CHAPTER XIV

HAPPY DAYS

When Suzanne left the house in the Rue Coëtlogon her next meeting with René was already arranged. After taking a few steps down the little street she stopped and turned her head, although it would have been more prudent to walk straight on, as she always did in the Rue du Mont-Thabor. But so firm a hold had passion obtained upon this usually cold-blooded woman that she smiled and waved her hand at the poet as he stood watching her from the window of the room in which she had enjoyed such a triumph--for all her calculations had turned out perfectly correct. Getting into a cab at the corner of the Rue d'Assas, she drove to the Bon Marché, where she had ordered her carriage to meet her; on the way the details of the conversation she had had with René recurred to her, and, going over them again, she congratulated herself upon the manner in which she had acquitted herself. As soon as the first real step has been taken in an intrigue of this kind the discussion of further arrangements becomes as easy and as delightful as it was before hateful and difficult.

Suzanne had been the first to attack this delicate question. 'I want you to promise me something. If you do not wish me to reproach myself with this love as with a crime, promise me that you won't go out into Society at all. You are not accustomed to that kind of life, and you ought to be at work. You would fritter away your magnificent talents and genius in idle nonsense, and I should look upon myself as the cause. Promise me that you won't go and see anyone'--and in a whisper--'any of those women who flocked round you the other night.'

How tenderly René had kissed her for those words, in which the author could read a tribute of devotion paid to his future work and the lover a delicate expression of secret jealousy. He asked a little timidly, 'Mayn't I come even to your house?'

'To mine least of all,' she replied. 'I could not bear to see you touch my husband's hand now. You know what I mean,' she added, passing her fingers caressingly through his hair. He was sitting at her feet, while she was still in the arm-chair. She bent forward and hid her face on René's shoulder. 'Don't make me say any more,' she sighed; then, after a few minutes, 'What I should like to be to you is the friend who only enters into a man's life to bring him the sweet and noble gifts of joy and courage, the friend who loves and is beloved in secret, away from the mocking world that sneers at the purest feelings of the soul. I have committed a great sin as it is'--here she hid her face in her pretty hands--'do not let it grow into that series of base and sordid acts which fills me with such horror in others. Spare me this, René, if you love me as you say you do . . . But tell me, do you really love me so much?'

In delivering herself of this pretty batch of lies she had seen in the face of her simple and romantic victim the rapturous joy with which these beautiful sentiments inspired him. The Madonna resumed the halo which she had temporarily laid aside. Then, by a skilful combination of ruse and affection, by giving to cool calculation an appearance of tenderest susceptibility, she had led him to agree to the following convention as being the only one befitting the poetry of her love. He was to look out for a small suite of rooms somewhere not very far from the Rue Murillo; he would engage them in an assumed name, and they could meet there two, three, or four times a week. She had suggested Batignolles, but it was so cleverly done that he almost imagined he had hit upon it himself, as indeed upon the rest of _her_ ideas. He was to start out the very next day, and then write to her, _poste restante_, in certain initials, at a certain office. All these unnecessary precautions gave René an idea of the state of slavery in which his poor angel lived--if such an existence could be called living! 'Poor angel' he had called her, as she gave utterance to a half-stifled complaint concerning her husband's despotism and compared herself to a hunted animal, 'how you must have suffered!' And she had lifted her eyes to the ceiling with such a well-feigned expression of grief that, years afterwards, the man for whose benefit all this was done still asked, 'Was she not sincere?'

There was, however, no need for so much theatrical display to make René joyfully accede to the plan proposed by the clever pupil of Desforges. Simply out of love for her he would have agreed with pleasure and alacrity to any kind of scheme she put forward. But the programme laid before him corresponded well with the romantic side of his nature. It enchanted the poet to dwell upon the idea of carrying such a delightful secret with him through life, whilst the phraseology in which Suzanne had posed as the patron saint of his work had flattered his vanity, dreaming as he did of reconciling art and love, of uniting indulgence of the baser passions with that independence and solitude his work required.

