CHAPTER IX

AN ACTRESS IN REAL LIFE

Every morning a little before nine Paul Moraines entered his wife's room. By that time she had had her bath and was employed in attending to little trifles. Her small white feet, showing their blue veins, played in and out of her slippers, her dressing gown of soft clinging material was gathered round her slim waist by a silken cord, and her hair hung down in a thick golden plait. The bedroom, in which the big bedstead took up a good deal of space, was aired and perfumed, and to Paul the three-quarters of an hour he spent in taking his morning cup of tea with Suzanne at a little table near the window was the happiest part of the day. He had to be at his office by ten, and was too busy to come home for lunch. He was the kind of man who sits down in a first-class restaurant about half-past twelve, orders the _plat du jour_, a small bottle of wine, and a cup of coffee, and goes away after having spent the smallest sum possible. It pleased him to rival his wife's economy in this fashion. But his morning cup of tea was the reward he looked forward to during the six or seven hours he devoted to the Company's work.

'There are some days,' he would say in his simple way, 'when I should see nothing of you if it were not for this thrice blessed cup of tea!' It was he who served her; he buttered her toast with infinite care and watched her dainty teeth attack the crisp morsels. He was uneasy when, as on the morning after she had seen René at the Opera, her eyes were not quite so bright as usual and a look of fatigue showed that she had not had sufficient sleep. All night had she been tormented by thoughts of the young poet, and by the stir he had made amongst the small bundle of remnants she called her feelings. Her mind being before all else clear and precise--the mind of a business man at the service of a pretty woman's whims--she had reviewed the means at her disposal for gratifying her passionate caprice. The first condition was that she should see René again, and see him often; now, that was impossible at her own house, as was proved by her husband's words that very morning. After a few tender inquiries concerning her health, he asked, Did you have many visitors yesterday?'

'None at all,' she replied; and it being her custom never to tell an unnecessary fib, she added, 'only Desforges and that young fellow who wrote the play performed at Madame Komof's the other night.'

'René Vincy,' remarked Moraines. 'I'm sorry I missed him--I like his work very much. What is he like? Is he presentable?'

'He's nothing much,' answered Suzanne; 'quite insignificant.'

'Did Desforges see him?'

'Yes--why?'

'I'll ask the Baron about him. I dare say he took his measure at the first glance. He has a rare knowledge of men.'

'That's just like him,' said Suzanne, when Moraines was gone, after having devoured her with kisses; 'he tells the Baron everything.' She foresaw that the first person to tell Desforges of René's frequent visits to the Rue Murillo, if she got the poet to come, would be Paul himself. 'He is really too silly,' she went on, getting out of patience with him for his absolute confidence in the Baron, which she had herself been most instrumental in inspiring. But now she was beginning to fret under the first feelings of restraint.

Thoughts of René ran through her head all the morning, which was spent in looking over accounts and in receiving the visit of Madame Leroux, her manicure, a person of ripe age, extremely devout, with a sanctimonious and discreet air, who waited on the most aristocratic hands and feet in Paris. As a rule Suzanne, who, with perfect justice, looked upon inferiors as the principal source of all Society scandal, had a long talk with Madame Leroux, partly to procure her good-will, partly to hear a good many details concerning those whom the artiste deigned to honour with her services. Madame Leroux was therefore never tired of singing the praises of that charming Madame Moraines, 'so unaffected and so good. She absolutely worships her husband.' But that day none of the manicure's flattery could draw a single word from her fair client. The desire that had seized hold of the latter grew stronger and stronger, whilst the obstacles that stood in the way of its gratification assumed a clearer and more uncompromising shape. To gain a man's love requires time and opportunities of meeting. René did not go into Society, and if he had done so it would have been worse still, for other women would have taken him from her. Here, in her home in the Rue Murillo, she could have wormed her way into his virgin heart so easily--and only the Baron's watchfulness prevented her.

It was the first time for some years that she felt herself fettered, and a fit of anger against the man to whom she owed all she had came over her. Filled with such thoughts as these she lunched as usual alone, and in very frugal fashion. Even with the generous assistance of her benefactor she could only make both ends meet by practising economy in things that would not be noticed, such as the table. In her solitude she felt so miserable and at the same time so utterly powerless that, as she rose, the cry almost escaped her, 'What is the use of it, after all?'

What was the use of it all, indeed? She was a slave. Not only could she not see René as she wished in her own house, but that very afternoon, in spite of the new sentiments that were springing up within her, she had to keep an appointment with Desforges.

