Artists' Wives 3

	Artists' Wives 3

"Ah, you have done your hair in the old way." I hardly answered, not wishing to hurry on matters before my witnesses had arrived, and then, strangely enough, I felt somewhat moved and upset beforehand by the scene I was trying to get up. At last, after a few still shorter replies on my part, he rose from the table and went into his own room. I followed him trembling. I heard my friends stationing themselves in the little drawing-room, and Pierre who came and went, arranging the glasses and silver. The decisive moment had arrived. He must now be brought to the needful point of violence, and it seemed to me this would be easy, after all I had done since the morning to irritate him. When I entered his study I must have been very pale. I felt myself in the lion's cage. The thought flashed across me: "Suppose he killed me!" He did not present a very terrible appearance, however, leaning back on his divan, a cigar in his mouth. "Do I disturb you?" I asked in my most ironical voice. He replied gently: "No. You see. I am not working." Myself, viciously: "Ah! indeed you don't work then at all, now?" He still very mild. "You are mistaken, my dear. On the contrary, I work a great deal. Only our craft is one in which a great deal of work can be done without having a tool in hand." "And what may you be doing at this moment? Ah! yes, I know, your play in verse; always the same thing for the last two years. It is certainly lucky that your wife had a fortune! That allows you to idle at your ease." I thought he would have sprung upon me at this. Not a bit of it. He came up to me and took hold of my hands gently: "Come, is it to be always the same thing? Are we to begin our life of warfare again? If so, why did you come back?" I confess I felt rather moved by his sad and affectionate tone; but I thought of you, my poor Aunt, of your exile, of his harsh conduct towards us, and that gave me courage. I said to him the bitterest, most wounding things I could think of--I know not what--that I wished to heaven I had never married an artist; that at Moulins, every one pitied me; that I found my friends married to magistrates, serious, influential men, in good positions, while he--If even he made money--But no, Monsieur would work for fame only! and what fame! [Illustration: p127-138] At Moulins no one knew him; at Paris, his pieces were hissed. His books did not sell. And so on, and so on. My brain seemed to whirl round as all the malicious words came from me one after the other. He looked at me without replying, in chilly anger. Of course this coldness exasperated me still more. I was so much excited, that I no longer recognized my own voice, raised to an extraordinary pitch, and the last words I screamed at him--I can't remember what unjust and mad remark it was--seemed to buzz indistinctly in my ears. For a moment, I thought Monsieur Petitbry's assault with violence was an accomplished fact. Pallid, with set teeth Henri made two steps towards me: "Madame!" Then suddenly, his anger fell, his face became impassive again, and he looked at me with so scornful, insolent and calm a glance, that my patience came to an end. I raised my hand, and gave him the best box on the ear I ever gave in my life. At the noise, the door opened, and my witnesses appeared solemn and indignant. "Monsieur! this is infamous!" "Yes, isn't it?" said the poor fellow, showing his red cheek. You can imagine my confusion. Happily, I took the line of fainting, and melting into torrents of tears, which relieved me greatly. At present, Henri is in my room. He watches by me, nurses me, and is really most kind. What can I do? What a checkmate! This will not prove very satisfactory to Monsieur Petitbry. Nina de B. [Illustration: p129-140] [Illustration: p130-141] [Illustration: p133-144] BOHEMIA AT HOME. I hardly fancy it would be possible to find in the whole of Paris, a more lively and peculiar house than that of the sculptor Simaise. Life there is one continual round of festivities. At whatever hour you drop in upon them, a sound of singing and laughter, or the jingle of a piano, guitar, or tamtam greets you. You can never enter the studio without finding a waltz going on, or a set of quadrilles, or a game of battledore and shuttlecock, or else it is cumbered with all the litter and preparations for a ball; shreds of tulle and ribbons lying scattered among the sculptor's chisels; artificial flowers hanging over the busts, and spangled skirts spreading over groups of moist clay. [Illustration: p134-145] The fact is that four big t daughters of sixteen to twenty-five years of age, all very pretty indeed, take up a great deal of room; and when these young ladies whirl round with their hair streaming down their backs, with floating ribbons, long pins, and showy ornaments, it really seems as if instead of four there were eight, sixteen, thirty-two Misses Simaise, as dashing the one as the other, talking and laughing loudly, with the hoydenish manner peculiar to artists' daughters, with the studio jests, the familiarity of students, and knowing also better than anyone how to dismiss a creditor or blow up a tradesman impertinent enough to present his bill at an inopportune moment. [Illustration: p135-146] These young damsels are the real mistresses of the house. From early dawn the father works, chisels, models unceasingly, for he has no settled income. At first he was ambitious and strove to do good work; some early