing matters to such a pass so soon. The amazing rapidity with which his hopes were being realised only delighted him, and showed him how strong his love really was. He felt so light and happy that he bounded up the old staircase two steps at a time, just as he used to do when as a boy he came home from school after reaching the top of the class. To-day Larcher's man admitted him without the slightest hesitation, but he wore such a long face that René asked him what was the matter.

'It isn't right, sir,' sighed Ferdinand, shaking his head. 'Master has been at it now for forty-eight hours--writing, writing, writing--and with only about six hours' sleep altogether. You ought really to tell him, sir, that he'll damage his constitution. Why can't he get into a nice, comfortable habit of working a little every day, like everybody else?'

The man's wise remonstrances prepared René for the sight that he knew so well--the 'den' in which he had seen Colette enthroned turned into a writer's workshop. He went in. The broad leather-covered couch on which the graceful but frivolous actress had reclined was now covered with sheets of paper flung down and covered with great straggling characters written in haste; similar sheets, all torn or crumpled, being strewn about the floor, and the chimney-piece encumbered with half-opened bundles of proofs.

Larcher, with a beard of three days' growth and unkempt hair, was seated at his writing-table, dressed like a beggar, in a dirty coat devoid of a single button, a pair of worn-out slippers on his feet, and a silk handkerchief tied in a knot round his neck. The real Bohemian, utterly regardless of appearance from his earliest youth, came to the surface every time the would-be swell was obliged to step out of his part and put his shoulder to the wheel. And this he was obliged to do pretty frequently. Like all literary workers whose time is their sole capital, and who, therefore, lead most irregular lives, Claude was always behindhand with his work and short of money, especially since his relations with Colette had involved him in that most ruinous expense of all--the expense incurred by a young man for a woman he does not keep. Besides the salary she drew from the theatre, the actress had an income of twenty thousand francs, left her by an old admirer, a Russian noble who was killed at Plevna; but what with riding about and dining out with his mistress, and buying her heaps of flowers and presents, Claude had to find many a bank-note. The proceeds of the two plays being long spent, the writer was forced to earn these wretched notes by overworking his brain in the intervals of his enervating debauches.

'At it again!' he cried, looking up with his pale face and clasping René's hand in his feverish grasp. 'Fifteen chapters to be delivered at once. A splendid stroke of business with the _Chronique Parisienne_, the new eight-page paper financed by Audry. They came and asked me for a story the other day to run as a _feuilleton_ for a fortnight. A franc a line. I told them I had one ready--only wanted copying. My dear fellow--hadn't got a word written--not that! But I had an idea. Re-write "Adolphe" up to date in our jargon, and put in our local colouring. It will be a beastly hash, but all that's nothing. Do you know what it means to sit down and write while your heart is being tortured by jealousy? I am here at my table, scribbling a phrase; an idea occurs to me, and I want to hold it. Now for it, I think. Suddenly a voice within me says: "What is Colette doing now?" And I put down my pen as the pain--ah! such terrible pain!--comes over me. Balzac used to say that he had discovered how much brain matter was wasted in a night's debauch: half a volume; and he used to add, "There is not a woman breathing worth two volumes a year." What nonsense! It isn't love that wears out an artist, but the continual worry of some fixed idea causing one long heart-ache. Is it possible to think and feel at the same time? We must choose one or the other. Victor Hugo never felt anything--nor did Balzac. If he had really loved his Madame Hanska he would have run after her all over Europe, and would have cared for his "Comédie humaine" as much as I do for this rubbish. Ah! my dear René,' he continued with an air of dejection as he gathered up the sheets scattered all over his desk, 'keep to your simple mode of life. I hope you have not been weak enough to accept the invitations of any of the sharks you met at Madame Komof's.'