And now René, after so many days of torture, felt as though both his mind and his heart had wings. So great was his happiness that he did not even notice the look of pained surprise that his sister wore during the evening that followed Suzanne's visit. What had Françoise heard? What had she told Madame Fresneau? That the latter was deeply agitated was very evident. The profound ignorance of certain women who are both romantic and pure exposes them to these rude surprises. They interest themselves in love affairs because they are women, and assist in the establishment of relations which they believe to be as innocent as they are themselves. Then, when they see the brutal consequences to which these relations almost necessarily lead, their surprise is so great that but for its cruelty it would be comical.

According to the description given her by the servant, Emilie had no doubt as to the identity of the visitor, and the mere idea of what might have taken place there in her house filled the staid and pious matron with horror. Her mind involuntarily reverted to the bitter tears she had seen on Rosalie's pale cheeks, and as she thought, first of the poor girl, of whose sincerity she was convinced, and then of the unknown Society lady for whom in her simplicity she had taken sides, she said to herself, 'What if René should be mistaken in this woman?'

But she was a sister too--a sister indulgent to a fault, and, after a feeling of uneasiness which his evident distress had caused her during the past week, she had not the courage to trouble her brother with reproaches on seeing him look so happy. This mixture of conflicting sentiments prevented her from provoking any fresh confidences, and René was become too discreet to make them. It was impossible for him to speak of Suzanne now; what he felt for her could not be expressed in words. He had found suitable apartments almost immediately in a quiet street in the centre of the Batignolles quarter, just where Suzanne had wanted them; and almost immediately, too, chance had so willed it that he was free to devote himself to her entirely. A week had scarcely passed since Suzanne's appearance in the Rue Coëtlogon when Claude Larcher, the only one of the poet's friends whom he visited at all often, suddenly left Paris. He called on René, who had neglected him a little of late, about half-past six one evening, in travelling garb, his face pale and agitated. The family were just sitting down to dinner.

'I have only come to bid you good-bye,' said Claude without taking a seat; 'I am going by the nine o'clock Mont Cenis express, and I shall have to dine at the station.'

'Shall you be away long?' asked Emilie.

'_Chi lo sa?_' replied Claude, 'as they say in that beautiful land where I shall be to-morrow.'

'Lucky fellow!' cried Fresneau, 'to be able to go and read Virgil in his own country instead of teaching donkeys to translate him!'

'Very lucky, indeed!' said the writer with a forced laugh; but when he took leave of René at the gate, where his cab laden with luggage awaited him, he burst into sobs. 'It's that beast of a Colette!' he cried. 'You remember that day you saw her in my rooms? God! how sweet she looked! And do you remember what she said, as I thought, in a joke? I can't even repeat it. . . . Well, things have come to such a pass that life for me here is unbearable, and I must be off for a time. I had no money, so I was forced to go to a usurer who lent me some at sixty per cent. Terrible, isn't it? What with the usurer, my old aunt in the country, to whom I was bad enough to write, my publisher, and the editor of the "Revue parisienne"--who, by the way, has got me to sign a contract for copy--I have six thousand francs. As the train carries me along every turn of the wheel will seem to go over my heart, but at any rate I shall be getting away from her; and when she gets my letter, written from Milan, what a grand revenge it will be!' He rubbed his hands with joy, then, shaking his head, said, 'It has been like Heine's ballad of Count Olaf all along. You know how he talks of love to his betrothed while the headsman stands at the door--that headsman has always been at the door of Colette's chamber. But when he assumed the form of a Sappho I could bear it no longer. Good-bye, René, you will not see me back till I am cured.' Since then there had been no news from the unhappy fellow, of whom René generally thought when comparing the noble woman he idolised with the savage and dangerous actress. Claude's absence was the reason why René never put in an appearance now at the green-room of the Théâtre Français. Why should he expose himself to the rancour of Colette's tongue, which no doubt wagged loudly enough when on the subject of her fugitive lover? Thanks to this absence, too, all bonds between the poet and the world into which Larcher had introduced him were severed.

