CHAPTER V

THE DAWN OF LOVE

The shock of the novel and varied sensations experienced by René Vincy on that eventful evening had been so great that it was impossible for him to analyse them as he made his way on foot from the Rue du Bel-Respiro to the Rue Coëtlogon. Had Claude not left the house so suddenly, tortured by the pangs of jealousy, the two friends would have returned together. Whilst walking along the deserted streets with the silent stars shining above, they would have indulged in one of those confidential talks in which, when young, we give full utterance to the feelings inspired by the events of the past few hours. By the mere mention of the name of Madame Moraines, René might then have discovered what a hold on his thoughts had suddenly been secured by this rare specimen of beauty, the living embodiment of all his ideas of aristocracy. Perhaps from Claude, too, he might have gathered a few correct notions concerning the lady, and the difference that existed between a mere fashionable woman like Madame Moraines and a real _grande dame_, he would then have been spared the dangerous fever of imagination which, all along his route, conjured up to his delight visions of Suzanne. He had heard the Comtesse call her by that pretty name as she gave her a farewell kiss, and he could see her again in her long, fur-lined cloak, her shapely head looking quite lost encircled by the deep ermine collar. He could again see the slight inclination of that dainty head in his direction before she got into the carriage. He could see her still, as she sat at supper, with that look in her glorious eyes, so full of intelligence, and that way she had of moving her lips to utter words, very simple in themselves, but each of which proved that this woman's soul matched her beauty, just as her beauty was worthy of her surroundings.

He was scarcely aware of the length of his journey, covering nearly a third of Paris. He gazed up at the sky above, and down into the Seine waters as they rolled darkly along, while the long lines of gas-lamps before him seemed even to lengthen the dim, far-reaching perspective of the streets. The night gave him an idea of immensity--a symbol, it seemed to him then, of his own life. The mental formation peculiar to poets who are poets only predisposes them to attacks of what, for want of a more definite name, might be called the lyric state; this is something like the intoxication produced by hope or despair, according as the power of exaggerating present sensations to the highest degree is applied to joy or sorrow. What, after all, was this entry into Society, which for the moment seemed to this simple boy an entry upon a new life? Scarcely a glance stolen through a half-open door, and which, to be of any use at all, would have to be followed up by a course of petty strategy that only an ambitious man would have dreamt of. A man eager to make his way would have asked himself what impression he had created, what kind of people he had met, which of the women who had invited him were worth a single visit, and which of them deserved more assiduous attentions. Instead of all that, the poet felt himself surrounded by an atmosphere of happiness. The sweetness of the latter portion of the evening spread itself over the whole, and he entirely forgot the feelings of distress that had once or twice overwhelmed him.

It was in this frame of mind that he reached home. As he pushed the heavy house door open, and crept on tip-toe to his room, it pleased him to compare the world he had left behind with the world to which he returned. Was it not this very contrast that lent his pleasure a tinge of romance? Being, however, at that age when the nervous system recruits itself with perfect regularity in spite of the most disordered state of the mind and feelings, his head had no sooner touched his pillow than he was fast asleep. If he dreamt of the splendour he had seen, of the applause that had filled the vast _salon_, of the sweet face of Madame Moraines set in a wealth of fair tresses, he was oblivious of it all when he awoke about ten o'clock next morning.

A ray of sunlight came streaming through a narrow slit in the blinds. All was quiet in the little street, and there was no noise in the house--nothing to betray the necessary but exasperating performance of matutinal household duties. This silence surprised the young man. He looked at his watch to see how long he had slept, and once more he experienced that feeling, of which he never tired--that of being beloved by his sister with an idolatrous intensity extending to even the smallest details of life. At the same time recollections of the preceding evening came back to his mind. A score of faces rose up before him, all gradually melting away into the delicate features, mobile lips, and blue eyes of Madame Moraines. He saw her even more distinctly than he had done a moment after leaving her, but neither the clearness of the vision nor the infinite delight it afforded him to dwell upon it led him to suspect the feelings that were awakening within him. It was an artistic impression, nothing more--an embodiment, as it were, of all the most beautiful ideals he had ever read into the lines of romancists and poets. Idly reclining on his pillow, he enjoyed thinking of her in the same way as he enjoyed looking round his old, familiar room, with its air of peace and quiet. His gaze dwelt lovingly upon all the objects visible in the subdued light--upon his table, put in order by Emilie's hands, upon his engravings set off by the dark tone of the red cloth, upon the bindings of his favourite books, upon the marble chimney-piece with its row of photographs in leather frames. His mother's portrait was among them--the poor mother who had died before seeing the realisation of her most ardent hopes, she once so proud of the few scattered fragments she had occasionally come across in tidying her son's room! His father's likeness was there too, with its emaciated, drink-sodden features. Often did René think that the want of will power, of which he was dimly conscious, had been transmitted to him by his unhappy parent. But that morning he was not in the humour to reflect upon the dark side of life, and it was with childish glee that he gave two or three smart raps on the bedside. This was his manner of summoning Françoise in the morning to pull up the blinds and open the shutters. Instead of the servant it was Emilie that entered, and as soon as the sunlight was let into the room it was on his sister's face with its loving smile that the young man gazed--a face now beaming with hopeful curiosity.

