CHAPTER VI

AN OBSERVER'S LOGIC

René had entered the house in the Rue de Bagneux a prey to painful impressions, and when he left it his impressions were more painful still. Then he had been discontented with his surroundings--now he was discontented with himself. He had called on Rosalie with the idea of giving her a little pleasure, and sparing her the trifling pain of hearing all about his success from the mouth of another; instead of which his visit had only caused the girl fresh grief. Although the poet had never harboured aught else than an imaginary love for this child with the beautiful black eyes, that love had gone deep enough to implant in his breast what is last to die in the break-up of any passion--an extraordinary power of following the least movements of that virgin heart, and a pity, as unavailing as it was distressing, for all the pain he had caused it.

Once more he asked himself this question: 'Is it not my duty to tell her I no longer love her?' An insoluble question, for it admits of only two replies--both impossible ones--the first, cruel and brutal in its egoism, if our feelings are plain; the second a frightful mixture of pity and treachery, if they are complicated. The young man shook his head as if to chase away the obtrusive thought, and muttering the eternal 'We shall see--later on,' by which so many agonies have been prolonged, forced himself to look about him. He had mechanically turned his steps towards that portion of the Faubourg Saint-Germain where, in younger days, he had loved to walk, and, inspired by Balzac, that dangerous Iliad of poor plebeians, imagine that he saw the face of a Duchesse de Langeais or de Maufrigneuse looking out from every window.

He was now in that wide but desolate thoroughfare called Rue Barbet-de-Jouy, which, by reason of the total absence of shops, the grandeur of its buildings, and the countrified look of its enclosed gardens, seems a fitting frame for some fine lady of artificial aristocracy. An inevitable association of ideas brought René's mind back to the Komof mansion, and the thought of that lordly dwelling conjured up, for the fourth time that day, but more clearly than ever, the image of Madame Moraines. This time, however, worn-out by the fretful emotions through which he had passed, he became entirely absorbed in the contemplation of that image instead of trying to dispel it. To think of Madame Moraines was to forget Rosalie, and experience, moreover, a peculiarly sweet sensation.

After a few minutes of this mental contemplation the natural roamings of his fancy led the young man to ask himself, 'When shall I see her again?' He recalled the tone of her voice and her smile as she had said, 'On Opera days, before dinner.' Opera days? This novice of Society did not even know them. He felt a childish pleasure, out of all proportion to its ostensible cause--like that of a man who is realising his wildest dreams--in gaining the Boulevard des Invalides as quickly as possible and in finding one of the posts that display theatrical advertisements. It was Friday, and the bills announced a performance of the _Huguenots_. René's heart began to beat faster. He had forgotten Rosalie, his remorse of a little while ago, and the question that he had put to himself. That inner voice which whispers in our soul's ear such advice as would, upon reflection, astonish us, had just said to him: 'Madame Moraines will be at home to-day. What if you went?'

'What if I went?' he repeated aloud, and the bare idea of this visit parched his throat and set him trembling. It is the facility with which extreme emotions are brought into play upon the slightest provocation that makes the inner life of young men full of such strange and rapid transitions from the heights of joy to the depths of misery. René had no sooner put the temptation that beset him into words than he shrugged his shoulders and said, 'It's madness.' Having arrived at that decision, he commenced to plead the cause of his own desire under pretence of summing up the objections. 'How would she receive me?' The remembrance of her beautiful eyes and of her sweet smile made him reply, 'But she was so gentle and so indulgent.' Then he resumed his questioning. 'What could I say to justify a visit less than twenty-four hours after having left her?' 'Pooh!' replied the tempting voice, 'the occasion brings its own inspiration.' 'But I am not even dressed.' Well, he had only to go to the Rue Coëtlogon. 'But I don't even know her address.' 'Claude knows it--I have only to ask him.'

The idea of calling on Larcher having once presented itself to his mind, he felt that it would be impossible not to put at least that part of his plan into execution. To call on Claude was the first step towards reaching Madame Moraines; but, instead of confessing that, René was hypocrite enough to pretend other reasons. Ought he not really to go and obtain news of his friend? He had left him so unhappy, so truly miserable, on the previous evening. Perhaps he was now fretting like a child? Perhaps he was preparing to pick a quarrel with Salvaney? In this way the poet excused himself for the haste with which he was now making for the Rue de Varenne. It was not only Suzanne's address that he hoped to obtain, but information about her too--and all the while he was trying to persuade himself that he was simply fulfilling a duty of friendship.

