Ludovic Halévy

“ Look at her well; that is true beauty, radiant beauty, blazing beauty! She is a goddess, a young goddess! she will reign long, gentlemen—as long as possible."
The young goddess, for the present, did not go farther than Lannilis, in Poitou, to her husband's home—her home—in a mansion that had seen many Duchesses of Lannilis, but never one more charming, and never, it must be said, one more absolutely in love. This little duchess of nineteen was wild about this little duke of twenty-five, who was jealously carrying her off for himself alone to a quiet and solitary retreat. ”

“ They were so well made, this little puppet and this little doll, to roll off, both together, gloriously in the "Chamblard coupé," so well matched to walk in the world, accomplishing mechanically, automatically, at the right hour, in the prescribed costume, everywhere where it was correct to take pleasure, all the functions of fashionable life, and all the rituals of worldly worship.
They arrive in the parlor-car. The shades are drawn over the lamps; travellers are stiff, drowsy, and asleep in the big red arm-chairs.
"Change places," Raoul whispers to Maurice; "sit beside her. ”

“ Martha doesn't know me. Allow me to tell you that Mlle. Martha and myself know each other better than three-fourths of engaged couples on the day of their marriage. You know how it is usually done. A rapid glance from afar in a theatre—one brings good lorgnettes, one examines. 'How do you like him?' 'Fairly, fairly.' Then, several days later, at a ball, in the midst of the figures of the quadrille, several gasping, breathless phrases are exchanged. ”

“ Nothing is more solid than the Chamblard bank; it's honest, it's venerable. Papa isn't fair to me, but I'm fair to him. When you have a father in business, it's a good thing when you go out not to be exposed to meet eyes which seem to say to you, 'My dear fellow, your father has swindled me.' Papa has but one passion: from five to seven every day he plays piquet at his club, at ten sous a point, and as he is an excellent player, he wins seven times out of ten. ”

“ At ten that evening I was climbing for the second time the grand staircase of the Tuileries, in the midst of a dense and ignoble mob. One of the General's aides-de-camp tried in vain to open a passage.
"Room, room, for the wife of the General!" he cried.
Much they cared for the wife of the General! Great big boots trampled on my train, sharp spurs tore my laces, and the bones of the corsets of Mme. General hurt me terribly. ”

“ To M. Halévy, as to every thinking man, life is serious, no doubt, but it need not be taken sadly, or even solemnly. To him life seems still enjoyable, as it must to most of those who have a vivid sense of humor. He is not disillusioned utterly, he is not reduced to the blankness of despair as are so many of the disciples of Flaubert, who are cast into the outer darkness, and who hopelessly revolt against the doom they have brought on themselves. ”

“ And who was the brother-lawyer, the good brother-lawyer, who had taken pleasure in coming to show him the hateful article?
"M. Renaud."
"Oh, it was M. Renaud—dear M. Renaud!"
Thereupon Mme. Derline was seized with a hearty fit of laughter; so much so that the blond hair, which had been loosely done up, came down and framed the pretty face from which gleamed the dark eyes which could also, when they gave themselves the trouble, look very gentle, very caressing, very loving. ”

“ She was no longer Mme. Derline—she was the most beautiful woman in Paris! Her feet, her little feet—their bareness no longer troubled her—left the ground. She raised herself gently towards the heavens, towards the clouds, and felt herself become a goddess. ”

“ For half an hour I had been in that hateful position when I perceived in the distance, at the very end of the same alley by which he had gone off, Brutus coming back, with the same long gallop he had used in going. A great cloud of dust accompanied the horse. Little by little, in that cloud, I perceived a tiny carriage—a pony-carriage; then in that little pony-carriage a woman, who drove herself, and behind the woman a small groom. ”

“ A box-opener of the first tier of boxes at the opera, having generally only to do with absolutely high-born people, considers herself as being a little of their set, and shows extreme disdain for unimportant people; it displeases her to receive these unimportant people in her boxes. Mme. Picard, however, had tact which rarely forsook her, and so stopped herself in time to say:
"People of your set. They belong to the middle class, to the wealthy middle class; but still the middle class. That doesn't satisfy you; you wish to know more on account of the blonde. Is it not so, prince?" ”