'I have only paid one visit,' replied René, 'and that was to Madame Moraines.' He could scarcely control himself as he pronounced her name. Then, with the involuntary impetuosity of a lover who, though come expressly to speak of his mistress, is afraid of criticism, and staves off the reply as he would thrust aside the point of a dagger, he added, 'Isn't she sweetly pretty and graceful? And what lofty ideas she has! Do you think ill of her too?'

'Bah!' exclaimed Claude, too full of his own sufferings to pay much heed to René's words, 'I dare say we could find something ugly in her past or her present if we tried. All women have within them the toad that springs from the mouth of the princess in the fairy tale.'

'Is there anything you know about her?' asked the poet.

'Anything _I_ know!' replied Claude, struck by the strange tone of his friend's voice. He looked at René and saw how matters stood.

Mixing as he did in Parisian society, he was well acquainted with the rumours concerning Suzanne and Baron Desforges, and with the easy-going--though sometimes mistaken--credulity of a misanthrope to whom every infamy seems probable because possible, he believed them. For a moment he was tempted to inform René of these rumours, but he held his tongue. Was it from motives of prudence, and in order not to make an enemy of Desforges, in case Suzanne should get to know what he had said, and tell the Baron? Was it out of pity for the grief his words would cause René? Was it for the cruel delight of having a companion in his torture--for how much better was Suzanne than Colette? Was he impelled by the curiosity of an analyst and the desire to witness another's passion? Who shall determine the exact point of departure of so many and such complex motives as go to make up a sudden resolve?

Claude paused for a moment, as if to ransack his memory, and then repeated his friend's question. 'Is there anything I know about her? Nothing at all. I am a _professional woman-hater_, as the English say. I only know the woman through having met her here and there, and I thought her a little less foolish than most of her kind. It's true she is very pretty!' And then, either out of malice or in order to sound René's heart, he added, 'Allow me to congratulate you!'

'You talk as though I were in love with her,' replied René, growing red with shame. He had come there with the intention of singing Suzanne's praises, and now Claude's bantering tone caused his confidences to freeze upon his lips.

'So you are not in love with her!' cried Larcher, with his most horribly cynical laugh. Then, with one of those generous impulses in which his better and truer nature revealed itself, he took his friend's hand and begged his pardon. Seeing in René's eyes that this was about to provoke a fresh outburst, he stopped him. 'Don't tell me anything. You'd only hate me for it afterwards. I'm not fit to listen to you to-day. I am enduring torture, and that makes me cruel.'

So it happened that even Suzanne's clumsy manœuvring turned out favourably for her plan of capture. The only man whose hostility she had to fear had voluntarily imposed silence upon himself. Since René was in absolute need of a confidante to receive the overflow of his feelings, it was to Emilie that he turned, and poor Emilie, out of sheer sisterly vanity, was already the abettor of the unknown lady whom she had seen through her brother's eyes encircled with a halo of aristocracy.

The very next morning after the _soirée_ at Madame Komof's she had guessed from René's words that Madame Moraines was the only woman he had met there whom he really liked, and the only one, too, upon whom he had made any strong impression. Mothers and sisters possess some peculiar sense for perceiving these shades of feeling. For the next few days after making her discovery René's restlessness was very plain to Emilie. Bound to him by the double bond of affection and moral affinity, no feeling could traverse her brother's heart without finding an echo in her own. She knew that René was in love as well as if she had been present in the spirit during the two meetings in the Rue Murillo. She felt delighted, too, without being at all jealous, though her brother's attachment to Rosalie had caused her not only jealousy, but anxiety. With peculiarly feminine logic, she thought it but natural that the poet should enter upon an intrigue with a woman who was not free. She recognised that exceptional men require a mode of life and a standard of morality as exceptional as themselves, and she felt that this love of René's for a grand lady, whilst realising the proud dreams she had formed for her idol, would not rob her of a jot of affection.