In a very short time he had reached the corner of the Rue de Bellechasse, and a few moments later he found himself before the great doors of the strange house in which Larcher had taken up his abode. Pushing these open, he entered an immense courtyard in which everything spoke of desolation, from the grass that grew between the stones to the cobwebs that covered the windows of the deserted stables on the left. At the bottom of the courtyard stood a noble mansion, built in the reign of Louis XIV., and bearing the proud motto of the Saint-Euvertes, whose town house this had been, _Fortiter._ The stones of this building, already bearing traces of the ravages of time, its long shuttered windows and its silence were all in harmony with the solitude of the courtyard. The old Faubourg Saint-Germain contains many such houses, strange as the destiny of their owners, and which will always prove peculiarly attractive to minds in search of the psychologically picturesque--if we may unite these two words to define an almost indefinable shade of meaning.

René had heard the history of this mansion from his friend; how the old Marquis de Saint-Euverte, reduced to despair by the almost simultaneous loss of his wife, his three daughters, and their husbands, had, six years ago, gone to live with his grandsons on his estates in Poitou. An epidemic of typhoid fever suddenly breaking out in a small watering-place where all the family were staying together had made this happy old man the lonely guardian of a tribe of orphans. Even during the lifetime of the Marquise--an excellent business woman--two small wings in the house had been let to quiet tenants. These wings had also a history of their own, the grandfather of the present Marquis having placed them at the disposal of two cousins--Knights of Saint-Louis and at one time political refugees--who, after a wretched, wandering existence, had ended their days here. M. de Saint-Euverte had left everything as his wife had arranged it. Claude therefore one day found himself the only tenant in the whole of this silent, gloomy building, for the occupant of the other wing had been scared away by the loneliness of the place, and no one else had yet seemed anxious to bury himself in this tomb, standing between a desolate courtyard and a still more desolate garden.

But all these points, that were so displeasing to others, were a source of delight to Larcher. The oddness of the place appealed particularly to this dreamer and maker of paradoxes. It pleased him to set his irregular existence as an artist and a swell clubman in this framework of imposing solitude; and here, too, he could shut himself up with his secret agonies. The love of analytical introspection with which he knew he was infected, and which, like a doctor cultivating his own disease for the sake of a fine 'case,' he carefully nurtured, could not have found a better home. Then, again, here Larcher enjoyed absolute freedom. The _concierge_, won over by a few theatre tickets and fascinated by the reputation of his tenant, would have allowed him to hold a saturnalian feast in every hall of the Saint-Euverte mansion had Claude felt any desire to found another _Club de Haschischins_ or to reproduce some scene of literary orgies out of love for the romanticism of 1830. The _concierge_ was absent from his post when René arrived, so that the poet walked straight across the courtyard to the house. Entering the main hall, where the magnificent lamps bore testimony to the grandeur of the receptions once held here, he mounted the stone staircase, whose wrought-iron balustrade formed a splendid ornament to the huge well of the house. On the second floor he turned down a corridor, at the end of which heavy curtains of Oriental texture proclaimed a modern installation hidden in the depths of a mansion that seemed to be peopled only with the bewigged ghosts of _grands seigneurs._

The man-servant who answered his ring possessed that type of face peculiar to nearly all custodians of old buildings; it is met with both in the guides of ruined castles and in the vergers of cathedrals, and shows how vast must be the influence which places have on human beings. It is a face with a greenish tint and with a hawk-like expression about the eyes and mouth; from its appearance one would suppose that it smelt damp. Ferdinand--that was the name of this individual--differed from his kind only in dress, which, consisting as it did of Claude's cast off clothes, was fashionable and smart. He had been valet to the late Comte de Saint-Euverte, and, in addition to his duties as Larcher's servant, he was a kind of housekeeper for the whole mansion, from which he seldom emerged more than once a month. The _concierge_ went on all the writer's errands, and his wife did the cooking. This little world lived entirely under the spell of Claude, who, through his knowledge of character and his infantile goodness of heart, possessed in a rare degree the gift of winning the attachment of his inferiors. When Ferdinand saw who the caller was he could not help showing great uneasiness.

'They shouldn't have let you come up, sir!' he said. 'I shall get into trouble.'

'Is Monsieur Larcher at work?' asked René, smiling at the man's terror.