successful exhibitions promised him future fame; but the necessity of providing for the support of his family, the clothing, feeding and future establishment of his children, threw him back into the ordinary work of the trade. As for Madame Simaise, she never attended to anything. Very handsome when she married, very much admired in the artistic world into which her husband introduced her, at first satisfied with being only a pretty woman, later on she resigned herself to the part of a woman who had been pretty. A creole by birth, at least such was her pretension--although it was asserted that her parents had never left Courbevoie,--she spent the days from morning to night in a hammock swung up in turn in all the different rooms of the house, fanning herself and taking siestas, full of contempt for the material details of everyday life. She had so often sat to her husband as model for Hebes and Dianas, that she fancied her only duty was to pass through life carrying some emblem of a goddess, such as a crescent on her head or a goblet in her hand. Indeed the disorder of the establishment was a sight in itself. The least thing necessitated a full hour's search. "Have you seen my thimble? Marthe, Eva, Genevieve, Madeleine, who has seen my thimble?" The drawers, in which books, powder, rouge, spangles, spoons and fans are tossed at haphazard, though crammed full, contain absolutely nothing useful; moreover they belong to strange pieces of furniture, curious, battered and incomplete. And how peculiar is the house itself! As they are constantly changing their residence, they never have time to settle anywhere, and this merry household seems to be perpetually awaiting the setting to rights indispensable after a ball. Only so many things are lacking, that it is not worth while settling, and as long as they can put on a bit of finery, display themselves out of doors with something of a meteor flash, a semblance of style and appearance of luxury, honour is saved! Encampment does not in any way distress this migratory tribe. Through the half-opened doors, their poverty is betrayed by the four bare walls of an unfurnished chamber, or the litter of an overcrowded room. It is bohemianism in the domestic circle, a life full of improvidence and surprises. At the very moment when they sit down to table, they suddenly perceive that everything is wanting, and that the breakfast must be sent out for at once. In this manner hours are spent rapidly, bustling and idling, and herein lies a certain advantage. After a late breakfast, one does not need to dine, but can sup at the ball, which fills up nearly every evening. These ladies also give evening parties. Tea is drunk out of all kinds of queer receptacles, goblets, old tankards, ancient glasses, Japanese shells, the whole chipped and cracked by the constant moves. [Illustration: p138-149] The serene calm of both mother and daughters in the midst of this poverty is truly admirable. They have indeed other ideas running through the brain than mere housekeeping details. One has plaited her hair like a Swiss girl, another is curled like any English baby, and Madame Simaise, from the top of her hammock, lives in the beatitude of her former beauty. As for father Simaise, he is always delighted. As long as he hears the merry laugh of his daughters around him, he is ready cheerfully to assume all the weight of this disorderly existence. To him are addressed in a coaxing manner such requests as: "Papa, I want a bonnet. Papa, I must have a dress." Sometimes the winter is severe. They are in such request, receive so many invitations. Pooh! the father has but to get up a couple of hours earlier. They will have a fire only in the studio, where all the family will gather. The girls will cut out and make their own dresses, while the hammock ropes swing slowly to and fro, and the father works on, perched upon his high stool. [Illustration: p139-150] Have you ever met these ladies in society? The moment they appear there is a commotion. It is long since the first two came out, but they are always so well adorned and so smart, that they are in great request as partners. They have as much success as the younger sisters, almost as much as the mother in former days; moreover they carry off their tawdry jewelry and finery so well, and have such charming easy manners, with the giddy laugh of spoilt children, and such a Spanish way of flirting with a fan. Nevertheless they do not get married. No admirer has ever been able to get over the sight of that singular home. The wasteful and useless extravagance, the want of plates, the profusion of old tapestry in holes, of antique and ungilt lustres, the draughty doors, the constant visits of creditors, the slatternly appearance of the young ladies in slipshod slippers and dressing gowns, put to flight the best intentioned. In truth, it is not everyone who could resign himself to hang up the hammock of an idle woman in his home for the rest of his life. I am very much afraid that the Misses Simaise will never marry. They had, however, a golden and unique opportunity during the Commune. The family had taken refuge in Normandy, in a small and very litigious town, full of lawyers, attorneys, and business men. No sooner had the father arrived, than he looked out for orders. His fame as a sculptor was of service to him, and as in the public square of the town there happened to be a statue of Cujas done by him, all the notabilities of the place wanted to