Part 15

Do not say that, Rosette, do not think it.--What architect would build a stairway that led nowhere? Why imagine that the placid Architect of the world was stupider and less far-sighted than an ordinary architect? God makes no mistakes and forgets nothing. It is incredible that He should have amused Himself by playing a trick upon you and shutting you up in a long stone tunnel without exit or opening. Why should you suppose that He would haggle with such poor ants as we are over our paltry momentary happiness and the imperceptible grain of millet that falls to each of us in this immeasurable universe?--In order to do that He must be as savage as a tiger or a judge; and if we were so obnoxious to Him, He would simply have to bid a comet turn aside a little from its path and annihilate us all with a hair of its tail. How the devil can you think that God diverts Himself by spitting us all on a gold pin as the Emperor Domitian did with flies?--God isn't a concierge or a church-warden, and although He is old, He is not yet in His dotage. All such petty malice is beneath Him and He is not foolish enough to show off His smartness to us and play tricks on us.--Courage, Rosette, courage! If you are out of breath, stop a bit and take breath and then continue your upward course; perhaps you have only a score more steps to climb to reach the embrasure from which you will see your happiness.

ROSETTE.

Never! oh never! and if I reach the top of the tower, it will only be to hurl myself from it.

THÉODORE.

Banish these gloomy thoughts that flutter about you like bats, and cast the opaque shadow of their wings on your fair brow, my poor afflicted one. If you want me to love you, be happy, and do not weep. (_He draws her gently to his side and kisses her on the eyes_).

ROSETTE.

What a misfortune for me that I ever knew you! and yet, if I could live my life over, I would still prefer to have known you.--Your harshness has been sweeter to me than the passion of other men; and, although you have made me suffer intensely, all the pleasure I have ever had has come to me from you; through you I have caught a glimpse of what I might have been. You have been a flash of light in my darkness, and you have illuminated many dark places in my soul; you have opened new perspectives in my life.--I owe it to you that I know what love is,--unhappy love, it is true; but there is a melancholy and profound fascination in loving without being loved, and it is pleasant to remember those who forget us. It is a joy simply to be able to love, even when one loves alone, and many die without having had it, and often they who love are not the most to be pitied.

THÉODORE.

They suffer and feel their wounds, but at all events they live. They have some interest in life; they have a star about which they gravitate, a pole toward which they ardently extend their hands. They have something to long for; they can say to themselves: "If I reach that point, if I obtain that, I shall be happy."--They suffer frightful agony, but when they die, they can at least say to themselves: "I am dying for him."--To die thus is to be born again. The really unhappy, the only ones who are irreparably so, are they whose wild embrace takes in the whole universe, they who want everything and nothing, and who would be embarrassed and speechless if an angel or fairy should descend to earth and say suddenly to them: "Express one wish and it shall be gratified."

ROSETTE.

If a fairy should come I know what I would ask her.

THÉODORE.

You know, Rosette, and therein you are happier than I, for I do not know. There are in my heart many vague longings, which become confounded with one another and give birth to others which eventually consume them. My desires are a cloud of birds that fly aimlessly this way and that; yours is an eagle that has its eyes on the sun and is prevented by lack of air from soaring upward on its outspread wings. Ah! if I could only know what I want; if the idea that haunts me would stand out clear and well-defined from the mist that envelops it; if the lucky or unlucky star would appear in the depths of my sky; if the light I am to follow would shine out through the darkness, a deceitful will-o'-the-wisp or a friendly beacon; if my column of fire would go on before me, even though it were through a desert without manna and without springs of water; if I knew where I am going, even though my path ends at a precipice!--I would prefer the wild flights of accursed huntsmen through bogs and thickets, to this absurd and monotonous stamping and pawing. To live thus is to follow a trade like that of the horses with bandages over their eyes, who turn the wheel of a well, and travel thousands of leagues without seeing anything or changing their position.--I have been turning a long while, and the bucket ought to be at the top.

ROSETTE.

You resemble D'Albert in many ways, and, when you speak, it seems to me sometimes as if he were speaking.--I have no doubt that, when you know him better, you will become much attached to him; you cannot fail to suit each other.--He is tormented as you are, by these same aimless impulses; he is head over ears in love but does not know with what; he would like to ascend to Heaven, for the earth seems to him like a stool hardly fit for one of his feet to rest upon, and he has more pride than Lucifer before his fall.