'A triumph!' he cried, in reply to Emilie's mute interrogation.

The kind-hearted creature clapped her hands for joy, and sitting down on a low chair at the foot of the bedstead, said, in the tone that we use to a spoilt child: 'You mustn't get up yet . . . Françoise will bring you your coffee. I thought that you would wake up about ten, and I had just ground it when you knocked. You shall have it quite fresh.' The maid entering at that moment, holding in her big red hands the tray with its little load of china, Emilie continued: 'I will serve you myself. Fresneau has gone to take Constant to school--so we have plenty of time--tell me all about it.' And René was obliged to give her a full account of the _soirée_, without omitting any details.

'What did Larcher say?' asked his sister. 'What was the courtyard like? And the hall? What did the Comtesse wear?' She was highly amused by the fantastic metaphors of Madame de Sermoises, and cried: 'What a wretch!' when she heard the epigram of the unsuccessful playwriter's wife; she laughed at the ignorance of pretty Madame Ethorel, and was indignant at Colette's cruelty. But when the poet attempted to describe the dainty features of Madame Moraines, and to give her an idea of their talk at supper, she felt as though she would have liked to thank the exquisite lady who had thus at the first glance discovered what René really was. The habits she had contracted long years since of seeing everything through her brother's eyes and senses made her the most dangerous of confidantes for the poet. She possessed the same imaginative nature as he himself--an artistic imagination yearning after the beautiful--and, since it was all for another's sake, she gave herself up to it unreservedly. There is a kind of impersonal feminine immorality peculiar to mothers, sisters, and all women in love which ignores the laws of conscience where the happiness of one particular man is at stake. Emilie, who was all self-denial and modesty in what concerned herself, indulged only in dreams of splendour and ambition for her brother, often giving expression to thoughts which René dared hardly formulate.

'Ah! I knew you would succeed,' she cried. 'It's all very well for the Offarels to talk, but your place is not in our modest set. What you writers want is all this grandeur and magnificence. Heavens! how I wish you were rich! But you will be some day. One of these fine ladies will fall in love with you and marry you, and even in a palace you will not cease to be my loving brother, I know. Is it possible for you to go on living like this for ever? Can you fancy yourself in a couple of rooms on the fourth floor with a lot of crying children and a wife with a pair of servant's hands like mine'--holding them out for his inspection--'and being obliged to work by the hour, like a cab-driver, to earn your living? Here, it is true, you have not lived in luxury, but you have had your time to yourself.

'Dear, good sister!' exclaimed René, moved to tears by the depths of affection revealed in these words, and still more by the moral support they lent to his secret desires. Although Rosalie's name had never been mentioned between them in any particular way, and Emilie had never been taken into her brother's confidence, René was well aware that his sister had long guessed his innocent secret. He knew that, holding such ambitious views, she would never have approved of such a marriage. But would she have spoken as she did if she had known all the details? Would she have advised him to commit an act of treachery--for that it was, and of a kind, too, most repugnant to a heart born for noble deeds--the treachery of a man who transfers his love, and foresees, nay, already feels, the pain which his irresistible perfidy will necessarily inflict upon himself?

As soon as Emilie had gone René, his mind busied with the thoughts his sister's last words had suggested, rose and dressed himself, and for the first time found courage to look the situation well in the face. He remembered the little garden in the Rue de Bagneux, and the evening when he had first impressed a kiss upon the girl's blushing cheek. It is true, he had never been her avowed lover; but what of those kisses and their secret betrothal? One truth appeared to him indisputable--that a man has no right to steal a maiden's love unless he feels strong enough to cherish it for ever. But he also felt that his sister had given voice to the thought that had filled him ever since the success of his play had opened up such a horizon of hope. 'This grandeur and magnificence!' Emilie had said, and again the vision of all the splendour he had witnessed rose up before him--again, set in this rich frame, he saw the face of Madame Moraines with that sweet smile of hers. In his loyalty the young poet tried to banish this seductive apparition from his mind.