have their busts done. [Illustration: p141-152] The mother at once fastened up the hammock in a corner of the studio, and the young ladies organized a few parties. They at once met with great success. Here at least, poverty seemed but an accident due to exile; the disorder of the establishment was accounted for. The handsome girls laughed loudly themselves at their destitution. [Illustration: p142-153] They had started off without anything; and nothing could be had now Paris was closed. It lent to them an extra charm. It called to mind travelling gipsies, combing their beautiful hair in barns, and quenching their thirst in streams. The least poetical compared them in their minds to the exiles of Coblentz, those ladies of Marie-Antoinette's court who, obliged to fly in haste, without powder or hoops, or bedchamber women, were driven to all sorts of makeshifts, learning to wait upon themselves, and keeping up the frivolity of the French court, the piquant smile of the lost patches. [Illustration: p143-154] Every evening a throng of dazzled lawyers crowded Simaise's studio. To the sounds of a hired piano, all this little world danced the polka, waltzed, schottisched,--they still schottische in Normandy. "I shall end by marrying off one," thought old Simaise; and the fact is if one had gone off, all the others would have followed suit. Unluckily the first never went off, but it was a near touch. Amongst the numerous partners of these young ladies, in that corps de ballet of lawyers, attorneys and solicitors, the most rabid dancer was a widowed lawyer, who was extremely attentive to the eldest daughter. He was called by them "the first dancing attorney," in memory of Moliere's ballets, and certainly, considering the rate at which the fellow whirled round, Papa Simaise might well build the greatest hopes on him. But then business men do not dance like everybody else. This fellow, all the time he was waltzing, reflected silently: "The Simaise family is charming. Tra, la la, la la la, but it's useless their trying to hurry me on, la la la, la la la. I shall not propose till the gates of Paris are reopened. Tra la la, and I shall be able to make all necessary inquiries, la la la!" Thus thought the first dancing attorney, and in fact, directly the blockade of Paris was raised, he got his information about the family, and the marriage did not come off. Since then, the poor little creatures have missed many other chances. However, this has in no way spoilt the happiness of the singular household. On the contrary, the more they live, the merrier they are. Last winter they changed quarters three times, were sold up once, and notwithstanding all this, gave two large fancy balls! [Illustration: p145-156] [Illustration: p146-157] [Illustration: p149-160] FRAGMENT OF A WOMAN'S LETTER FOUND IN THE RUE NOTRE-DAME-DES-CHAMPS ... What it has cost me to marry an artist! Oh, my dear! if I had known! but young girls have singular ideas about so many things. Just imagine that at the Exhibition, when I read in the catalogue the addresses of far-away quiet streets at the further end of Paris, I pictured to myself peaceable, stay-at-home lives, devoted to work and the family circle, and I said to myself (feeling beforehand a certainty that I should be dreadfully jealous), "That is the sort of husband to suit me. He will always be with me. We shall spend our days together; he at his picture or sculpture, while I read or sew beside him, in the concentrated light of the studio." Poor dear innocent! I had not the faintest idea then what a studio really was, nor of the singular creatures one meets there. Never, in gazing at those statues of bold undressed goddesses had the idea occurred to me that there were women daring enough to--and that even I myself----. Otherwise, I can assure you I should never have married a sculptor. No, indeed, most decidedly not! I must own, they were all against this marriage at home; notwithstanding my husband's fortune, his already famous name, and the fine house he was having built for us two. It was I alone who would have it so. He was so elegant, so charming, so eager. I thought, however, he meddled a little too much about my dress, and the arrangement of my hair: "Do your hair like this; so," and he would amuse himself by placing a flower in the midst of my curls with far greater skill than any one of our milliners. So much experience in a man was alarming, wasn't it? I ought to have distrusted him. Well, you will see. Listen. [Illustration: p151-162] We returned from our honeymoon. While I was busy settling myself in my pretty and charmingly furnished rooms, that paradise you know so well, my husband, from the moment of his arrival, had set to work and spent the days at his studio, which was away from the house. When he returned in the evening, he would talk to me with feverish eagerness of his next subject for exhibition. [Illustration: p152-163] The subject was "a Roman lady leaving the bath." He wanted the marble to reproduce that faint shiver of the skin at the contact of air, the moisture of the delicate textures clinging to the shoulders, and all sorts of other fine things which I no longer remember. Between you and me, when he speaks to me of his sculpture, I do-not always understand him very well. However, I used to say confidently: "It will be very pretty," and already I saw myself treading the finely sanded walks admiring my husband's work, a beautiful marble sculpture gleaming