His passion for Rosalie, on the contrary, she had regarded as an infringement upon her rights. This was because Rosalie resembled her, and was of her world, and because René's attachment to her could only result in marriage and the setting up of another home. It was therefore with secret joy that she beheld the birth of a fresh passion in her brother. She would have been glad if he had taken her further into his confidence, and so completed the confession he had made on awakening only a few hours after the _soirée_ at Madame Komof's. But this he had not done, neither had she led him on to do so, her instinct telling her that René's confidences would only be the more complete for being spontaneous. So she waited, watching his eyes, whose every look she knew so well, for that expression of supreme joy which is the fever of happiness. Her silence was also to a great extent due to the fact that she only saw René when Fresneau was present. With that natural cowardice begotten of certain false positions, the poet left the house as soon as he was up and returned only in time for lunch. Then he again took himself off until dinner, going out immediately after, in order to avoid meeting Rosalie. The professor's abstraction was so great that he did not even notice this change in René's habits. Such, however, was not the case with Madame Offarel. Having come on two consecutive evenings with her two daughters and seen nothing of him whom she already looked upon as her son-in-law, she did not hesitate to remark upon his unwonted absence.

'Does Monsieur Larcher present Monsieur René to a fresh comtesse every evening that we never see him here now, nor at our house either?'

'It's true,' observed Fresneau, 'I never see him now. Where does he get to?'

'He has set to work again upon his "Savonarola,"' replied Emilie, 'and he spends his evenings at the Bibliothèque.'

Early on the morning after this conversation, which was also the morrow of René's second visit to Suzanne, Emilie entered her brother's room to give him a full account of what had been said. She found him getting out a few sheets of fine note-paper--some that she had bought for him--on which he was about to copy, in his best handwriting, the verses he was to read to Madame Moraines. The table was covered with sheet upon sheet of his poems, from which he had already made a selection.

When Emilie told him of her innocent fib he kissed her, and exclaimed, with a laugh, 'How clever you are!'

'There is nothing clever in it,' she replied; 'I am your sister, and I love you.' Then, taking up some of the papers scattered about, she asked, 'Do you really think of getting on with your book?'

'No,' answered René, 'but I have promised to read a few of my verses to some one.'

'To Madame Moraines?' exclaimed his sister.

'You have guessed it,' replied the poet, looking slightly confused. 'Ah! if you only knew!'

And then the pent-up confidence burst forth. Emilie had to listen to an enthusiastic eulogy of Suzanne and all that concerned her. In the same breath René spoke of the lofty nobility of this woman's ideas and of the shape of her shoes, of her marvellous intelligence and of the figured velvet oh her blotting-book. That childish astonishment at these luxurious details should be united to the more poetic fancies in the fabric of love did not surprise Emilie. Had she herself in her love for René not always associated petty desires with boundless ambition? She wished, for instance, with almost equal fervour, that he might have genius and horses, that he might write another 'Childe Harold,' and possess Byron's income of four thousand a year. In this she was as ingenuously plebeian as he himself, confounding--in excusable fashion, after all--real aristocracy of sentiment with that aristocracy expressed by outer and worldly forms. Those who come of a family in which the struggle for bread has lowered the tone of thought easily mistake the second of these aristocracies for a condition inseparable from the first.

Those words, therefore, which might have led an unkind listener to think that René loved Suzanne for her surroundings, and not for herself, charmed Emilie instead of shocking her, and she had so fully entered into her brother's infatuation that on leaving him she said: 'You are not at home to anyone--I'll see that no one comes in. You must show me your verses when you have written them--mind you choose them well.'

The task of making this selection cheated the poet's ardour, and he was able to await the day fixed for his next visit to the paradise in the Rue Murillo without much impatience. The hours of solitude, broken only by his talks with Emilie, passed by in alternate fits of happiness and melancholy. Often a delightful vision of Suzanne would rise up before him. He would then lay down his pen, and all the objects about him would melt away, as if by magic. Instead of the red hangings of his room, it was the little _salon_ of Madame Moraines that he saw; gone were his dear Albert Dürers, his Gustave Moreaus, his Goyas, his small library on whose shelves the 'Imitatio' rubbed shoulders with 'Madame Bovary'--gone were the two leafless trees that stood out black against a light blue sky. But in their place he could see Suzanne, her dainty ways, the poise of her head, the peculiar golden tint of her hair, and the transparent pink of her lovely complexion.