'Poor Rosalie, how sweet she is, and how she loves me!' he said, finding some sad satisfaction in the contemplation of the deep love he had inspired, and carrying these feelings with him to the breakfast table. How simply that table was laid, and how little resemblance it bore to the splendid display of the previous night. The table-cover was of oil-cloth, adorned with coloured flowers; on this stood a very modest service of white china, the heavy glasses that accompanied it being rendered necessary by the combined clumsiness of Fresneau, Constant, and Françoise, which would have made the use of crystal too costly for the family budget. Fresneau, with his long beard and his look of distraction, ate quickly, leaning his elbows on the table and carrying his knife to his mouth; he was as common in manners as he was kind of heart, and, as if to emphasise more strongly by contrast the impression which the idle cosmopolitanism of high life had made upon René, he laughingly gave on account of his morning.

At seven he had given a lesson at Ecole Saint-André. From eight to ten he had taken a class of boys in the same school who were still too young to follow the ordinary curriculum. Then he had just had time to jump into a Pantheon omnibus which took him to a third lesson in the Rue d'Astorg. 'I bought a paper on the way,' added the good man, 'to read the account of last night's affair. Dear me,' he exclaimed, undoing the strap that held his small parcel of books, 'I must have lost it.'

'You are so careless,' said Emilie almost angrily.

'Oh! it doesn't matter!' cried René gaily; 'Offarel will tell us all about it. You know that he is my walking guide-book. By to-night he will have read all the Paris and provincial newspapers.'

Knowing that the smallest details of last night's performance would be collected by Rosalie's father and commented upon by her mother, René was the more anxious to give the girl a full account of it himself. There is an instinct in man--is it hypocrisy or pity?--which impels him to treat with the utmost regard the woman who no longer holds his affections. Directly lunch was over he bent his steps towards the Rue de Bagneux. It had formerly been his custom to call upon the Fresneaus pretty frequently about that time. While covering the short distance he had often extemporised a few verses, after the manner of Heine, which he poured into Rosalie's ear when they were alone. The power of walking in a day-dream had, however, long since left him, and rarely had the vulgarity of this corner of Paris struck him to such a degree. All in it was eloquent of the sordid lives of the _petit bourgeois_--from the number of the little shops to the display of their cheap and varied wares that covered half the pavement. In the windows of the restaurants were bills of fare offering meals of various courses at extraordinarily low prices. Even the cooking utensils on sale in the bazaars seemed to have an air of poverty about them.

These and a score of other details reminded the young man of the limited resources of small incomes, of an existence reduced to that shabby gentility which has not the horrible and attractive picturesqueness of absolute want. When we begin to love we find in all the surroundings of our beloved so many reasons for increased affection, and when we cease to love these same details furnish the heart with as many reasons for further hardening. Why did the impression made upon René by the wretchedness of the neighbourhood cause him to feel annoyed with Rosalie? Why did the appearance of the Rue de Bagneux make him as angry with the girl as any personal wrong done to himself? This street, with its line of old houses and a blank wall at the bottom, had a most deserted and poverty-stricken air. At the moment when René entered it one end was almost blocked up by a cart heavily laden with straw, the three horses yoked to it, in country fashion, by stout ropes, standing with their heads half hidden in their nosebags whilst the driver was finishing his dinner in a small, greasy-looking cookshop. A Sister of Mercy was walking along the pavement on the left carrying a large umbrella under her arm; the wind flapped the wings of her immense white cap up and down, and the cross of her rosary beat against her blue serge dress. Why, after having heaped upon Rosalie all the displeasure caused by the sight of her miserable surroundings, did René involuntarily connect Madame Moraines with the religious ideas the good Sister's dress evoked? The manner in which that beautiful creature had spoken only the night before of the pious works performed by many so-called frivolous women came back to him. Three times that day had Suzanne's image come before him, and each time more distinctly. Great heavens! What joy were his if his good genius brought him face to face with her in some retired street like this as she was going to visit her poor! But that was out of the question, so René turned down a passage at the end of which were the ground floor apartments occupied by the Offarels. Profiting by the example of the Fresneaus, they, too, had realised the ambition of every family of the _petite bourgeoisie_ of Paris, and had found in this deserted quarter of the capital a suite of rooms with a bit of garden as large as a pocket-handkerchief.

'Ah! Monsieur René!' exclaimed Rosalie, coming to the door in answer to the young man's ring at the bell. The Offarels only employed the services of a charwoman who left at twelve o'clock, and concerning whom the old lady always had an inexhaustible stock of anecdotes. At the sight of her lover, poor Rosalie, generally somewhat pale, coloured with joy, and she could not repress the cry of pleasure that rose to her lips.