white against the green hangings; while behind me I heard whispered: "the wife of the sculptor." [Illustration: p153-164] At last one day, curious to see how our Roman lady was getting on, the idea occurred to me, to go and take him by surprise in his studio, which I had not yet visited. It was one of the first times I had gone out alone, and I had made myself very smart, I can tell you. When I arrived, I found the door of the little garden leading to the ground floor, wide open. So I walked straight in; and, conceive my indignation, when I beheld my husband in a white smock like a stone mason, with ruffled hair, hands grimed with clay, and in front of him, upright on a platform, a woman, my dear, a great creature, almost undressed, and looking just as composed in this airy costume as though it were perfectly natural. [Illustration: p154-165] Her wretched clothes covered with mud, thick walking boots, and a round hat trimmed with a feather out of curl, were thrown beside her on a chair. All this I saw in an instant, for you may imagine how I fled. Etienne would have spoken to me--detained me; but with a gesture of horror at the clay-covered hands, I rushed off to mama, and reached her barely alive. You can imagine my appearance. [Illustration: p155-166] "Good heavens, dear child! what is the matter?" I related to mama what I had seen, where this dreadful woman was, and in what costume. And I cried, and cried. My mother, much moved, tried to console me, explained to me that it must have been a model. "What! but it is abominable; no one ever told me about that before I was married!" Hereupon Etienne arrived, greatly distressed, and tried in his turn to make me understand that a model is not a woman like other women, and that besides sculptors cannot get on without them; but these reasons had no effect upon me, and I stoutly declared I would have nothing to do with a husband who spent his days _tete-a-tete_ with young ladies in such a costume. "Come, my dear Etienne," said poor mama, trying hard to arrange everything peaceably, "could you not out of respect for your wife's feelings, replace this creature by a dummy, a lay figure?" My husband bit his moustaches furiously. "Quite impossible, dear mother." "Still, my dear, it seems to me--a bright idea! milliners have pasteboard heads on which they trim bonnets. Well, what can be done for a head, could it not be done for----?" It seems this is not possible. At least, this was what Etienne tried to demonstrate at great length, with all sorts of details and technical words. He really looked very unhappy. I watched him out of the corner of my eye while I dried my tears, and I saw that my grief affected him deeply. At last, after an endless discussion, it was agreed that since the model was indispensable, I should be there whenever she came. There chanced to be on one side of the studio a very convenient little lumber-room, from which I could see without being seen. I ought to be ashamed, you will say, of being jealous of such kind of creatures, and of showing my jealousy. But, my pet, you must have gone through these emotions before you can offer an opinion about them. Next day, the model was to be there. I therefore summoned up my courage, and installed myself in my hiding-place, with the express condition that at the least tap at the partition my husband should come to me at once. Scarcely had I shut myself in, when the dreadful model I had seen the other day arrived, dressed Heaven knows how, and so wretched in appearance, that I asked myself how I could have been jealous of a woman who could walk abroad without a scrap of white cuff at her wrists, and in an old shawl with green fringe. Well, my dear, when I saw this creature throw off shawl and dress in the middle of the studio, and begin to undress in the coolest and boldest manner, it had an effect upon me I cannot describe. I choked with rage. I thumped at the partition. Etienne came to me. I trembled; I was pale. He laughed at me, gently re-assured me, and returned to his work. By this time the woman was standing up, half-naked, her thick hair loosened and hanging down her back in glossy heaviness. It was no longer the poor wretch of a moment ago, but already almost a statue, notwithstanding her common and listless air. My heart died within me. However, I said nothing. All at once, I heard my husband cry: "The left leg; the left leg forward." And as the model did not understand him at once, he went to her, and--Oh! I could contain myself no longer. I knocked. He did not hear me. I knocked again, furiously. This time he ran to me, frowning a little at being disturbed in the heat of work. "Come, Armande, do be reasonable!" Bathed in tears, I leant my head upon his shoulder, and sobbed out: "I can't bear it, my dear, I can't; indeed, I can't!" [Illustration: p159-170] At this, without answering me, he went sharply into the studio, and made a sign to that horror of a woman, who dressed herself and departed. For several days, Etienne did not return to the studio. He remained at home with me, would not go out, refused even to see his friends; otherwise he was quite kind and gentle, but he had such a melancholy air. Once I asked him timidly: "You are not working any more?" which earned me this reply: "One can't work without a model." I had not the courage to pursue the subject, for I felt how much I was to blame, and that he had a right to be vexed with me. Nevertheless, by dint of caresses and endearments, I