'What is the use of it?' she repeated, as she got herself ready to go out, putting on a pair of tiny shoes instead of boots, a plain dress that fastened in front, a black bonnet, and in her pocket a thick veil. She had ordered her carriage for two o'clock--a brougham and pair that she hired by the month for the afternoon and evening. On getting into it she was so crushed by the weight of her slavery that she could have cried. What, then, were her feelings when, on turning the corner of the street, she saw René standing there, evidently waiting to see her pass?

Their eyes met. He took his hat off with a blush, and she too could not help blushing in the corner of her carriage, so great was the pleasurable revulsion of feeling caused by this unexpected meeting, and especially by the idea that he must be in love with her. She, the creature of calculation and deceit, fell into one of those profound reveries in which women, when in love, anticipate all the delights to which the sentiment they experience and inspire can give birth. At such a moment they will give themselves up in thoughts to the man they did not know a week ago. If they dared, they would give themselves up too, there and then, though this would not hinder them from persuading the man who conquered them at the first glance that their subjugation was a work of time and degrees. In this they are right, for man's stupid vanity is gratified by the difficulties of the conquest, and few have sense enough to understand the divine quality of love that is spontaneous, natural, and irresistible.

Whilst the poet walked off, saying to himself, 'I am undone--she will never forgive me for such folly,' Suzanne was in one of those transports of delight before which prudence itself gives way, and, forgetting her fears of the morning, she now saw her way to carrying out one of those simple plans such as only the eminently realistic mind of a woman can concoct. She had set herself the task of deceiving a very sharp man, and one who was well acquainted with her disposition. The best thing to do, therefore, was to act in a manner exactly contrary to what that man would expect and foresee. Matters must be precipitated; René must be brought to her feet after two or three visits, and she must surrender before he had had time to woo her; Desforges would never suspect her of such an escapade--he who knew her to be so circumspect, so cautious, and so clever. But what if the poet despised her for her too easy surrender? She shook her pretty head incredulously as this objection occurred to her. That was a matter of tact and of woman's wit, and there she was sure of her ground!

Her joy at having roughly worked out this problem and the joy of deceiving the subtle Baron became so strangely mixed that she now looked forward to her appointment not only without regret, but with malicious delight. On reaching the colonnades in the Rue de Rivoli she got out as usual and sent the carriage home. The house in which the Baron had taken rooms for his meetings with Suzanne possessed two entrances, an advantage so uncommon in Paris that buildings favoured in that way are not only well-known, but much sought after by transgressors of the Seventh Commandment. Frédéric was too intimately acquainted with this phase of Parisian life to have fallen into the error of going to a place whose reputation was already made. The house he had somewhat accidentally hit upon must have escaped discovery by reason of its sedate and dismal-looking frontage in the Rue du Mont-Thabor, where he had taken the first floor, consisting of an ante-room and three other apartments. The rooms were kept in order by his valet, a man on whom he could thoroughly rely, thanks to the liberal wages he gave him. Considerable regard had been paid to what must be called the comfort of pleasure in furnishing this small suite, where the hangings and curtains deadened the noises from without, where soft skins were thrown down here and there for naked feet, where the countless mirrors reminded one of similar but less decorous places, and where the low arm-chairs and couches invited those long, familiar talks in which lovers delight. In a word, the minute care bestowed upon this interior would alone have betrayed the extent of the Baron's sensualism.

Suzanne had so often come to this house during the past few years, she had so often tied on her thick veil in the doorway in the Rue de Rivoli, so often hastened past the porter's lodge that she had come to perform almost mechanically these rites of adultery which procure novices such exquisite emotions. To-day, as she mounted the stairs, she could not help thinking how differently she would feel if she were going to meet René Vincy instead of the Baron in this quiet retreat She knew so well exactly what would happen. Desforges would be there and have everything prepared for her reception, from the flowers in the vases to the bread and butter for tea; then, at a given moment, she would go into the dressing-room and come out in a loose lace gown, her hair hanging about her shoulders and her little feet encased in slippers similar to those she wore in the morning. She took not the least pleasure in all this, but the Baron had such a charming way of showing his gratitude for the favours she granted him and displayed so much wit and affection during their long talks together that it was frequently he who had to remind his mistress that it was time to go.

To-day the state of her mind and feelings prompted Suzanne herself to say, as soon as she had entered the room, 'I am very sorry, Frédéric dear, but I shall have to leave you rather early.'

'Has it put you out to come?' asked the Baron as he helped her off with her cloak. 'Why didn't you send me a line to countermand our appointment?'

'He is really too kind,' thought Suzanne, feeling some slight remorse for her unnecessary fib. Taking her hat off before the glass the flash of her diamond earrings caught her eye, and suddenly reminded her of all that she owed this man, who asked for so little in return.