This apparition, which had nothing of a pale or shadowy phantom about it, appealed to René's senses in a way that ought to have made him understand that Madame Moraines' attitudes did but mask the true woman, the voluptuous though refined courtesan. But of this he took no note, and, whilst madly desirous to possess her, he believed that his worship of her was of the most ethereal kind. This mirage of sentiment is a phenomenon frequently observed in men who lead chaste lives, and one which renders them the defenceless prey of the most barefaced hypocrisy. The inability to understand their own feelings makes them still more incapable of analysing the tricks of the women who arouse in them the accumulated passion of a lifetime. The poet, however, became perfectly lucid as soon as Suzanne's image made way for that of Rosalie. On going through his papers he was continually coming across some page headed, in boyish fashion, 'For my flower;' that was the name he had given Rosalie in the heyday of his love, when he had written her a fresh poem almost every morning.

'O Rose of candour and sincerity!' were the terms in which he addressed her at the end of one of these effusions. When his eyes fell upon such lines he was again obliged to lay down his pen, and once more his surroundings would melt away, but this time to make room for a vision of torture. The rooms occupied by the Offarels lay before him, cold and silent. The old woman was busy with her cats. Angélique was turning over the leaves of an English dictionary, and Rosalie was looking at him, René--looking at him through an ocean of space with eyes in which he read no reproach, but only deep distress. He knew as well as if he were there, near her, that she had guessed his secret, and that she was suffering the pangs of jealousy. If such were not the case would he have been so terribly afraid to meet the girl's eyes? Would that he could go to her and say, 'Let us be only friends!' It was his duty to do so. The only means of preserving one's self-esteem is by acting with absolute loyalty in these subsidings of love, which are like fraudulent bankruptcies of the heart. But that loyalty was thrust aside by weakness in which both egoism and pity were equally represented. He took up his pen again, and saying, as on the first day, 'We shall see--later on,' he tried to work. Soon he had to stop once more as his mind reverted to Rosalie's sufferings. He thought of the long nights she would spend in tears, knowing as he did every trifling habit of the simple creature who had given him her heart. She had often told him that the only time she could indulge in her own grief was at night. Then he hid his face in his hands and waited till the vision had passed, meanwhile saying to himself, 'Is it my fault?'

A law in our nature bids our passions grow stronger in proportion to the number of obstacles to be overcome, so that the remorse of his infidelity to poor Rosalie resulted in making René's heart beat faster as the time fixed by Madame Moraines for their next meeting drew near. She, on her side, awaited him with an almost feverish impatience that astonished even herself. She had looked out for the young poet whenever she had been in the street, and again at the Opera when Friday came round. Had she seen his eyes fixed upon her in that simple adoration which is as compromising as a declaration, she would have said, 'How imprudent!' Not to see him, however, gave her a slight fit of doubt, which brought her caprice to its climax. She looked forward to this visit all the more anxiously because she considered it decisive. It was the third time René visited her, and, out of these three times, twice unknown to her husband. Further than that she could not go, on account of the servants. A day or two back Paul, meaning no harm, had said to her at dinner, 'I was talking to Desforges about René Vincy. He doesn't seem to have made a good impression on the Baron. It is decidedly better not to see the authors too closely whose works we admire.'

If the servant who had announced the poet had been in the dining-room at the moment these words were uttered Suzanne would have had to speak. The same thing might happen the next or any other day. She was therefore determined to find a peg in her conversation with René on which to hang an appointment elsewhere. An idea suddenly occurred to her of going somewhere with the poet under pretence of curiosity--a meeting in Notre Dame, for instance, or in some old church sufficiently distant from the fashionable quarter of Paris to be beyond the risk of danger, and she relied upon one or other of René's poems to furnish her with an opportunity of making such an appointment.