cajoled him into returning to his studio and trying to finish the statue--how do they say it? out of his head, from imagination, in short, by mama's process. To me, this seemed quite feasible; but it gave the poor fellow endless trouble. Every evening he came in, with irritated nerves and more and more discouraged; almost ill, indeed. To cheer him up, I used often to go and see him. I always said: "It is charming." But, as a fact, the statue made no progress whatever. I don't even know if he worked at it. When I arrived, I would find him always smoking on his divan, or perhaps, rolling up pellets of clay, which he angrily threw against the opposite wall. One afternoon, when I was gazing at the unfortunate Roman lady, who, half modelled, had been so long in stepping out of her bath, an idea occurred to me. The Roman lady was about the same figure as myself; perhaps at a pinch I might---- "What do you mean by a well-turned leg?" I asked my husband suddenly. He explained it to me at great length, showing me all that was still lacking to his statue, and which he could by no means give it without a model. Poor fellow! He had such a heart-broken air as he said this. Do you know what I did? Well, I bravely picked up the drapery which was lying in a corner, I went into my hiding-place; then, very softly without saying a word, while he was still looking at his statue, I placed myself on the platform in front of him, in the costume and attitude in which I had seen that abominable model. Ah my dear I What emotion I felt when he raised his eyes! I could have laughed and cried. I was blushing all over. And that tiresome muslin took so much arranging. Never mind! Etienne was so delighted that I was soon re-assured. Indeed, to hear him, my dear, you might suppose----. [Illustration: p162-173] [Illustration: p164-175] [Illustration: p165-176] A GREAT MAN'S WIDOW No one was astonished at hearing she was going to marry again. Notwithstanding all his genius, perhaps even on account of his genius, the great man had for fifteen years led her a hard life, full of caprices and mad freaks that had attracted the attention of all Paris. On the high road to fame, over which he had so triumphantly and hurriedly travelled, like those who are to die young, she had sat behind him, humbly and timidly, in a corner of the chariot, ever fearful of collisions. Whenever she complained, relatives, friends, every one was against her: "Respect his weaknesses," they would say to her, "they are the weaknesses of a god. Do not disturb him, do not worry him. Remember that your husband does not belong exclusively to you. He belongs much more to Art, to his country, than to his family. And who knows if each of the faults you reproach him with has not given us some sublime creation?" At last, however, her patience was worn out, she rebelled, became indignant and even unjust, so much indeed, that at the moment of the great man's death, they were on the point of demanding a judicial separation and ready to see their great and celebrated name dragged into the columns of a society paper. After the agitation of this unhappy match, the anxieties of the last illness, and the sudden death which for a moment revived her former affection, the first months of her widowhood acted on the young woman like a healthy calming water-cure. The enforced retirement, the quiet charm of mitigated sorrow, lent to her thirty-five years a second youth almost as attractive as the first. [Illustration: p167-178] Moreover black suited her, and then she had the responsible and rather proud look of a woman left alone in life, with all the weight of a great name to carry honourably. Mindful of the fame of the departed one, that wretched fame that had cost her so many tears, and now grew day by day, like a magnificent flower nourished by the black earth of the tomb, she was to be seen draped in her long sombre veils holding interviews with theatrical managers and publishers, busying herself in getting her husband's operas put again on the stage, superintending the printing of his posthumous works and unfinished manuscripts, bestowing on all these details a kind of solemn care and as it were the respect for a shrine. It was at this moment that her second husband met her. He too was a musician, almost unknown it is true, the author of a few waltzes and songs, and of two little operas, of which the scores, charmingly printed, were scarcely more played than sold. With a pleasant countenance, a handsome fortune that he owed to his exceedingly _bourgeois_ family, he had above all an infinite respect for genius, a curiosity about famous men, and the ingenuous enthusiasm of a still youthful artist. Thus when he met the wife of the great man, he was dazzled and bewildered. It was as though the image of the glorious muse herself had appeared to him. He at once fell in love, and as the widow was beginning to receive a few friends, he had himself presented to her. There his passion grew in the atmosphere of genius that still lingered in all the corners of the drawing-room. There was the bust of the master, the piano he composed on, his scores spread over all the furniture, melodious even to look at, as though from between their half-opened pages, the written phrases re-echoed musically. The actual and very real charm of the widow surrounded by those austere memories as by a frame that became her, brought his love to a climax. [Illustration: p169-180] After hesitating a long