Under the influence of his growing passion for Suzanne, the author of the 'Sigisbée' had ignored the most elementary rules of etiquette. Not only had he neglected to call upon the different women who had so graciously invited him, but he had not even paid Madame Komof his duty visit. The Comtesse, who was large-minded enough to understand the unconventional ways of genius, and kind enough to forgive such irregularity, said to herself, 'He was probably bored here,' and, though not angry with him, had not asked him again. She was busy, too, for the moment in bringing out a Russian pianist who pretended that he was in direct communication with the soul of Chopin. René, feeling safe in that quarter, had heard with regret that Madame Offarel was greatly offended that neither he nor Emilie had come to the famous dinner whose ingredients it had taken her a week to collect from all parts of Paris. Fresneau had gone all alone.

'A fine expedition you sent me on!' he said to his wife on his return. 'When I mentioned your headache the old woman gave a grunt that almost knocked me down, and when I told her that René was gone to see a sick friend--a very queer excuse, by the way, but let that pass--she said, "In some palace, I suppose!" During dinner poor Claude was the only topic of conversation. She pulled him to pieces till he hadn't a rag on his back. "He is an egoist and an ill-mannered fellow, he is in bad health and has no future!"--and goodness knows what she didn't say! If it hadn't been for a game of piquet with Offarel--and even that the sly old fox won. Oh!--Passart was there too. Remind me about recommending him to the Abbé for the college. He's a nice young fellow. Between you and me, I think Rosalie rather likes him.'

Emilie could not help smiling at her husband's marvellous perspicacity. She had often heard Madame Offarel complain of the pressing attentions of the young drawing-master, and she immediately understood that he had been asked at the last minute to prove that, besides René, there were other suitors on hand. Thereupon the Offarels, who had never allowed four days to pass without coming in after dinner, had not set foot in the Rue Coëtlogon for a fortnight. When they at last decided to resume their visits, at their wonted hour, they were escorted by the aforementioned Passart, a tall, fair, gawky lad in spectacles, with a shy look on his freckled face. Emilie saw at once that their motive in bringing him was to arouse her brother's jealousy, and the old lady was not long in showing her hand.

'Monsieur Offarel is engaged this evening,' she said, 'so Monsieur Passart was kind enough to bring us. Give Monsieur Jacques that seat near you, Rosalie.'

Poor Rosalie had not seen René since receiving his cruel message through Emilie. In passing from the Rue Bagneux to the Rue Coëtlogon--in reality a short, but to her an interminable distance--she had suffered agonies, and her heart beat fast as she entered the room. She had, however, the courage to steal a glance at her old lover, as a kind of protest that she was not responsible for her mother's mean calculations, and the courage also to reply coldly, as she took a seat in a corner and placed a chair before her, 'I want this chair to put my wool on. I'm sure Monsieur Passart won't deprive me of it.'

'There's room here,' said Emilie, coming to the poor girl's aid, and giving the young man a seat next to herself. Rosalie firmly refused to play the _rôle_ marked out for her, although she well knew what a terrible scene awaited her at home. And yet it would have been so natural if spite had inspired her with that petty mode of revenge. But women with truly delicate feeling, who know what real love is, are strangers to such mean spite. To inspire a fickle lover with jealousy would horrify them simply because it would mean flirting with another, and such a proceeding is beneath them. Such scrupulous loyalty in spite of all is a touching proof of love, and one which ensures a woman a place in a man's regrets for ever.

For ever! But as far as regards the present hour and the immediate result, these loyal hearts get left far behind, and the flirts win. When the years have fled, and the lover, grown old, shall institute comparisons, he will understand the unique position held by her who would not cause him pain--even to win him back. Meanwhile he runs after the jades who make him drink the bitter cup of that degrading but intoxicating passion, jealousy. It is only fair to René to say that, in sacrificing Rosalie for Suzanne, he believed that he was acting in the interests of true love. When, next morning, his sister praised the girl's noble behaviour, he was quite sincere too in his reply, smacking as it did, though, of naïve self-conceit.