THÉODORE.

I was afraid at first that he was one of those poets, of whom there are so many, who have driven poetry off the face of the earth, one of those stringers of false pearls who see nothing in the world but the last syllables of words, and who, when they have made _ombre_ rhyme with _sombre, flame_ with _âme_, and _Dieu_ with _lieu_, fold their arms and legs conscientiously and permit the spheres to accomplish their revolutions.

ROSETTE.

He is not one of that kind. His verses are beneath him and do not contain his thought. You would form a very mistaken idea of his nature from what he has written; his real poem is himself, and I don't know if he will ever produce another. He has, in the depths of his mind, a seraglio of choice ideas which he surrounds with a triple wall, and of which he is more jealous than ever sultan was of his odalisques.--He puts in his poetry only those ideas that he holds in light esteem, or with which he has become disgusted; he makes his verse the door through which he expels them and the world receives only those for which he has no further use.

THÉODORE.

I can understand his jealousy and his modesty.--Just as many men do not care for the love they have had until they no longer have it, or for their mistresses until they are dead.

ROSETTE.

It is so hard for one to have anything to one's self in this world! every candle attracts so many moths, every treasure attracts so many thieves!--I love the silent men who carry their ideas to the grave and do not choose to abandon them to the filthy kisses and shameless handling of the vulgar crowd. Those lovers please me best who do not carve their mistress's name on the bark of any tree, who confide it to no echo, and who, while they sleep, are haunted by the fear that they may utter it in a dream. I am one of that number; I have not divulged my thoughts and no one shall know my love.--But it is almost eleven o'clock, my dear Théodore, and I am preventing your taking rest that you must sadly need. When I am obliged to leave you I always have a feeling of oppression at my heart, and it seems to me as if it were the last time I should ever see you. I postpone it as long as I can; but I always have to go at last. Good-night, for I am afraid D'Albert may be looking for me; good-night, my dear friend.

Théodore put his arm around her waist and thus escorted her to the door; there he stopped and followed her a long time with his glance; the corridor was lighted at intervals by small windows with narrow panes, through which the moon shone, making alternate light and dark patches of fantastic shape. At each window Rosette's pure, white form gleamed like a silvery phantom; then it vanished to appear, even more brilliant, a little farther away; at last it disappeared altogether.

Théodore stood for some moments motionless, with folded arms, as if buried in profound meditation; then he passed his hand over his forehead and threw back his hair with a jerk of his head, returned to his room, and went to bed after kissing the brow of the page, who was still asleep.

VII

As soon as the daylight entered Rosette's room, D'Albert made his appearance, with an eagerness that was not usual with him.

"Here you are," said Rosette, "I would say very early, if you could ever arrive early.--To reward you for your gallantry I present you my hand to kiss."

And she drew from beneath the sheet of Flemish linen trimmed with lace the prettiest little hand that was ever seen at the end of a plump, well-shaped arm.

D'Albert kissed it with compunction:--"And the other, little sister, are we not to kiss that too?"

_"Mon Dieu_, yes! nothing is easier. I am in my Sunday humor to-day; here."--And she extended her other hand with which she tapped him lightly on the lips.--"Am I not the most obliging woman on earth?"

"You are grace itself, and temples of white marble should be erected to you in thickets of myrtle.--Really, I am very much afraid that the same thing will happen to you that happened to Psyche, and that Venus will be jealous of you," said D'Albert, taking the fair one's hands in one of his and raising them together to his lips.

"How you say all that without taking breath! any one would think it was something you had learned by heart," said Rosette, with a delicious little pout.

"No; you deserve to have the phrase turned expressly for you, and you were made to pluck the virgin bloom from compliments," rejoined D'Albert.

"Oho! whatever is the matter with you to-day? are you ill that you are so gallant? I fear you are dying. Do you know that when one's character suddenly changes, and without any apparent reason, it is an evil omen? Now it is a well-known fact, to all the women who have taken the pains to love you, that you are usually as morose as a man can be, and it is no less certain that at this moment you are as charming as a man can be, and inexplicably amiable.--Really, I think you are pale, my poor D'Albert: give me your arm and let me feel your pulse;" and she pushed back his sleeve and counted the pulsations with mock gravity.--"No, you are perfectly well and you haven't the slightest symptom of fever. In that case I must be furiously pretty this morning! Go and find my mirror so that I can see how far your gallantry is justified."