time, the poor fellow at last proposed, but in such humble and timid terms! "He knew how unworthy he was of her. He understood all the regret she would feel, in exchanging her illustrious name for his, so unknown and insignificant." And a thousand other artless phrases in the same style. In reality, the lady was indeed very much flattered by her conquest; however, she played the comedy of a broken heart, and assumed the disdainful, wearied airs of a woman whose life is ended without hopes of renewal. She, who had never in her life been so quiet and comfortable as since the death of her great man, she actually found tears with which to mourn for him, and an enthusiastic ardour in speaking of him. This, of course, only inflamed her youthful adorer the more and made him more eloquent and persuasive. In short, this severe widowhood ended in a marriage; but the widow did not abdicate, and remained--although married--more than ever the widow of a great man; well knowing that herein lay, in the eyes of her second husband, her real prestige. As she felt herself much older than he, to prevent his perceiving it, she overwhelmed him with her disdain, with a kind of vague pity, and unexpressed and offensive regret at her condescending marriage. However, he was not wounded by it, quite the contrary. He was so convinced of his inferiority and thought it so natural that the memory of such a man should reign despotically in her heart! In order the better to maintain in him this humble attitude, she would at times read over with him the letters the great man had written to her when he was courting her. This return towards the past rejuvenated her some fifteen years, lent her the assurance of a handsome and beloved woman, seen through all the wild love and delightful exaggeration of written passion. That she had since then changed her young husband cared little, loving her on the faith of another, and drawing therefrom I know not what strange kind of vanity. It seemed to him that these passionate appeals added to his own, and that he inherited a whole past of love. A strange couple indeed! It was in society, however, that they presented the most curious spectacle. I sometimes caught sight of them at the theatre. No one would have recognized the timid and shy young woman, who formerly accompanied the _maestro_, lost in the gigantic shadow he cast around him. Now, seated upright in the front of the box, she displayed herself, attracting all eyes by the pride of her own glance. It might be said that her head was surrounded by her first husband's halo of glory, his name re-echoing around her like a homage or a reproach. The other one, seated a little behind her, with the subservient physiognomy of one ready for every abnegation in life, watched each of her movements, ready to attend to her slightest wish. At home, the peculiarity of their attitude was still more noticeable. I remember a certain evening party they gave a year after their marriage. The husband moved about among the crowd of guests, proud but rather embarrassed at gathering together so many in his own house. The wife, disdainful, melancholy, and very superior, was on that evening more than ever the widow of a great man! She had a peculiar way of glancing at her husband from over her shoulder, of calling him "my poor dear friend," of casting on him all the wearisome drudgery of the reception, with an air of saying: "You are only fit for that." Around her gathered a circle of former friends, those who had been spectators of the brilliant debuts of the great man, of his struggles, and his success. She simpered to them; played the young girl! They had known her so young! Nearly all of them called her by her Christian name, "Anais." They formed a kind of conaculum, which the poor husband respectfully approached, to hear his predecessor spoken of. They recalled the glorious first nights, those evenings on which nearly every battle was won, and the great man's manias, his way of working; how, in order to summon up inspiration, he insisted on his wife being by his side, decked out in full ball dress. "Do you remember, Anais?" And Anais sighed and blushed. It was at that time that he had written his most tender pieces, above all _Savonarole_, the most passionate of his creations, with a grand duet, interwoven with rays of moonshine, the perfume of roses and the warbling of nightingales. An enthusiast sat down and played it on the piano, amid a silence of attentive emotion. At the last note of the magnificent piece, the lady burst into tears. "I cannot help it," she said, "I have never been able to hear it without weeping." The great man's old friends surrounded his unhappy widow with sympathetic expressions, coming up to her one by one, like at a funereal ceremony, to give a thrilling clasp to her hand. "Come, come, Anais, be courageous." And the drollest thing was to see the second husband, standing by the side of his wife, deeply touched and affected, shaking hands all round, and accepting, he too, his share of sympathy. "What genius! what genius!" he repeated as he mopped his eyes. It was at the same time ridiculous and affecting. [Illustration: p174-185] [Illustration: p177-188] THE DECEIVER. I have loved but one woman in my life, the painter D------ said one day to us. I spent five years of perfect happiness and peaceful and fruitful tranquillity with her. I may say that to her I owe my present celebrity, so easy was work, and so spontaneous was inspiration