'How good of you to come and tell us so soon how your play got on!' she said, taking the visitor into the dining-room, a dismal apartment with a north light, and in which there was no fire. Madame Offarel was so stingy that in winter, when the weather was not too cold, she would save the expense of fuel, and make her daughters wear mittens and capes instead! 'We are just going through the linen,' remarked the good lady, motioning René to a chair.

On the table lay the whole of the fortnightly washing, from the old man's shirts to the girls' underclothes, the bluish whiteness of the calicots and cottons being enhanced by the darkness of the room. It was the poor linen of a family in straitened circumstances; there were stockings evidently darned times out of number, serviettes full of holes, cuffs and collars frayed at the edges--in fact, a whole heap of things that Rosalie felt were not for a poet's eyes. She therefore gave him no time to sit down, but said, 'Monsieur René had much better come into the drawing-room--it's so dark here.'

Before her mother had had time to say anything further she had pushed the visitor into the apartment honoured by that pompous name, and which, in reality, more often served as a workroom for Angélique. The latter added a little to the income of the family by occasionally translating an English novel, and was at that moment seated at a small table near the window, writing. A dictionary was lying at her feet, those extremities being encased in a pair of slippers the backs of which she had trodden down for ease. No sooner had she caught sight of Vincy than she gathered up her books and papers and fled.

'Excuse me, Monsieur René,' she exclaimed, brushing back with one hand the hair that hung about her head and casting an apologetic look at her dress--a loose morning wrapper wanting some half-dozen buttons down the front. 'I am a perfect fright--don't look at me, please.'

The young man sat down and let his eyes wander round the well-known room, whose chief ornament consisted in a row of aquarelles executed by M. Offarel in Government time. There were about a dozen, some representing bits of landscape that he had discovered in his Sunday walks, others being copies of pictures he admired, and which René's more modern taste therefore detested. A faded felt carpet, six cloth-covered chairs and a sofa completed the furniture of this room, which René had once looked upon as a symbol of almost idyllic simplicity, but which now appeared doubly hateful to him in his present state of mind, aggravated by the acidity of Madame Offarel's accents.

'Well, did you enjoy yourself amongst all your grand folks last night? I suppose your friend only visits people now who keep a carriage, eh? Whenever he opens his mouth you hear of nothing but countesses and princesses. Dear me! He needn't think himself as grand as all that--he was giving lessons only ten years ago.'

'Mamma!' exclaimed Rosalie in beseeching tones.

'Well, what does he want to be so stuck up about?' continued the old lady. 'He looks at us as much as to say "Poor devils!"'

'How mistaken you are in him!' replied René. 'He is rather fond of going into smart society, it is true, but that is only natural in an artist. Why, it's the same with me,' he went on, with a smile. 'I was delighted to go to this affair last night and see that magnificent house filled with flowers and fine dresses. Do you think that prevents me appreciating my modest home and my old friends? All writers have that mad longing for splendour--even Balzac and Musset had it. It is a childish fancy of no importance.'

Whilst the young man was speaking Rosalie darted a look at her mother that told of more happiness than her poor eyes had expressed for months past. In thus confessing to and ridiculing his own inmost feelings, René was obeying impulses too complicated for the simple girl to understand. When Madame Offarel had spoken of 'your grand folks' the young man had seen by the look of anguish in her daughter's eyes that his love for the false glamour of elegance had not escaped Rosalie's perspicacity. He was ashamed of being found guilty of such a plebeian failing, and therefore laid bare his impressions as though he were not their dupe--partly in order to reassure the girl and spare her unnecessary pain, partly in order to indulge in a little weakness without having to reproach himself unduly.

Certain natures--and, owing to the habit of introspection, these are frequently found amongst writers--find pardon for their sins in mere confession. In defending Claude Larcher, René, with an irony that would have escaped sharper critics than a trusting girl, managed to administer a sharp rebuke to his own follies. Whilst openly ridiculing what he himself called his snobbishness, he continued to make those mean-spirited mental comparisons that would force themselves upon him all that day. He could not help measuring the gulf that separated the creatures he had seen at Madame Komof's--living blooms reared in the hothouse of European aristocracy--from the pale-faced and simple-looking creature before him, her hands spoilt by work, her hair tied back in a knot, and dressed so plainly as to look almost uncouth. The comparison, when dwelt upon, became quite painful, and caused the young man one of those inexplicable fits of ill-humour that always nonplussed Rosalie.