'What a pity that such fine feeling should be wasted!'

'Yes,' repeated Emilie with a sigh, 'what a pity!'

Had René had a thought for aught else than his love, the tone in which his sister had uttered these words would no doubt have revealed to him the change that her opinions had undergone with regard to Madame Moraines. His love, however, entirely absorbed him. His days were now parcelled out into two kinds--those on which he was to meet Suzanne and those which he was to spend without seeing her. The latter, which were by far the more numerous, were passed in the following manner. A great part of the morning he spent in bed, dreaming, for he was already beginning to feel a diminution of vital energy. Then he bestowed much time upon his toilet, lavishing such attention on details as would convince a woman of experience that a young man was beloved. His toilet finished, he wrote to his Madonna. She had imposed upon him the sweet task of sending her an account of all his thoughts day by day. As for herself, he had not a line of her writing. She had said, 'I am so watched, and never alone!' And he pitied her as he devoted himself to compiling the detailed diary that she had demanded.

This pose of a sentimental Narcissus gazing incessantly upon himself and his love was well in keeping with that deep-rooted vanity which he possessed in common with nearly all writers. Suzanne had not sufficiently reflected upon the anomalous nature of a man of letters to have taken vanity into account. It pleased her to read René's words when he was not there simply as a burning reminder of the kisses they had exchanged. When the poet had paid his morning devotions to his divinity in this fashion it was time for lunch. Immediately after that he would go to the Bibliothèque in the Rue de Richelieu and work unremittingly at the notes for his 'Savonarola,' which he had again taken up, during the whole of the afternoon, and sometimes right on into the evening. He worked now without ever having, as in writing the 'Sigisbée,' those flashes of talent which pass from the brain to the pen, charging the memory with a flow of words and drawing the images with such precision and life-like resemblance that the effort of production becomes a strong but delightful intoxication that ends in a state of agreeable exhaustion.

To build up the scenes of the drama he was now writing, René had to keep his mind in a painful state of tension, and at a worse tension still to turn his prose sketches into verse. His brain no longer served him in making happy finds. For this there were several important and distinct reasons. The first--a physical one--was the waste of vital energy inseparable from all reciprocated passions; the second--a moral one--the constant hold that Suzanne had upon his mind and the inability to entirely forget her; the last--an intellectual and secret one, though most powerful--was the deadening influence which success exercises upon the greatest genius.

Whilst conceiving and writing he was beginning to think of the public. He saw before him the house on the first night, the critics in their stalls, the fashionable people scattered here and there, and, seated in a box, Madame Moraines. He already heard the shouts of applause, as demoralising for a dramatic author as the number of editions is for a novelist. The desire to produce a certain effect took the place of that disinterested, natural, and irresistible impulse which is a necessary condition in true art. Still too young to possess the skill with which literary veterans can write impassioned phrases in cold blood, and even well enough to deceive the best critics, René sought in himself that source of ideas which he no longer found. His play would not take shape in his mind in a natural and easy way. The goat-like features of the Florentine monk and the tragic figures of the terrible pontiff Alexander VI., the violent Michael Angelo, the sour Machiavelli, and the formidable Cæsar Borgia would not clothe themselves in flesh and blood before his eyes, in spite of the heaps of notes and documents he had collected and the pages erased again and again. Frequently he would lay down his pen and gaze up at the blue sky through the lace curtains of his window; he would listen to the noises in the house--the closing of a door, Constant playing, Françoise grumbling, Emilie passing quietly, Fresneau walking heavily--and then find himself counting how many hours he had still to wait before seeing Suzanne.