by her side. Even when I first met her, she seemed to have been mine from time immemorial. Her beauty, her character were the realization of all my dreams. That woman never left me; she died in my house, in my arms, loving to the last. Well, when I think of her, it is with a feeling of rage. If I strive to recall her, the same as I ever saw her during those five years, in all the radiance of love, with her lithe yielding figure, the gilded pallor of her cheeks, her oriental Jewish features, regular and delicate in the soft roundness of her face, her slow speech as velvety as her glance, if I seek to embody that charming vision, it is only in order the more fiercely to cry to it: "I hate you!" Her name was Clotilde. At the house of the mutual acquaintances where we met, she was known under the name of Madame Deloche, and was said to be the widow of a captain in the merchant service. Indeed, she appeared to have travelled a great deal. In the course of conversation, she would suddenly say: When I was at Tampico; or else: once in the harbour at Valparaiso. But apart from this, there was no trace in her manners or language of a wandering existence, nothing betrayed the disorder or precipitation of sudden departures or abrupt returns. She was a thorough Parisian, dressed in perfect good taste, without any of those bur-nooses or eccentric _sarapes_ by which one recognizes the wives of officers and sailors who are always arrayed in travelling costume. [Illustration: p179-190] When I found that I loved her, my first, my only idea was to ask her in marriage. Someone spoke on my behalf. She simply replied that she would never marry again. Henceforth I avoided meeting her; and as my thoughts were too wholly absorbed and occupied by her to allow me to work, I determined to travel. I was busily engaged in preparations for my departure, when one morning, in my own apartment, in the midst of all the litter of opened drawers and scattered trunks, to my great surprise, I saw Madame Deloche enter. "Why are you leaving?" she said softly. "Because you love me? I also love. I love you. Only (and here her voice shook a little) only, I am married." And she told me her history. It was a romance of love and desertion. Her husband drank, struck her! At the end of three years they had separated Her family, of whom she seemed very proud, held a high position in Paris, but ever since her marriage had refused to receive her. She was the niece of the Chief Rabbi. Her sister, the widow of a superior officer, had married for the second time a Chief Ranger of the woods and forests of Saint-Germain. As for her, ruined by her husband, she had fortunately had a very thorough education and possessed some accomplishments, by which she was able to augment her resources. She gave music lessons in various rich houses of the Chaussee d'Antin and Faubourg Saint Honore, and gained an ample livelihood. The story was touching, although somewhat lengthy, full of the pretty repetitions, the interminable incidents that entangle feminine discourse. [Illustration: p181-192] Indeed she took several days to relate it. I had hired for us two, a little house in the Avenue de l'Imperatrice, standing between the silent streets and peaceful lawns. I could have spent a year listening to and looking at her, without a thought for my work. She was the first to send me back to my studio, and I could not prevent her from again taking up her lessons. I was touched by her concern for the dignity of her life. I admired the proud spirit, notwithstanding that I could not help being rather humiliated at her expressed determination to owe nothing save to her own exertions. We were therefore separated all day long, and only met in the evening in our little house. With what joy did I not return home, what impatience I felt when she was late, and how happy I was when I found her there before me! She would bring me back bouquets and choice flowers from her journeys to Paris. Often I pressed upon her some present, but she laughingly said she was richer than I; and in truth her lessons must have been very well paid, for she always dressed in an expensively elegant manner, and the black dresses which, with coquettish care for her complexion and style of beauty she preferred, had the dull softness of velvet, the brilliancy of satin and jet, a confusion of silken lace, which revealed to the astonished eye, under an apparent simplicity, a world of feminine elegance in the thousand shades contained in a single colour. [Illustration: p183-194] Moreover her occupation was by no means laborious, she said. All her pupils, daughters of bankers or stock brokers, loved and respected her; and many a time she would show me a bracelet or a ring, that had been presented as a mark of gratitude for her care. Except for our work, we never left one another, and we went nowhere. Only on Sundays she went off to Saint-Germain to see her sister, the wife of the Chief Ranger, with whom she was now reconciled. I would accompany her to the station. She would return the same evening, and often in the long summer days, we would agree to meet at some station on the way, by the riverside or in the woods. She would tell me about her visit, the children's good looks, the air of happiness that reigned in the household. My heart bled for her, deprived of the pleasures of family life as she was doomed to be; and my tenderness increased tenfold in order to make her forget the falseness of her position, so