'No,' replied Ferdinand in an undertone, and quite at a loss what to do with a visitor whom his master had evidently not expected. 'But Madame Colette is here.'

'Ask him whether he can see me for a minute,' said the poet, curious to know how the two lovers stood after the scene of the preceding evening; and, in order to conquer the valet's hesitation, he added: 'I'll take all the responsibility.'

'You may come up, sir,' was the answer with which he returned, and, preceding René through the ante-room, he took him up the small inner staircase that led to the three apartments usually inhabited by Claude, and which the writer either called his 'laboratory' or his 'torture-chamber,' according to the mood he was in.

The staircase and the first two of the three rooms were remarkable for the richness of their carpets and hangings. The faint light that filtered through the stained-glass windows on this dull February afternoon scarcely cast a shadow, either in the smoking-room with its morocco-covered furniture or in the large _salon_ lined with books. Claude's favourite nook was a den at the end, the walls of which were hung with some dark material and adorned with a few canvases and _aquarelles_ of the most modern painters of the day--these being what the writer's extravagant fancy preferred. There were two opera boxes by Forain, a dancing girl by Degas, a rural scene by Raffaelli, a sea-piece by Monet, four etchings by Félicien Rops, and on a draped pedestal a bust of Larcher himself by Rodin. The bust was a splendid piece of work, in which the great sculptor had reproduced with marvellous skill all that might be read in his model's face--qualms of morality mingled with libertinism, bold reflection allied to a weak will, innate idealism hand in hand with an almost systematically acquired corruption. A low bookcase, a desk in one corner, three fauteuils in Venetian style with negroes supporting the arms, and a wide green leather couch completed the furniture of this retreat, clouded at that moment with the smoke of Colette's Russian cigarette.

The young lady was lying at full length on the couch, her fair hair tumbling about her ears, and attired in somewhat masculine style, with a stand-up collar and an open jacket. Her short plain cloth skirt revealed a pair of neat ankles and long narrow feet encased in black silk stockings and patent leather shoes. Her sunken cheeks were pale--that pallor produced in most theatrical women by the constant use of paint, by late hours, and by the fatigues of an arduous profession.

'_Ah! mon petit Vincy_,' she cried, holding out her hand to the visitor, 'you have come just in time to save me from a beating. I only wish you knew how badly this boy treats me! Come, Claudie,' she added, shaking her finger at her lover, who was seated at her feet, 'say it's not true if you dare.' And with a graceful movement of her lithe and supple body--she herself would confess that she scarcely ever wore a corset--the charming creature rose to a sitting posture, laid her fair head on Claude's shoulder, and placed between his lips the cigarette she had just been smoking. The wretched man looked at his young friend with shame and supplication written on his face; then, turning to Colette, his eyes filled with tears. At this the actress's behaviour became more wanton still, and leaning forward upon her lover's shoulder, she gazed into his eyes until she saw in them the look of passion that she knew so well how to turn to her own advantage.

A dead silence ensued. The fire burned brightly in the grate, and a solitary sunbeam, making its way through the coloured glass, fell in a long red streak upon the girl's face. René had been present at scenes of this kind too often to feel surprised at the want of modesty of either his friend or Colette. He was well acquainted with the strange cynicism of their nature; but he also remembered Claude's terrible language the night before, and the cruel words his mistress had uttered after his disappearance. He was astounded to see to what depths of degradation the writer's weakness dragged him down, and to witness such proofs of this wretched woman's inconsistency. In the close atmosphere of this room, impregnated with the perfume that Colette used, and before the almost immodest attitude of the pair before him, there came over him a feeling of sensuality with which he was already too familiar. The sight of this depraved creature--though her depravity was generally clothed in graceful forms--had often awakened in him ideas of a physical passion very different from any he had hitherto known. She had frequently received him in her dressing-room at the theatre, and as she stood in careless dishabille before her glass putting the finishing touches to her face, or completing, with unblushing indifference, the more hidden details of her toilet, she had appeared to him like some temptress personifying the highest forms of voluptuousness, and at such times he would envy Claude as much as he sometimes pitied him. But these feelings would soon be dispelled by the disgust with which the moral degradation of the actress inspired him and by the burning scruples of friendship that animate and restrain the young. René would have been horrified to find himself, even for a moment, coveting what he considered his friend's property, and perhaps the knowledge of this delicacy of feeling went for something in Colette's behaviour. Out of sheer wantonness she amused herself by displaying her beauty before him, just as we hold up a flower to be smelt when we know the hands will not be put out to seize it. Wantonness it was, too, that led the misguided girl to dally with Claude and to lavish such caresses upon him before René.