D'Albert brought a small mirror from the toilet-table and placed it on the bed.

"In truth," said Rosette, "you are not altogether wrong. Why don't you write a sonnet on my eyes, _Monsieur le Poète._ You have no excuse for not doing it. Just see how unfortunate I am! to have eyes like these and a poet like this, and to be left without sonnets just as if I were one-eyed and had a water-carrier for a lover! You don't love me, monsieur; you have never written so much as an acrostic sonnet for me.--And my mouth, what do you think of that? I have kissed you with that mouth and perhaps I will kiss you with it again, my dark-browed beauty; and upon my word, it is a favor that you hardly deserve--I am not speaking of to-day, for to-day you deserve anything;--but, to talk about something beside myself, you are incomparably fresh and comely this morning, you look like a brother of Aurora, and, although it is hardly daylight, you are already arrayed in your best clothes as if for a ball. Can it be that you have designs upon me? and do you meditate dealing an unexpected and final blow to my virtue? do you propose to make a conquest of me? But I forget that you have already done that, and that it's ancient history."

"Don't joke like that, Rosette; you know that I love you."

"Why, that depends. I don't know it; and you?"

"I know it perfectly well, and from such symptoms that, if you should have the kindness to forbid me your door, I should try to prove it to you, and I venture to flatter myself that I should do it most triumphantly."

"Not that way: however anxious I may be to be convinced, my door will remain open; I am too pretty to be shut up behind closed doors; the sun shines for one and all, and my beauty shall be like the sun to-day, if you approve."

"Upon my honor I strongly disapprove; but act as if I approved as strongly. I am your very humble slave, and I lay my wishes at your feet."

"That is as jolly as can be; continue to entertain such sentiments and leave your key in your door to-night."

"Monsieur le Chevalier Théodore de Sérannes,"--said a huge negro, putting his round, good-humored face between the wings of the folding-door, "desires to pay his respects to you and begs that you will deign to receive him."

"Admit Monsieur le Chevalier," said Rosette, pulling the sheet up to her chin.

Théodore went first to Rosette's bed and made a very low and graceful courtesy, which she returned with a friendly nod; then he turned to D'Albert, whom he also saluted in an off-hand, courteous manner.

"What were you talking about?" said Théodore. "It may be that I interrupted an interesting conversation: go on, I beg, and tell me in a few words what it is all about."

"Oh, no!" Rosette replied with a mischievous smile; "we were talking business."

Théodore seated himself at the foot of Rosette's bed, for D'Albert had taken his place at her pillow, by right of having arrived first. The conversation wandered for some time from subject to subject, very bright and gay and animated, and that is why we do not report it; we should be afraid that it would lose too much in being transcribed. The manner, the tone, the vivacity of speech and gesture, the countless ways of uttering a word, the effervescent wit, like the foam of champagne which sparkles and evaporates at once, are details that it is impossible to note down and reproduce. We leave that hiatus for the reader to fill, and he will certainly acquit himself of the task better than we could do. Let him imagine here five or six pages filled with whatever is most capricious, most refined, most curiously original, most ingenious and most sparkling in the way of conversation.

We are well aware that we are resorting to an artifice which reminds one a little of that resorted to by Timanthes, who, in despair of ever being able to reproduce Agamemnon's face, threw some drapery over his head; but we prefer to be timid rather than imprudent.

It would not perhaps be amiss to inquire into the motives that had led D'Albert to rise so early, and what spur had impelled him to call upon Rosette at as unseasonable an hour as if he had still been in love.--It would appear as if it were a slight attack of secret, unconfessed jealousy. To be sure he cared but little for Rosette, indeed he would have been very glad to be rid of her,--but he preferred to leave her voluntarily and not to be left by her, a thing which always inflicts a deep wound on a man's pride, although his first flame may be utterly extinct.--Théodore was such a well-favored cavalier that it was difficult to view his appearance on the scene while a liaison was in progress without apprehending what had in fact happened many times, that is to say, that all eyes would turn in his direction and the hearts follow the eyes; and, strangely enough, although he had taken away many women, no lover had harbored the enduring resentment that men usually feel for those who have supplanted them. There was in his whole behavior such winning charm, such unaffected grace, a something so gentle and so dignified, that even men were touched by it. D'Albert, who had come to Rosette's room, intending to speak very sharply to Théodore, if he should meet him there, was greatly surprised to find that he did not feel the slightest sensation of anger in his presence, and that he was inclined to receive with warmth the advances he made. In half an hour's time, you would have said that they had been friends from boyhood, and yet D'Albert felt in his inmost heart, that if Rosette was destined ever to love, she would love that man, and he had every reason to be jealous, for the future at least, for he did not suspect anything at present. What would he have thought, had he seen the fair creature in a white _peignoir_ gliding like a night-moth on a moonbeam into the handsome youth's room, and coming out three or four hours later with mysterious precautions? He might well, in very truth, have deemed himself more unfortunate than he really was, for it is a thing rarely seen that a pretty, lovelorn young woman comes forth from the bedroom of a no less attractive young man, exactly the same as when she went in.

