René Bazin

“ One thing I feel sure of is, that Mademoiselle Jeanne Charnot will never change her name to Madame Dufilleul.
"Do not, however, exaggerate your own chances. They will be less than you think for some time yet. I do not believe that a young girl who has thus been wounded and deceived can forget all at once. There is even the possibility of her never forgetting—of living with her sorrow, preferring certain peace of mind, and the simple joys of filial devotion, to all those dreams of married life by which so many simple-hearted girls have been cruelly taken in. ”

“ There was a moment's silence.
"Was this Rafaella, whose story you have told me, worthy of your friend's long regret?"
"I must believe so."
"It is a very touching story. Are you fond of Monsieur Lampron?"
"Beyond expression, Mademoiselle; he is so openhearted, so true a friend, he has the soul of the artist and the seer. I am sure you would rate him very highly if you knew him."
"But I do know him, at least by his works. Where am I to be seen now, by the way? What has become of my portrait?" ”

“ Have you ever experienced the intoxication of color which seizes the uninitiated at the door of a picture-gallery? So many staring hues impinge upon the eyes, so many ideas take confused shape and struggle together in the brain, that the eyes grow weary and the brain harassed. It hovers undecided like an insect in a meadow full of flowers. The buzzing remarks of the crowd add to the feeling of intoxication. They distract one's attention before it can settle anywhere, and carry it off to where some group is gathered before a great name, a costly frame, an enormous canvas, or an outrage on taste ”

“ The train is going at full speed. The fields of green or gold are being unrolled like ribbons before my eyes. Now and again a metallic sound and a glimpse of columns and advertisements show that we are rushing through a station in a whirlwind of dust. A flash of light across our path is a tributary of the river. I am off, well on my way, and no one can stop me—not Lampron, nor Counsellor Boule, nor yet Plum et. The dream of years is about to be realized. I am going to see Italy—merely a corner of it; but what a pleasure even that is, and what unlooked-for luck! ”

“ Hesitating, with outstretched necks, like fawns on the border of a glade, they seemed disappointed at the unexpected length of the gallery. They looked at each other and whispered. Then both smiled, and turning their backs on each other, they set off, one to the right, the other to the left, to examine the drawings which covered the walls. They made a rapid examination, with which art had obviously little to do; they were looking for something, and I thought it might be for Jeanne's portrait. ”

“ And so we have parted with an oath, my uncle and I! That is how I have broken with the only relative I possess. It is now ten days since then. I now have five left in which to mend the broken thread of the family tradition, and become a lawyer. But nothing points to such conversion. On the contrary, I feel relieved of a heavy weight, pleased to be free, to have no profession. I feel the thrill of pleasure that a fugitive from justice feels on clearing the frontier. Perhaps I was meant for a different course of life than the one I was forced to follow. ”

“ Ten minutes later the carriage drew up, and M. Charnot shook hands with me before the door of his hotel.
"Many thanks, my dear young sir, for this delightful drive home! I hope we shall meet again. We are off to Florence to-morrow; is there anything I can do for you there?"
"No, thank you."
Mademoiselle Charnot gave me a slight bow. I watched her mount the first few steps of the staircase, with one hand shading her eyes from the glare of the gaslights, and the other holding up her wraps, which had come unfolded and were falling around her. ”

“ Then she drew back and gazed at me, seeking to read in my eyes some emotion responsive to her own, and her eyes, red and swollen and feverishly bright, questioned me more clearly than her words.
"How good are you, sir! and how generous is he! What life does he lead? Has he ever lived down the sorrow which blasted his youth here? Men forget more easily, happily for them. I had given up all hope of obtaining the portrait. Every year I sent him flowers which meant, 'Restore to us all that is left of our dead Rafaella.' Perhaps it was unkind. ”

“ Mademoiselle Jeanne in walking-dress, looking, with bright eyes and
her most charming smile, at Plumet, who steps back in a fright, and
Dufilleul, who has not yet seen her.
"'Well, sir, and so I've caught you!'
"Dufilleul starts, and involuntarily clutches the portrait to his waistcoat.
"'Mademoiselle— No, really, you have come—?'
"'To see Madame Plumet. What wrong is there in that?'
"'None whatever—of course not.'
"'Not the least in the world, eh? Ha, ha! What a trifle flurries you. Come now, collect yourself. There is nothing to be frightened at. ”

“ We are at the foot, lost in the crowd. Her noble, clear- cut profile stands out against the Gobelin tapestries which frame it with their embroidered flowers; one would say some maiden of bygone days had come to life, and stepped down from her tapestried panel."
"Gentlemen!" said Lampron, with a sweep of his arm which took in the whole of the Place de la Concorde, "allow me to present to you the intending successor of Counsellor Mouillard, lawyer, of Bourges. Every inch of him a man of business!" ”

“ The persons taking part in the examination besides the three Frenchmen, are, in the first place, a little Italian judge, with a mean face, wrinkled like a winter apple, whose eyelids always seem heavy with sleep; secondly, a clerk, shining with fat, his dress, hair, and countenance expressive of restrained jollity, as he dreams voluptuous dreams of the cool drinks he means to absorb through a straw when the hour of deliverance shall sound from the frightful cuckoo clock, a relic of the French occupation, which ticks at the end of the room ”

“ M. Mouillard banged his hat down furiously upon my table.
"Yes, you know my maxim: when anything does not seem quite clear to me—"
"You ferret it out."
"Quite so; I have always found it answer. Your business did not seem clear to me. Was Mademoiselle Charnot betrothed, or was she not? To what extent had she encouraged your attentions? You never would have told me the story correctly, and I never should have known. That being so, I put my maxim into practice, and went to see her father." ”

