Jack. Alphonse Daudet
as well have attempted to carry on a conversation with a bird that was fluttering about his head.
“I am not strong-minded nor literary,” said Ida, with a half yawn, one day when he had been speaking with feverish impatience for a long time.
Moronval finally concluded that a creature so inconsequent must be dazzled, not led.
One day, when Ida was holding audience in the parlor, telling wonderful tales of her various acquaintances to whose often plebeian names she added the de as she pleased, Madame Moronval said, timidly—
“M. Moronval would like to ask you something, but he dares not.”
“O, tell me, tell me!” said the silly little woman, with a sincere wish to oblige.
The principal was sorely tempted to ask her at once for funds for the Review, but being himself very distrustful, he thought it wiser to act with great prudence; so he contented himself with asking Madame de Barancy to be present at one of their literary reunions on the following Saturday. Formerly these little fêtes took place every week, but since Mâdou’s fall they had been very infrequent. It was in vain that Moronval had extinguished a candle with every guest that left, in vain had he dried the tea-leaves from the teapot in the sun on the window-sill, and served it again the following week, the expense still was too great. But now he determined to hazard another attempt in that direction. Madame de Barancy accepted the invitation with eagerness. The idea of making her appearance in the salon as a married woman of position was very attractive to her, for it was one round of the ladder conquered, on which she hoped to ascend from her irregular and unsatisfactory life.
This was a most splendid fête at which she assisted. In the memory of all beholders no such entertainment had taken place. Two colored lanterns hung on the acacias at the entrance, the vestibule was lighted, and at least thirty candles were burning in the salon, the floor of which Mâdou had so waxed and rubbed for the occasion that it was as brilliant and as dangerous as ice. The negro boy had surpassed himself; and here let me say that Moronval was in a great state of perplexity as to the part that the prince should take at the soirée.
Should he be withdrawn from his domestic duties and restored for one day only to his title and ancient splendor? This idea was very tempting; but, then, who would hand the plates and announce the guests? Who could replace him? No one of the other scholars, for each had some one in Paris who might not be pleased with this system of education; and finally it was decided that the soirée must be deprived of the presence and prestige of his royal Highness. At eight o’clock, “the children of the sun” took their seats on the benches, and among them the blonde head of little De Barancy glittered like a star on the dark background.
Moronval had issued numerous invitations among the artistic and literary world—the one at least which he frequented—and the representatives of art, literature, and architecture appeared in large delegations. They arrived in squads, cold and shivering, coming from the depths of Montparnasse on the tops of omnibuses, ill dressed and poor, unknown, but full of genius, drawn from their obscurity by the longing to be seen, to sing or to recite something, to prove to themselves that they were still alive. Then, after this breath of pure air, this glimpse of the heavens above, comforted by a semblance of glory and success, they returned to their squalid apartments, having gained a little strength to vegetate. There were philosophers wiser than Leibnitz; there were painters longing for fame, but whose pictures looked as if an earthquake had shaken everything from its perpendicular; musicians—inventors of new instruments; savans in the style of Dr. Hirsch, whose brains contained a little of everything, but where nothing could be found by reason of the disorder and the dust. It was sad to see them; and if their insatiate pretensions, as obtrusive as their bushy heads, their offensive pride and pompous manners, had not given one an inclination to laugh, their half-starved air and the feverish glitter of eyes that had wept over so many lost illusions and disappointed hopes, would have awakened profound compassion in the hearts of lookers-on.
Besides these there were others, who, finding art too hard a taskmistress and too niggardly in her rewards, sought other employment.. For example, a lyric poet kept an intelligence office, a sculptor was an agent for a wine merchant, and a violinist was in a gas-office.
Others less worthy allowed themselves to be supported by their wives. These couples came together, and the poor women bore on their brave, worn faces the stamp of the penalty they paid for the companionship of men of genius. Proud of being allowed to accompany their husbands, they smiled upon them with an air of gratified maternal vanity. Then there were the habitués of the house, the three professors; Labassandre in gala costume, exercising his lungs at intervals by tremendous inspirations; and D’Argenton, the handsome D’Argenton, curled and pomaded, wearing light gloves, and his manners a charming mixture of authority, geniality, and condescension.
Standing near the door of the salon, Moronval received every one, shaking hands with all, but growing very anxious as the hour grew later and the countess did not appear; for Ida de Barancy was called the countess under that roof. Every one was uncomfortable. Little Madame de Moronval went from group to group, saying, with an amiable air, “We will wait a few moments, the countess has not yet arrived!”
The piano was open, the pupils were ranged against the wall; a small green table, on which stood a glass of eau-sucré and a reading-lamp, was in readiness. M. Moronval, imposing in his white vest; Madame, red and oppressed by all the worry of the evening; and Mâdotu, shivering in the wind from the door—all are waiting for the countess. Meanwhile, as she came not, D’Argenton consented to recite a poem that all his assistants knew, for they had heard it a dozen times before. Standing in front of the chimney, with his hair thrown back from his wide forehead, the poet declaimed, in a coarse, vulgar voice, what he called his poem.
His friends were not sparing in their praises.
“Magnificent!” said one. “Sublime!” exclaimed another; and the most amazing criticism came from yet another—“Goethe with a heart?”
Here Ida entered. The poet did not see her, for his eyes were lifted to the ceiling. But she saw him, poor woman; and from that moment her heart was gone. She had never seen him, save in the street wearing his hat: now she beheld him in the mellow light which softened still more his pale face, wearing a dress-coat and evening gloves, reciting a love poem, and, believing in love as he did in God, he produced an extraordinary effect upon her.
He was the hero of her dreams, and corresponded with all the foolish sentimental ideas that lie hidden very often in the hearts of such women.
From that very moment she was his, and he took exclusive possession of her heart. She paid no attention to her little Jack, who made frantic signs to her as he threw her kiss after kiss; nor had she eyes for Moronval, who bowed to the ground; nor for the curious glances that examined her from head to foot, as she stood before them in her black velvet dress and her little white opera hat, trimmed with black roses and ornamented with tulle strings which wrapped about her like a scarf. Years after she recalled the profound impression of that evening, and saw as in a dream her poet as she saw him first in that salon, which seemed to her, seen through the vista of years, immense and superb. The future might heap misery upon her; her past could humiliate and wound her, crush her life, and something more precious than life itself; but the recollection of that brief moment of ecstasy could never be effaced.
“You see, madame,” said Moronval, with his most insinuating smile, “that we made a beginning before your arrival. M. le Vicomte Àmaury d’Argenton was reciting his magnificent poem.”
“Vicomte!” He was noble, then!
She turned toward him, timid and blushing as a young girl.
“Continue, sir, I beg of you,” she said.
But D’Argenton did not care to do so. The arrival of the countess had injured the effect of his poem—destroyed its point; and such things are not easily pardoned. He bowed, and answered with cold haughtiness that he had finished. Then he turned away without troubling himself more about her. The poor woman felt a strange pang at her heart. She had displeased him, and the very thought was unendurable. It needed all little