'How I love her! How I love her!' he would exclaim, increasing his passion by the fervour with which he uttered these words. Again, he would delight in conjuring up a vision of the room in which these meetings, awaited with such feverish impatience, took place. He had been more lucky in finding a suitable place than his inexperience had led Suzanne to expect, It was a small suite consisting of three rooms, rather prettily furnished by Malvina Raulet, a brunette of about thirty-five, whose sweet voice, demure looks, and general air of propriety had at once enchanted René. This lady, whose attire was almost severe in its simplicity, gave herself out as a widow. She lived ostensibly on a small income left her by the late M. Raulet, an imaginary individual whose profession she defined in a vague way by saying that 'he was in business.' As a matter of fact, the shrewd and cunning landlady had never been married. She was, for the moment, being 'protected' by a respectable physician--a well-known man and the father of a family--whom she had so thoroughly taken in by her fine manners that she managed to get five hundred francs a month out of him, regularly paid on the first, like the salary of a Civil Servant.

Being before all else a thrifty soul, she had conceived the idea of increasing her monthly income by letting out three of the rooms she did not want, and as there were two doors to her flat she was able to give this small suite a separate entrance. The almost elegant furniture it contained had come to her as a weird inheritance. For ten years she had been the mistress of a madman, whose family, desiring for some reason to keep this insanity secret, had paid her well. Upon her unhappy lover's death, Malvina had, according to promise, received twenty thousand francs and the contents of the house in which she had played such a strange part. This woman's dark and hideous past René was never to know. In that gay city, where clandestine attachments abound, how many of the thoughtless youths who hire such places know aught of the history of those who pander to their wants? Nor could the poet think for one moment that this woman with the irreproachable manners had seen right through his demands at the first glance. He had told her that he lived in Versailles, and that he was obliged to come to Paris two or three times a week. The name he gave her was that of his favourite hero--the paradoxical d'Albert in 'Mademoiselle de Maupin;' but as he wrote it at the bottom of the agreement which the careful Madame Raulet got him to sign, he placed his hat on the table, and there the crafty landlady could plainly read the real initials of her new lodger.

'If you would like my servant to undertake the cleaning of the rooms,' she said, 'it will be fifty francs a month extra.'

This exorbitant demand was made in such a cool tone, and Madame Raulet, moreover, looked so thoroughly respectable, that René dared not discuss the amount. He could, however, not help eyeing her somewhat distrustfully. Her appearance, it was true, disarmed all suspicion. She wore a dark dress, well but simply made. Round her neck hung one of those long gold chains so much worn at one time by the French _bourgeoisie_--a chain which had no doubt once belonged to her sainted mother. She wore her watch in her belt; a brooch containing a lock of white hair--that of a beloved father, most probably--fastened her neat lace collar, and through the meshes of the silk mittens that covered her long hands might be seen her wedding ring.

As René was leaving, this virtuous creature remarked, 'The house is a very quiet one, sir. You are a young man,' she added with a smile, 'and you will not be offended if I make so bold as to say that the least noise on the stairs at night, or anything like that, would be sufficient reason for my asking you to leave.'

René felt himself blush as she spoke. In his excessive simplicity he feared lest the worthy widow might give him notice after his first meeting there with Suzanne. This ridiculous fear impelled him to visit his landlady immediately Madame Moraines had gone under pretence of speaking to her about some trifling matter he wanted done. She received him with the polite air of a woman who knows nothing, understands nothing, and has seen nothing, although she had been watching Suzanne's departure from her window, and had, with the practised eye of a Parisian, taken that lady's measure at a glance. Malvina now saw through it all--her lodger's visitor was a woman in the first ranks of Society, but he himself, although well dressed, showed by the cut of his beard, his hair, his walk and his whole appearance that he belonged to a lower station in life. The landlady thought that most probably the rent would be paid by the mistress, and not by the lover, and she regretted not having asked more than five hundred francs a month besides the fifty for attendance. The whole of the flat cost her fourteen hundred francs a year, and she paid her maid-of-all-work forty-five francs! No matter, she would make up for it in the extras--in the firing, the washing, and especially in the meals, if ever the young man asked her to provide lunch, as she had offered to do.