“ Monsieur Plumet never would have gone out of his way merely to inform me that his wife had given him a taste of her tongue, nor would he have looked so upset about it. But you know the fellow's way; whenever it's important for him to make himself clear he loses what little power of speech he has, becomes worse than dumb-unintelligible. He sputtered inconsequent ejaculations at me in this fashion:
"'To think of it, to-morrow, perhaps! And you know what a business! Oh, damnation! Anyhow, that must not be! Ah! Monsieur Lampron, how women do talk!'
"And with this Monsieur Plumet left me. ”

“ My words seemed to him the height of presumption.
"Come, Jeanne," he said, "let us leave this gentleman to his youthful illusions. They will soon be shattered—very soon."
He gave me an ironical smile and made for the door.
At this moment Jeanne dropped her sunshade. I picked it up for her.
"Thank you, Monsieur," she said.
Of course these words were no more than ordinarily polite. She would have said the same to the first comer. Nothing in her attitude or her look displayed any emotion which might put a value on this common form of speech. But it was her voice, that music I so often dream of. ”

“ It means:
"To thee, Rafaella Dannegianti—who, aged twenty years and few months— having fully experienced the sorrows and illusions of this world—on January 6—like an angel longing for its heavenly home—didst wing thy way to God in peace and happiness—the clergy of Desioand the laborers and artificers of the noble house of Dannegianti—tender these last solemn offices."
"This Rafaella, then, was the Count's daughter?"
"His only child, a girl lovely and gracious beyond rivalry."
"Oh, of course, beyond rivalry. Are not all only daughters lovely and perfect when once they are dead?" ”

“ So Monsieur Lampron has kept the sketch? I thought it had been sold long ago."
"Sold! you did not think he would sell it!"
"Why not? Every artist has the right to sell his works."
"Not work of that kind."
"Just as much as any other kind."
"No, he could not have done that. He would no more sell it than he would sell the portrait of Rafaella Dannegianti. They are two similar relics, two precious reminiscences."
Mademoiselle Charnot turned, without a reply, to look at the country which was flying past us in the darkness. ”

“ We made but one step across the gravel court, the realm of sculpture where antique gods in every posture formed a mythological circle round the modern busts in the central walk. There was no loitering here, for my heart was elsewhere. We cast a look at an old wounded Gaul, an ancestor unhonored by the crowd, and started up the staircase—no Jeanne to lead the way. We came to the first room of paintings. Sylvestre beamed like a man who feels at home. ”

“ But Madame Lampron was at home. After a little hesitation I told her all, and I am glad I did so. She found in her simple, womanly heart just the counsel that I needed. One feels that she is used to giving consolation. She possesses the secret of that feminine deftness which is the great set-off to feminine weakness. Weak? Yes, women perhaps are weak, yet less weak than we, the strong sex, for they can raise us to our feet. She called me, "My dear Monsieur Fabien," and there was balm in the very way she said the words. ”

“ I have hidden nothing from Lampron. As my friend he is pleased, I can see, at a resolve which keeps me in Paris; but his prudence cries out upon it.
"It is easy enough to refuse a profession," he said; "harder to find another in its place. What do you intend to do?"
"I don't know."
"My dear fellow, you seem to be trusting to luck. At sixteen that might be permissible, at twenty-four it's a mistake." ”

“ She had sunk into her great armchair, and was weeping hot tears.
Ten minutes later, M. Charnot and Jeanne entered with me into the jealously guarded museum.
Museum was the only name to give to a collection of such artistic value, occupying, as it did, the whole of the ground floor to the right of the hall. Two rooms ran parallel to each other, filled with pictures, medals, and engravings, and were connected by a narrow gallery devoted to sculpture. ”

“ Surprise goes for so much in what we admire. Neither this mountain of marble, nor the lacework and pinnacles which adorn the enormous mass, nor the amazing number of statues, nor the sight of men smaller than flies on the Piazza del Duomo, nor the vast stretch of flat country which spreads for miles on every side of the city—none of these sights kindled the spark of enthusiasm within me which has often glowed for much less. ”

“ We soon completed the round of the first room, and made our way into the gallery beyond, devoted to sculpture. The marble gods and goddesses, the lovely fragments of frieze or cornice from the excavations at Rome, Pompeii, or Greece, had but a moderate interest for Mademoiselle Charnot. She never gave more than one glance to each statue, to some none at all. ”

“ In what a state of mind did I set out this morning to face my examiners! Downhearted, worn out by a night of misery, indifferent to all that might befall me, whether for good or for evil.
I considered myself, and indeed I was, very wretched, but I never thought that I should return more wretched than I went.
It was lovely weather when at half past eleven I started for the Law School with an annotated copy of my essay under my arm, thinking more of the regrets for the past and plans for the future with which I had wrestled all night, than of the ordeal I was about to undergo. ”

“ For the last hour I had had my hat on my head, my stick between my legs, and had been turning over my essay with gloved hands. He laughed at me. I don't care. We walked, for the day was clear and warm. All the world was out and about. Who can stay indoors on May Day? As we neared the Chamber of Deputies, perambulators full of babies in white capes came pouring from all the neighboring streets, and made their resplendent way toward the Tuileries. Lampron was in a talkative mood. He was pleased with the hanging of his pictures, and his plan of compaign against Mademoiselle Jeanne. ”