Rosette listened to Théodore with much attention and as one listens to a person one loves; but what he said was so entertaining and upon so many different subjects, that her attention was perfectly natural and easily explained. And so D'Albert took no offence at it. Théodore's manner toward Rosette was courteous and friendly, but nothing more.

"What shall we do to-day, Théodore?" said Rosette, "suppose we go for a row on the river? what do you think? or shall we hunt?"

"To hunt is less depressing than to glide over the water side by side with some tired swan and thrust the water-lily leaves aside to right and left,--don't you think so, D'Albert?"

"I think perhaps I should enjoy gliding down the river in the skiff quite as much as racing madly in the trail of some poor beast; but wherever you go, I will go; what we have to do now is to allow Madame Rosette to rise and don a suitable costume."

Rosette made a sign of assent and rang for her maid to come and dress her. The two young men left the room arm in arm, and it was easy to guess, from seeing them on such good terms, that one was the titular lover and the other the loved lover of the same person.

Soon everybody was ready. D'Albert and Théodore were already mounted in the first court-yard, when Rosette, in a riding-habit, appeared at the top of the steps. She had assumed with the costume, a sprightly, resolute air that was immensely becoming to her; she leaped into the saddle with her ordinary agility and gave her horse a smart blow with her crop, so that he darted away like an arrow. D'Albert spurred after her and soon overtook her. Théodore allowed them some little start, being sure of catching them up whenever he chose. He seemed to be waiting for something and turned back frequently toward the château.

"Théodore! Théodore! come on! are you riding a wooden horse?" cried Rosette.

Théodore urged his horse to a gallop and diminished the distance between him and Rosette, but did not join her.

He continued to look back at the château, which they were beginning to lose sight of; a little cloud of dust, in the centre of which something that they could not as yet distinguish was moving very rapidly, appeared at the end of the road. In a few moments the cloud reached Théodore's side, and, opening like the classic clouds of the Iliad, disclosed the fresh and rosy face of the mysterious page.

"Come, Théodore, come!" cried Rosette again; "give your tortoise the spur and join us."

Théodore gave his horse the rein, and in a second, the animal, who was pawing and rearing impatiently, had passed D'Albert and Rosette by several lengths.

"Who loves me follows me," said Théodore, leaping a fence four feet high. "Well, well, _Monsieur le Poète_," he said, when he was on the other side, "you don't jump? but they say your steed has wings."

"Faith, I prefer to ride around; I have only one head to break after all; if I had several I would try," D'Albert replied with a smile.

"No one loves me then, as no one follows me," said Théodore, bringing the arched corners of his mouth even lower than usual. The little page looked up at him reproachfully with his great blue eyes, and drove his heels into his horse's sides.

The horse gave a tremendous leap.

"Yes! some one," said the child from the other side of the fence.

Rosette cast a strange glance at the boy and blushed up to her eyes; then, with a furious blow of the crop on the mare's neck, she leaped the barrier of green apple wood that barred the path.

"Do you think that I don't love you, Théodore?"

The child darted an oblique, stealthy glance at her and rode up to Théodore.

D'Albert was in the middle of the path--and saw nothing of all this; for, from time immemorial, it has been the privilege of fathers, husbands and lovers to see nothing.

"Isnabel," said Théodore, "you are mad, and so are you, Rosette! You didn't take enough start for your jump, Isnabel, and you, Rosette, just missed catching your dress on the posts.--You might have killed yourself."

"What difference would it make?" rejoined Rosette, in such a melancholy, despairing tone that Isnabel forgave her for having leaped the barrier.