'She is an excellent woman, and very attentive,' said René, when Suzanne questioned him about Madame Raulet. Was the poet wrong in being so trustful? Of what use would it have been to indulge, as Claude would have done, in a pessimistic analysis of this woman's character, except to conjure up thoughts of blackmail and other dangers, all entirely imaginary, as it happened? For although Malvina was far from being a saint, she was at the same time a _bourgeoise_ who had a sincere hankering after respectability, and who proposed, as soon as she had made her little pile, to return to her native town of Tournon, and lead a life of absolute purity. The fear of seeing her name figure in the report of some evil-smelling case was sufficient to deter her from practising any pronounced form of imposition. So far did her love of respectability carry her that she wove a complicated web of falsehoods to the _concierge_ about her new lodger. She made out that Suzanne and René were a happy couple who lived in the country all the year round, and that they were distantly related to the late M. Raulet. Then, in order that he should have nothing whatever to do with the said _concierge_, she herself handed René two keys even before he had asked for them.

What cared the poet for the real cause of her attentiveness? The young have sense enough not to go into facts which lend themselves to the gratification of their desires. This system sometimes leads them along perilous paths, but they cull many a flower by the wayside and enjoy its fragrance, nevertheless. When the poet walked across half Paris to reach his little suite in the Rue des Dames there was a music in his heart that shut out all dissonant voices of suspicion. His meetings with Suzanne were generally in the morning. René had never asked himself why that time of the day was most convenient to his beloved. As a matter of fact it was the hour when she was most certain of escaping the watchfulness of Desforges. In the forenoon the hygienic Baron devoted himself to what was dearest to him on earth--his health. First he had a bout of fencing, which he called his 'dose of exercise'; then he galloped through the Bois, which was his 'air cure'; lastly he 'burnt his acid,' a formula he owed to Doctor Noirot.

The double Madonna, who had studied her man thoroughly, knew that he was as much a slave to these rules of health as Paul was to those of his office. She therefore felt a secret pleasure in thinking of her husband seated at his desk, of her 'excellent friend' bestriding an English mare, and of her René entering a florist's to buy some flowers wherewith to adorn the chapel of their love. Roses were his usual choice, roses red as his darling's lips, roses fair as her blushing cheeks, fresh and living blooms that filled the air with their sweet and penetrating perfume. As she was borne towards the harbour of their love she knew that René would be standing at the window listening to the rattle of the cabs as they passed. How delighted he would be when hers stopped before the house! She would ascend the stairs, and there he would be waiting for her, having softly opened the door so as not to lose one second of her sweet presence. Then he would hold her in his arms devouring her with silent kisses that pierced the black lace veil as they sought her fresh and mobile lips.

Suzanne's great triumph consisted in her ability to preserve her innocent Madonna-like expression amidst all the madness of their love; and, by a singular dispensation of nature, too, this strange creature was entirely devoid of all sense of remorse. She belonged, no doubt by heredity, being the daughter of a statesman, to the great race of active beings whose dominant trait is a faculty for distributing their energies. These beings have the power to make the most of the present without allowing themselves to be troubled either by the past or the future. In modern slang we find a pretty phrase to express this power of temporary oblivion--it is called 'cutting the cord.' Suzanne had parcelled out her life into three parts--one belonging to Paul, one to Desforges, and one to René. During the time she devoted to each there was such absolute suspension of the rest of her existence that she would have had some difficulty in realising the extent of her duplicity had she cared to probe her conscience--a proceeding she never dreamt of whilst the opium of pleasure coursed through her brain. She generally remained with René till about twelve o'clock, and when she was gone Madame Raulet would send up his lunch; and he would stay in the rooms for the rest of the day, ostensibly to work, for he had some of his papers there, but really to gloat over the reminiscences that floated in the very air he breathed. When night was beginning to fall he would wend his way homewards, under the twinkling gas lamps that illumined his route, possessed by a divine languor that seemed to combine and blend into one harmonious whole all the delights of the day.