“ Derline stood in a corner and watched an opportunity to seize a saleswoman on the fly. She even thought of giving up the game. Never, certainly, should she dare to address directly that terrible M. Arthur, who had just given her a rapid glance in which she believed to have read, "Who is she? She isn't properly dressed! She doesn't go to a fashionable dress-maker!" At last Mme. Derline succeeded in getting hold of a disengaged saleswoman, and there was the same slightly disdainful glance—a glance which was accompanied by the phrase:
"Madame is not a regular customer of the house?" ”

“ There is an art about being pretty which requires certain preparations and study. In society, as in the theatre, success rarely comes at once. Mme. de Lannilis had the good-fortune to make her first appearance with decisive success. She was at once quite easily and boldly at home in her beauty; she had only to appear to triumph. Prince Nérins had not a moment's hesitation concerning it, and he it is, as every one knows, who, with general consent, has made himself the distributor of the patents of supreme Parisian elegance ”

“ And she, too, old Aunt Louise, had been modern, very modern, the day when, from a window of the Palace of the Tuileries, during a military parade, she had murmured this phrase in her mother's ear: "Mamma, there is the one I love."
"Ah, how cowardly we are!" exclaimed Marceline, abruptly, changing her tone. "Yes, how cowardly we are to love them—those, those dreadful men, who know so little how to care for us. I say that for Gontran. What was he doing while I was telling you my sorrows, Aunt Louise? Quite calmly taking a trip around the world. ”

“ Mamma, however, had preached to you, and you vaunted the advantages of an alliance with Courtalin, but without conviction. I felt that you were at bottom on my side against mamma, and it was so easily explained—mamma could not understand me, whereas you! They think we little girls know nothing, and we know everything. I knew that mamma had made a worldly marriage, which had, however, turned out very well; and you, Aunt Louise, had married for love. You must have battled to get the husband you wished, and you had him, and you resolutely conquered your happiness. ”

“ Your Number Three—yes, your Number Three—in the train with her mother, and I wouldn't see her. Ah! if I had known. Strike while the iron's hot; I'm striking it, strike it too. M. D. must be at the club, speak to him at once; tell him that I left to avoid marrying an ugly woman; that I only wish to make a love-match; that I am head-over-heels in love with his daughter. We shall all be to-night at Marseilles, Hôtel de Noailles. Get M. D. to back me up by telegraph to Mme. D. I will talk with you to-morrow over the telephone. I am writing my telegram in the dining-car. ”

“ At Montbard, 12.32, Raoul was presented to Mme. Derame, who, on hearing the name of Chamblard, had a little shiver—the shiver of a mother who has a young daughter to marry, and who says to herself, "Oh, what a splendid match!" Her husband had often spoken to her of young Chamblard.
"Ah," he used to say to her, "what a marriage for Martha! We speak of it sometimes before and after our piquet, Chamblard and I; but the young man is restive—doesn't yet wish to settle down. It would be such a good thing—he is richer than we. Chamblard is once, twice, three times richer! ”

“ Dancing, sir, is not merely a pleasure, an amusement; no, it is of great social interest. Why, the question of marriage is closely connected with dancing. At present, in France, marriage is languishing. That is proved by statistics. Well, I am convinced that if there are fewer marriages it is because there is less dancing. Consider this first of all, that to know how to dance well, very well, is, for an agreeable young man who is without fortune, a great advantage in society. ”

“ On the walls the great European powers were represented by photographs—the Empress Eugénie, the Princess of Wales, a grand-duchess of Russia, and an archduchess of Austria. M. Arthur was there taking a few moments' rest, seated in a large arm-chair, with an air of lassitude and exhaustion, and with a newspaper spread out over his knees. He arose on seeing Mme. Derline enter. In a trembling voice she repeated her wish.
"Oh, madame, a ball-dress—a beautiful ball-dress—for Thursday! I couldn't make such a promise—I couldn't keep it. There are responsibilities to which I never expose myself." ”

“ I lost my neighbor to the right, the mauve dress, and kept my neighbor on the left, the blue dress, a cross and crabbed person who was forever groaning, complaining, and saying to me, "Oh, my dear, you do take up so much room; do get out of the way a little." I must admit that the poor blue velvet dress was much to be pitied. It was three years old, having been a part of the little baroness's trousseau, and had never been worn. "A high-neck blue velvet dress, at my age, with my shoulders and arms!" had exclaimed the little baroness; "I should look like a grandmother!" ”