Knowing him as she did, she could always see when he had them, but she never guessed their cause. She knew by instinct that there were two Renés existing side by side--the one kind, tender, and good, easily moved and unable to withstand grief--in a word, the René she loved; the other cold, indifferent, and easily irritated. The bond that united these two beings she was, however, unable to find. All she knew was that before the triumphant success of the 'Sigisbée' she had seen only the first of these two Renés, and since then only the second. She was afraid to say 'the unfortunate success;' she had been so proud of it, and yet she would have given so much to go back to the time when her darling was poor and unknown, but all her own. How quickly he could make his voice hard, so hard that even the words addressed to another seemed by their intonation alone to be intended to wound her. At that moment, for instance, he was talking to her mother, and the mere accent that he gave to words empty in themselves touched Rosalie to the quick.

Suddenly Madame Offarel, who had been listening intently for a few seconds, started up. 'I can hear Cendrette scratching at the door,' she said; 'the dear creature wants to go out.'

With these words she returned to the dining-room in order to open the yard door for her favourite cat. She was probably delighted to have an excuse for leaving the two young people together; for, Cendrette having gone off, she stood for some time stroking Raton, another of her feline boarders. 'How clever you are, my Raton! How I love you, my little demon!' These were some of the pet names that she had devised for her cats, and as she repeated them and a dozen others in rather loud tones she was saying to herself: 'If he has come at once, that proves he is still faithful to her--but when will he propose? Poor girl! He'll not find a jewel like her in any of his gilded saloons. She's pretty, gentle, good, and true!' Then aloud: 'Isn't that so, my Raton? You understand, don't you, my son?' And as the cat arched her back, rubbed her head against her mistress's skirt, and purred voluptuously, the mother's internal monologue went on: 'And he is a good match, too. We didn't despise him before; so we have a right to set our caps at him now. She won't have to drudge, as I do for Offarel. It's a pity that she should have to spoil her pretty fingers botching up this old linen.' With the mechanical activity of an old housewife, she made a small pile of the handkerchiefs already gone through, and continued her thoughts: 'Her little dowry, too! What a surprise it will be!' By exercising the most stringent economy, she had managed to save, out of her husband's modest salary, some fifteen thousand francs, which she had invested unknown to M. Offarel. She smiled to herself and listened with some anxiety. 'I wonder what they are talking about!'

She knew that her daughter was fond of René, but she was still ignorant of the secret bonds that united the young people. What would have been her astonishment had she known that Rosalie had already frequently but timidly exchanged stolen kisses with her lover, and that immediately her mother's back was turned she had taken René's hand in hers and murmured in a voice of gentle reproach, 'How could you go off last night without saying good-bye?'

'Claude dragged me out,' said René, reddening, and pressing his sweetheart's fingers. She was, however, not taken in either by the excuse or the feigned caress, and, drawing back her hand, shook her head sadly, while her words came out with an evident effort.

'No,' she observed; 'you are not so nice to me as you used to be. How long is it since you last wrote me a line of poetry?'

'You're not so silly as to think people can sit down and write poetry when they like?' replied the young man, almost harshly. He was seized by that irritability which is a sure sign of the decline of love. The obligation to make a show of sentiment--a most cruel duty--was felt by him in one of its thousand forms.

By an instinct which leads them to sound the depths of their present misfortune whilst desperately clinging to their past happiness, the women who feel love slipping from them formulate these small, unpretending demands that have the same effect upon a man as a clumsy tug at the curb has upon a restive horse. The lover who has come with the firm intention of being gentle and affectionate immediately rears. Rosalie had made a mistake; she felt that as plainly as she had felt René's indifference a few minutes ago, and a feeling of despair, such as she had never known before, crept over her. Since her lover's departure on the previous evening she had been jealous--she had no reason to be, and she would scarcely admit to herself that she was--but she was jealous all the same. 'Whom will he meet there? To whom is he talking?' she had asked herself again and again instead of going to sleep. And now she thought, 'Ah! he is already unfaithful, or he would not have spoken to me in this manner.'

The silence that followed the harsh reply was so painful that she timidly asked, 'Did the actors play their parts well last night?'

Why was she hurt to see how eager René was to answer her question, and to turn the conversation from a more serious subject? Because the heart of a woman who is really in love--and that Rosalie was--is susceptible to the lightest trifles, and in despair she heard René reply: 'They acted divinely,' after which he immediately plunged into a dissertation on the difference between acting on a stage some distance from the audience and acting in the limited space of a drawing-room.

'Poor child!' thought Madame Offarel as she returned to the _salon_, 'she is so simple; she has not got him to talk of anything but that wretched play!' Then, in order to be revenged on some one for René's procrastination in proposing, she added aloud, 'Tell me--isn't your friend Larcher rather jealous of your success?'