False situations sometimes give rise to conscientious paradoxes, and it was a feeling of honesty that impelled this woman to come and seat herself on the arm of the Baron's easy chair and to sigh, 'I should have been terribly disappointed myself. Will you never believe that I am really glad to come here?--I owe him that at least,' she thought, and in further obedience to her strange qualms of conscience she contrived to be more than usually fascinating and docile during the whole of their _tête-à-tête._

At the end of a couple of hours, whilst she was lying back half buried in one of the great arm-chairs, enjoying a caviar sandwich and a thimbleful of fine old sherry, Desforges, who was watching her dainty movements as she ate, could not help exclaiming: 'Ah! Suzon! At my age, too! What would Noirot say?'

This Noirot who had so suddenly troubled the Baron's mind was a doctor who treated him to a course of massage every morning and watched over his general health. Everything in the life of this systematic voluptuary was carefully planned out, from the amount of exercise to be taken each day to the attendance he should receive when in his dotage. He had taken into his house a poor and pious female relative, to whose good works he annually subscribed a pretty round sum. When complimented on his generosity, he would reply in his own jocular and cynical way: 'What can I do? I must have some one to look after me in my old age. My cousin will be my nurse, and make the best one in Paris.'

Generally these outbursts of unblushing egotism amused Suzanne. She saw in them a conception of life whose pronounced materialism was far from displeasing her. But to-day she looked a little more closely at the Baron as he uttered his doctor's name, and sitting there with the lamp-light full upon his wrinkled face, his drooping moustache and his swollen eyelids, he looked so broken down and so fully his age that the hideousness of her own life suddenly burst upon her. It is a horrible thing for a young and beautiful woman to endure the caresses of a man she does not love, even when that man is young, full of passion and ardour. But when he is bordering on old age, when he pays for the right to pollute this fair woman whose love he cannot win, then it is prostitution so terrible that disgust gives way to sorrow. For the first time, perhaps, Desforges looked old in Suzanne's eyes, and by an irresistible impulse of her whole soul she called to mind, as a contrast, the fresh lips and fair young face of the man whose image had haunted her for the past two days. She felt how foolishly she had behaved in hesitating for an instant, and, being a person of determination, she commenced to act at once.

She was now dressed, and having put on her bonnet and buttoned her gloves, she said to Desforges before tying on her veil, 'When are you coming to lunch with me? Once upon a time you often used to come without being asked--it was so nice of you.'

'To-morrow I can't,' he replied, 'nor the next day either, but the day after that----'

'Tuesday, then? That's an understood thing. And to-night I shall see you at Madame de Sermoises', sha'n't I?'

'Charming woman!' thought the Baron, as he was left alone. 'She might have so many adventures, and her only thought is of pleasing me.'

'The day after to-morrow, then, I am sure of being alone,' said Suzanne to herself as she swept along the pavement of the Rue du Mont-Thabor, casting cautious glances to the right and left, but with such art that her eyes scarcely seemed to move. 'But what excuse can I give René'--she already called him by that name in her thoughts--'to make him come? I know--I'll ask him to write a few lines on a copy of the "Sigisbée" that I'm going to send to a friend.'

She had to pass a bookseller's in the Rue Castiglione, and went in to buy the book, being in that state of mind when the execution of an idea follows almost automatically upon its conception. 'I hope he'll not do anything foolish before then. And I hope he won't hear anything about me that will dampen his ardour.' Claude Larcher once more came into her mind. 'Yes--he's certainly dangerous,' she thought, and saw at once the means of avoiding the danger provided René came to her before speaking to Claude. Then it suddenly struck her that she did not know the poet's address, but that difficulty could be got over by calling on Madame Komof. 'It is past six now, and she is sure to be at home.' Hailing a cab, she drove to the Rue du Bel-Respiro, and was lucky enough to find the Comtesse alone, from whom it was easy to obtain the information she wanted.

The worthy lady, whose _soirée_ had been a success, was loud in her praise of the poet. '_Idéal!_' she exclaimed, with one of her wild gesticulations, 'charming! And so modest! He will be your modern Poushkin.'

'Do you know where he lives?' inquired Suzanne. 'He called on me and only left his name.'

No sooner had her note been written and sent than she became a prey to that uncertainty upon which newborn love thrives so well that in those days when the strange but not unintellectual vice of seduction was still fashionable the professors of the art used to dwell upon the importance of invoking the aid of this feverish condition. Would René come or not? If he came, what would he look like?