“ Raoul said to the young girl, with deep enthusiasm: "I congratulate you. A woman who can't swim isn't a woman."
And he added, with increasing energy:
"A woman who can't skate isn't a woman."
When he had a strong thought, he willingly used it again in a brief but striking form.
Martha's face beamed with joy. She was really a woman. Never had a sweeter word been said to her.
Night had come; it was necessary, therefore, to tear one's self away from that exquisite conversation, and return to the parlor-car. Young Derame was going to sleep; so they began to prepare for the trip through the train. ”

“ As soon as I had put on my first long dress, which gave me at once the right to think of marriage and speak of love, I had told all my friends that I loved, and would never love or marry any one but you—you or the convent. ”

“ There is the cleverness and the ingenuity of the accomplished dramatist, but the construction has the simplicity of the highest skill. The arrangement of incidents is so artistic that it seems inevitable; and no one is ever moved to wonder whether or not the tale might have been better told in different fashion.
Nephew of the composer of "La Juive"—an opera not now heard as often as it deserves, perhaps—and son of a playwright no one of whose productions now survives, M. Halévy grew up in the theatre. At fourteen he was on the free-list of the Opéra, the Opéra-Comique, and the Odéon. ”

“ Gontran began to laugh.
"Oh, you can laugh as much as you please! You know very well that but for this—on what does fate depend?—I should now be married and a duchess, it is true; but Duchess of Courtalin, and not Duchess of Lannilis. Well, perhaps that would have been better! At any rate, I wish to give Aunt Louise the authentic history of our marriage." ”

“ Papa doesn't like Parisians. Mamma was from Châtellerault, and she was indeed a saint. Number Two happened to be in Paris; so last night, at the Opéra Comique, they showed me a Fleming, who was very blond, very insipid, very masculine—a Rubens, a true Rubens; a giantess, a colossal woman, a head taller than I, which is to say that materially one could not take her in a lower stage-box, and those are the only boxes I like. On leaving the theatre I told papa that I wouldn't have Number Two any more than Number One, and that I had had enough, and that I wouldn't see Number Three. ”

“ Gontran or the convent, and the most rigorous one of all, the Carmel, in sackcloth and ashes! Oh, Aunt Louise, do look at him! He listens to all this with an unbearable little air of fatuity."
"You have forbidden me to speak."
"True. Don't speak; but you have deserved a little lesson in modesty and humility. Good gracious! you think perhaps it was for your merits that I chose you, insisted on you. You would be far from the mark, my poor dear. It is, on the contrary, because of your want of merit. Now, as to M. de Courtalin. Why, there is a man of merit! ”

“ There is public policy in love-matches which cause a rich girl to marry a poor man, or a poor girl to marry a rich man. It sets money circulating, it prevents its remaining in the same place, it keeps capital moving. Well, three-fourths of the love-matches were formerly made by the dance. Now there are short interviews in parlors, in galleries, and at the Opéra Comique. They chat; that's all right, but chatting is not sufficient. Wit is something, but not everything. A waltz furnishes much knowledge that conversation cannot. ”

“ When you pull up the four wooden shutters you naturally find yourself in the dark; but the four shutters are mirrors, and as soon as one has placed a finger on a little button hidden under the right-hand cushion, six little crystal balls, ingeniously scattered in the tufting of the blue satin of the coupé, become electric lights. The coupé is turned into a little lighted boudoir; and not only for five minutes—no, but for an hour, two hours, if one wishes it; there is a storage-battery under the seat. When I submitted this idea to my carriage-maker he was smitten with envy and admiration. ”

“ Dancers don't attract me at all; they live in Batignolles, in Montmartre; they always walk with their mothers; they completely lack charm. In short, my father is what one calls a good man. You see I continue to be fair to him. Besides, I'm always right. Yes, it's a very good thing to have an honorable father, and Papa Chamblard is a model of all virtues, and he accumulates for me with a zeal! but I think, just at present, he accumulates a little too much. He has cut off my income. No marriage, no money. ”

“ M. Halévy's liking for the men and women of the stage is deep; and wide is his knowledge of their changing moods. The young Criquette and the old Karikari and the aged Dancing-master—he knows them all thoroughly, and he likes them heartily, and he sympathizes with them cordially. Indeed, nowhere can one find more kindly portraits of the kindly player-folk than in the writings of this half-author of "Froufrou"; it is as though the successful dramatist felt ever grateful towards the partners of his toil, the companions of his struggles. ”