painful to a woman of her character. What a happy time of perfect confidence, and how well I worked! I suspected nothing. All she said seemed so true, so natural. I could only reproach her with one thing. When talking of the houses she frequented, and the different families of her pupils, she would indulge in a superabundance of imaginary details and fancied intrigues, which she invented without any _apropos_. [Illustration: p185-196] Calm herself, she was ever conjuring up romances around her, and her life was spent in composing dramatic situations. These idle fancies disturbed my happiness. I, who longed to leave the world and society, in order to devote myself exclusively to her, found her too much taken up by indifferent subjects. However, I could easily excuse this defect in a young and unhappy woman, whose life had been hitherto a sad romance, the issue of which could not be foreseen. Once only did a suspicion or rather a presentiment cross my mind. One Sunday evening she failed to return home. I was in despair. What could I do? Go to Saint-Germain? I might compromise her. Nevertheless, after a dreadful night of anguish, I had decided on starting, when she arrived, looking pale and worried. Her sister was ill, she had been obliged to stay and nurse her. I believed all she told me, not distrusting the overflow of words called forth by the slightest question, which swamped the principal matter in a deluge of idle details: such as the hour of arrival, the rudeness of a guard, the lateness of the train. Twice or three times in the same week, she returned to Saint-Germain and slept there; then, her sister's illness over, she resumed her regular and peaceful existence. [Illustration: p187-198] Unfortunately, shortly after this, she in her turn fell ill. She came back one day from her lessons, shivering, wet, and fevered. Inflammation of the lungs set in; from the first her case was serious, and soon--the doctor told me--hopeless. My despair was maddening. Then I thought only of soothing her last moments. The family she loved so well, of which she was so proud, I would bring to her deathbed. Without letting her know, I first wrote to her sister at Saint-Germain, and I went off at once myself to her uncle, the Chief Rabbi. I hardly remember at what unreasonable hour I reached his house. Great catastrophes throw such a confusion into life and upset every detail. I fancy the good Rabbi was dining. He came out into the hall, wondering and amazed, to speak to me. "Monsieur," I said to him, "there are moments when all hatred must cease." He turned his venerable face towards me with a bewildered look. I resumed: "Your niece is dying!" "My niece! But I have no niece; you are mistaken." "Oh, Sir! I implore you, lay aside all foolish family rancour. I am speaking of Madame Deloche, the wife of Captain----" "I do not know Madame Deloche. You are mistaken, my son, I assure you." And he gently pushed me toward the door, taking me for a hoaxer or a madman. I must in fact have appeared very odd. What I heard was so unexpected, so terrible. She had lied to me then. Wherefore? Suddenly an idea flashed across me. I directed the cabman to drive me to the address of one of those pupils of whom she had so often spoken to me, the daughter of a well-known banker. I inquired of the servant: "Madame Deloche?" "There is no one here of that name." "Yes, I know that. It is a lady who gives music lessons to your young ladies." "We have no young ladies here, not even a piano. I don't know what you mean." And he angrily shut the door in my face. I made no further inquiries. I felt sure of meeting with the same answer, the same disappointment. On my return to our little house, they gave me a letter with the postmark of Saint-Germain. I opened it, instinctively guessing the contents. The Chief Ranger also had no knowledge of Madame Deloche. Moreover he had neither wife nor child. This was the last blow. Thus for five years each of her words had been a lie. A thousand jealous thoughts took possession of me, and madly, hardly knowing what I was about, I entered the room in which she was dying. All the questions that were torturing me burst forth over that bed of suffering: "Why did you go to Saint-Germain on Sundays? Where did you spend your days? Where did you spend that night? Come, answer me." And I bent over her, seeking in the depths of her still proud and beautiful eyes answers that I awaited with anguish; but she remained mute and impassive. I resumed, trembling with rage: "You never gave any lessons. I have been everywhere. Nobody knows you. Whence came that money, those laces, those jewels?" She threw me a glance full of despairing sadness, and that was all. In truth, I ought to have spared her, and allowed her to die in peace. But I had loved her too well. My jealousy was stronger than my pity. I continued: "For five years you have deceived me, lying to me every day, every hour. You knew my whole life, and I knew nothing of yours. Nothing, not even your name. For it is not yours, is it, the name you bear? Ah liar! liar! What, she is going to die, and I do not even know by what name to call her! Come, tell me who you are? Whence come you? Why did you intrude into my life? Speak! Tell me something!" Vain efforts! Instead of answering, she with difficulty turned her face to the wall, as though she feared that her last glance might betray her secret. And thus the unhappy creature died! Died without a word, liar to the last.