She would be able to see at once by his face if anything had happened to impair the impression she was sure she had made upon him the other day. The hour that she had fixed in her note at length arrived, and when the poet was announced Suzanne's heart beat faster than did that of her simple lover. She looked at him and read to the bottom of his soul. Yes, she was still to him the Madonna she had pretended to be from the first with that facility of metamorphosis peculiar to these Protei in petticoats. In his soft dark blue eyes she perceived both joy and fear--joy at seeing her again so soon, and in her own home; fear at appearing before this angel of purity after having dared to look for her at the Opera and to wait for her at the corner of the street.

This time the charming actress had devised a new background for her beauty. She was seated near the window, and with some bundles of silk thread and the aid of a few pins was working a pattern upon a drum of green cloth. Behind her the lace curtains were drawn back in their bands, and the visitor's gaze could rest upon the landscape of the Parc Monceau, upon the pale blue sky, the bare trees, the yellow grass, and the dark ivy that grew about the ruins. A February sun lit up this wintry prospect, and its rays fell caressingly upon Suzanne's hair with its soft golden sheen. A white dress, made in fanciful style, with long, wide sleeves and trimmings of violets, gave her the appearance of a lady of the Middle Ages. Her feet, encased in silk stockings of the same shade as the trimming of her dress, were modestly crossed upon a low footstool. Had she been told that less than forty-eight hours ago these same modest feet had wandered across the carpets of what was almost a house of ill-fame, that this hair had been handled by an aged lover who paid her, that she was in fact kept by Desforges, she would probably have denied the statement in perfect sincerity, so closely did her desire to please René make her identify herself with the _rôle_ she was playing.

The poet could not be aware of this. He had spent three days in one continual state of exaltation, feeling his desire increase hourly, and very glad to feel it. The beginning of a passion is as alluring at twenty-five as at thirty-five it is terrifying. Suzanne's note had given him unmistakable proofs that the trifling imprudences which he himself looked upon as a crime had not given great displeasure, but in matters that concern us very closely we always find fresh motives for doubt, and this grown-up child had been silly enough to fear the reception that awaited him. How delighted he was, therefore, to be met with the simple familiarity, the beaming eyes, and the sweet smile of this woman whom, seated in the foreground of the wintry landscape, he immediately compared to those saints whom the early masters set in the midst of green fields and placid lakes. But this was a saint whose gown had been made by the first tailor in Paris, a saint from whom there emanated that odour of heliotrope which had already played such havoc with the poet's senses, and through the opening of whose long, wide sleeves two golden bands were seen clasping an arm as white as snow.

What René had so much feared did not take place. Madame Moraines did not make the slightest allusion either to the Opera or to their meeting at the corner of the street. For some time she continued her work, having quite naturally brought the conversation round from Madame Komof's enthusiasm to the poet's plans for the future. She, who could not have distinguished Béranger from Victor Hugo, or Voltaire from Lamartine, spoke like one entirely devoted to literature. She had met Théophile Gautier two or three times under the Empire, and though she had scarcely looked at him on account of his complete lack of British elegance, this did not prevent her from giving the enthusiastic René a minute description of the great writer. He had interested her to such a degree--she thought she must still have some of his letters.

'I must find them for you,' she said. Then, reminded by this lie, she added, 'I am sorry to have put you to all this inconvenience for your autograph, but my friend leaves for Russia to-morrow.'

'What shall I write?' asked René.

'Whatever you please,' she said, rising to get the book, and placing it on her ivy-mantled desk. She got everything ready for him to make his task easier--opened the ink-pot with its silver top and put a fresh pen in the ivory and gold penholder; in doing this she contrived to touch René lightly in passing to and fro, enveloping him with her sweet perfume and causing his hand to tremble as he copied on the fly-sheet of the book the two verses which kind Madame Ethorel had called a sonnet:

The phantom of a day long dead Appeared, with hand stretched out to show A fair white rose whose bloom was fled, And in my ear it whispered low, 'Where is thy heart of long ago? Where is that hope thy fond heart chose So like this rose in days of yore? Dear was the hope and dear the rose: How sweet their perfume heretofore When once they bloomed! They bloom no more.

When he had finished writing Madame Moraines took the book from his hands, and, standing behind him, recited the verses in a low, almost inaudible, voice, as if to herself. She added no word of praise or criticism, but, after having read out the lines with a sigh, remained standing there as though their music lent an infinitely tender tone to her reverie.

René gazed at her almost wild with emotion. How could he have resisted such sweet and supreme flattery as that which she had just employed to captivate him, appealing, as it did, both to his vanity as an artist and to his highest conceptions of beauty? And, indeed, she had managed to fall into a splendid _pose_ whilst reading. She knew how charming she looked with half-averted face and eyes cast down. But suddenly she turned these glorious eyes, now eloquent with the feelings inspired by his lines, full upon the poet, and almost asked pardon for her temporary abstraction.