All this, however, produced in the poet a vague physical longing that he could not repress; it grew upon him unconsciously, and, by an association of desires, more difficult to interrupt in its secret workings than an association of ideas, the vision of Madame Moraines was once more before him, surrounded by the halo of seduction that had so completely dazzled him on the previous evening. Two things were now obvious to René: one was, that he must go and call on that woman to-day; the other, that he would never be able to utter her name and ask for her address before the lascivious creature who was torturing Claude with her kisses.

'Get away,' said the writer, pushing her from him; 'I love you, and you know it. Why, then, do you make me suffer so? Ask René what a state I was in last night. Tell her, Vincy, and tell her she should not trifle with me. After all,' he cried, burying his face in his hands, 'what does it matter? If you became the most degraded wretch on earth, I should still idolise you.'

'These are some of the pretty things I have to hear all day long,' cried Colette, rolling back on the cushions with a laugh. 'Well, René, tell him about me too. Tell him how angry I was last night because he went home without saying a word. And then he didn't write, so I came here. Yes, I came to _him_, if you please. You savage!' she cried, taking Larcher by the hair, 'do you think I should trouble to run after you if I didn't love you?'

Every feature of her face expressed the real nature of the feeling she entertained for Claude--cruel sensuality, that sensuality which impels a woman to make a martyr of the man from whose power she cannot free herself. History tells of queens who loved in this fashion, and who handed over to the headsman the men whom they hated and yet desired to possess. René quietly observed:

'I was uneasy about him last night, it is true, and you were very cruel.'

'That will do!' cried Colette, with a contemptuous laugh. 'I've already told you that you swallow anything he says. I've given that up myself long ago. One day he threatened to commit suicide, and when I came here in my stage clothes, without even waiting to wash my paint off, I found him--correcting proofs!'

'But that I'm obliged to do,' replied Claude; 'you often have to smile on the stage yourself when you're really in trouble.'

'What does that prove?' she retorted sharply; 'that we are merely acting. Only I take you for what you are, and you don't.'

Whilst she rattled on, rating Claude with that savage rancour that a woman takes no pains to conceal from the man with whom she is on intimate terms, René's glance, as it wandered round the room, fell upon a directory containing the addresses of the 'upper ten' and the hangers-on of Society.

Taking it up he turned over the leaves, and to offer some excuse for his action, mendaciously remarked, 'Why, your name isn't here, Claude!'

'I should think not,' said Colette; 'I won't let him send it. He sees quite enough of the swells as it is.'

'I thought you liked the society of that kind of man,' observed Claude.

'What a clever thing to say!' she replied, with a graceful shrug of her shoulders. 'They're smart, it's true--it's their business to be. They know how to dress, to play tennis, to ride, and to talk of horses, whilst you, with all your brains, will never be anything but a cad. How I wish you were now what you were eight years ago when I first met you in that restaurant at the corner of the Rue des Saints-Pères! I had just come from the Conservatoire with my mother and Farguet, my professor, and we were having some lunch. You looked so good, sitting in the corner--as though you had come from a monastery, and were having your first peep at the world. It was that, I think, that made me like you. Are you coming to the theatre to-night?' she asked René, as he closed the book and rose to go. He had found what he wanted; Madame Moraines lived in the Rue Murillo, near the Parc Monceau. 'No? Well, to-morrow then, and mind you don't get gadding about like this boy! Such fine ladies as they are, too, your Society women--I know something of them! Oh, look at his face--won't he storm as soon as you're gone! You're surely not going to be jealous of women?' she said, lighting a fresh cigarette. 'Good-bye, René.'

'She is like that before you,' observed Claude, as he let his friend out; 'but you wouldn't believe how gentle and affectionate she can be when we are alone!'

'And how about Salvaney?' asked René unthinkingly.

Claude turned pale. 'She says that she merely went to his rooms to look at some drawings for her next _rôle_: she swears that there was nothing wrong in it With women, everything is possible--even what is good,' he added, giving René a hand that was not very steady. 'I can't help it--I must believe her when she looks at me in her peculiar way.'