On this occasion she once more wore a walking-dress, for, having attended a marriage ceremony in the morning, she had kept on the rather smart mauve gown in which her shapely figure, elegant shoulders, and slim waist were so well set off. Thus attired, and lounging back in a low arm-chair--an attitude that marked the adorable outlines of her body--she begged the poet, after the usual commonplaces had passed, to commence his reading. She listened to his poetry without betraying any surprise at the peculiar drawl with which even the best scholars intone their verses, her great intelligent eyes and the repose of her face seeming to indicate the closest attention. At rare intervals she would venture upon some apparently involuntary exclamation, such as: 'How beautiful that is!' or, 'Will you repeat those lines?--I like them so much!'

In reality, she cared little for the poet's verses, and understood them less. To comprehend even superficially the work of a modern artist--in whom there is always a critic and a scholar--requires such mental development as is only met with in a small number of Society women, sufficiently interested in culture to read much and to think more in the midst of a life entirely opposed to all kind of study and reflection. What made Suzanne's pretty face and big blue eyes look so pensive was the desire not to let the important word slip by upon which to hang her project. But line came after line, stanzas succeeded sonnets, and yet she had not been able to seize upon anything which could reasonably be made to give the conversation the turn she wanted. What a pity it was! For René's eyes, that continually wandered from the page; his voice, that shook occasionally as he read; his hands, that trembled as he turned the leaves--all showed that her pretended admiration had completely intoxicated the Trissotin that lurks in every author.

And now there was only one piece left! This the poet had purposely kept to the last; it was his favourite, and bore a title which was a revelation to Suzanne, 'The Eyes of the Gioconda.' It was rather a long poem, half metaphysical, half descriptive, in which the writer had striven to collect and reproduce in sonorous verse all the opinions of the modern school of critics concerning Leonardo da Vinci's masterpiece. In this portrait of an Italian woman we ought, perhaps, to see nothing beyond a study of the purest and most technical naturalism, one of those struggles against conventionality in art in which the great painter appears to have been so frequently engaged. Can it not have been an attempt of the master to seize the unseizable--the play of a face, and to paint the fleeting expression on the lips as they pass from repose to a smile? In his poem René, who took a childish pride in the fact that his family name resembled that of the village which lends its appellation to the most subtle master of the Renaissance, had condensed into thirty verses an entire system of natural and historical philosophy. He valued this symbolical medley higher than the 'Sigisbée,' which contained only what was natural and appertaining to the passions--two qualities fit only for the vulgar herd.

What then was his delight to hear Madame Moraines say, 'If I might be allowed to express any preference, I would say that this is the piece which pleases me most. How well you understand true art! To see the great masterpieces with you must be a revelation! I am sure that if I visited the Louvre under your guidance you would explain to me so much that I see in the pictures but cannot understand. I have often wandered about there, but quite alone!'

She waited. As soon as René had started reading this last poem she had said to herself, 'How foolish of me not to have thought of that before!' closing her eyes for a moment as if to retain some beautiful dream. At the finish she had purposely used such words as would give him an opportunity of seeing her again. He would propose a visit together to the Louvre, to which she would accede, after having cleverly raised just sufficient difficulties. She saw the suggestion trembling on his lips, but he had not the courage to make it. She was therefore compelled to do so herself.

'If I were not afraid of wasting your time----?' Then, with a sigh, 'But we have not been acquainted long enough.'

'Oh; madame!' cried René, 'it seems to me as if I had been your friend for years!'

'That is because you feel I am sincere in what I say,' she replied, with a frank and open smile. 'And I am going to prove it to you once more. Will you show me the Louvre one day next week?'