She seemed to step out of her poetic visions as though she were afraid of profaning them, and with a curiosity this time as real as her artificial emotion was apparent, she said: 'I am sure you did not write these lines for your play?'

'That is true,' replied René, with another blush. He had scruples about lying to this woman, even to please her. But how could he tell her the sad and wretched story which, with a poet's touch, he had transformed into a romantic idyll?

'Ah! you men!' she went on, without waiting for further reply--'how full your life is, and how free! But you must not think I am complaining. We Christian wives know our duty, and a beautiful one it is--obedience.' After a moment's silence she added: 'Alas! we do not always choose our master,' and then, in a tone of mingled resignation and pride that both suggested and forbade further speculation, 'I am sorry I have not been able to introduce you to Monsieur Moraines yet I hope you will like him. He is not much interested in art, but he is a very clever man in business. Unfortunately we live in an age when one must be born in Israel to get on well.'

As may be imagined, there was not the slightest anti-Semitic feeling in Suzanne, who was always very glad to receive invitations to dine at two or three Jewish houses of princely hospitality, but it had struck her that these words would intensify the halo of piety with which she had endeavoured to invest herself in the poet's eyes. 'You will find my husband somewhat reserved at first,' she continued; 'it was my ambition to make my drawing-room a rendez-vous of writers and artists, but you know that business men are a little jealous of you all, and then Monsieur Moraines doesn't care for society much. He was not at Madame Komof's the other night; he likes to move just in a small circle, and have only well-known faces about him.'

She spoke with an air of constraint, as if she meant to say, 'You must excuse me if I cannot ask you to come and see me here as I should like.' This constrained air also meant that this lovely woman must have been sacrificed (not that she was ever heard to complain) to cold social considerations which take no account whatever of sentiment. Already, in René's imagination, Paul Moraines, that amiable and jovial fellow, had become a crotchety and bad-tempered husband, to whom this creature of a superior race was bound by the terrible chains of duty. In addition to the passion that animated him, he felt for her that pity which the less a woman deserves it the more she loves to inspire.

Tempering the pointedness of his reply by the generality in which he clothed it, he made bold to say, 'I wish I could tell you how often, when I have wandered as far as the Champs-Elysées, I have longed to know the secret of the sadness I imagined I saw on certain faces. It has always seemed to me that the troubles of the wealthy are the worst, and that mental anguish in the midst of material well-being is most to be pitied.'

She looked at him as if his words surprised her. In her eyes was that look of rapt and involuntary astonishment worn by a woman when she suddenly discovers in a man a shade of sentimentalism which she believed to be restricted to her own sex.

'I think we shall soon become friends,' she said, 'for there is much in our hearts that is similar. Are you like me? I believe in sympathy and antipathy by sheer instinct, and I think I can also feel when people don't like me. Now--perhaps I am wrong in telling you this, but I speak to you in confidence, as if I had known you a long time--there is your friend Monsieur Larcher; I am sure that he doesn't like me.'

She was really agitated as she said this, for she was now about to learn for certain, not whether Claude had been speaking ill of her--she knew he had not by René's face--but whether the poet could hold his tongue. She was well aware that in a love affair the dangerous time for imprudent confidences lies at the beginning and the end. Your only sure men are those who can keep their peace when their hearts are overflowing with hope or bitterness. By René's reply she would be able to judge an important trait in his character, and one that was a principal factor in the plan that she had madly and rapidly evolved. It was only natural that he should have confided his passion to Claude on the very day of its birth--and he would have done so, too, had it not been for Colette's presence. This detail was, of course, unknown to Suzanne, and René's silence was a promise of prudence that set her heart beating.

'We have never mentioned your name,' said the poet; 'but, as you remarked only too justly the other evening, he has always been particularly unfortunate in his love affairs, and he cannot shake his troubles off. If you could but see how he carries on with the woman he is miserably in love with at the present moment!'

'That is no reason,' said Suzanne, 'why he should revenge himself by forcing his attentions upon any woman chance throws in his way. I got quite angry one day when he was seated next to me at table. I heard, too, that he had been speaking ill of me, but I have forgiven him.'

'And now Claude may say what he likes,' she thought when René had gone after promising to come again in three days' time and to bring his collection of unpublished poems. Then she looked at herself in the glass with unfeigned satisfaction. The interview had been a success; she had made the poet understand that she could not receive him in the ordinary way; she had put him on his guard against his best friend, and she had completed her capture of his heart.

'He is mine,' she cried, and this time her joy was sincere and deep.