At dinner d’Arthez was placed beside the princess, who, far from imitating the eccentricities of diet which many affected women display, ate her dinner with a very good appetite, making it a point of honor to seem a natural woman, without strange ways or fancies. Between two courses she took advantage of the conversation becoming general to say to d’Arthez, in a sort of aside: —
“The secret of the pleasure I take in finding myself beside you, is the desire I feel to learn something of an unfortunate friend of yours, monsieur. He died for another cause greater than ours; but I was under the greatest obligations to him, although unable to acknowledge or thank him for them. I know that you were one of his best friends. Your mutual friendship, pure and unalterable, is a claim upon me. You will not, I am sure, think it extraordinary, that I have wished to know all you could tell me of a man so dear to you. Though I am attached to the exiled family, and bound, of course, to hold monarchical opinions, I am not among those who think it is impossible to be both republican and noble in heart. Monarchy and the republic are two forms of government which do not stifle noble sentiments.”
“Michel Chrestien was an angel, madame,” replied Daniel, in a voice of emotion. “I don’t know among the heroes of antiquity a greater than he. Be careful not to think him one of those narrow-minded republicans who would like to restore the Convention and the amenities of the Committee of Public Safety. No, Michel dreamed of the Swiss federation applied to all Europe. Let us own, between ourselves, that after the glorious government of one man only, which, as I think, is particularly suited to our nation, Michel’s system would lead to the suppression of war in this old world, and its reconstruction on bases other than those of conquest, which formerly feudalized it. From this point of view the republicans came nearest to his idea. That is why he lent them his arm in July, and was killed at Saint-Merri. Though completely apart in opinion, he and I were closely bound together as friends.”
“That is noble praise for both natures,” said Madame de Cadignan, timidly.
“During the last four years of his life,” continued Daniel, “he made to me alone a confidence of his love for you, and this confidence knitted closer than ever the already strong ties of brotherly affection. He alone, madame, can have loved you as you ought to be loved. Many a time I have been pelted with rain as we accompanied your carriage at the pace of the horses, to keep at a parallel distance, and see you – admire you.”
“Ah! monsieur,” said the princess, “how can I repay such feelings!”
“Why is Michel not here!” exclaimed Daniel, in melancholy accents.
“Perhaps he would not have loved me long,” said the princess, shaking her head sadly. “Republicans are more absolute in their ideas than we absolutists, whose fault is indulgence. No doubt he imagined me perfect, and society would have cruelly undeceived him. We are pursued, we women, by as many calumnies as you authors are compelled to endure in your literary life; but we, alas! cannot defend ourselves either by our works or by our fame. The world will not believe us to be what we are, but what it thinks us to be. It would soon have hidden from his eyes the real but unknown woman that is in me, behind the false portrait of the imaginary woman which the world considers true. He would have come to think me unworthy of the noble feelings he had for me, and incapable of comprehending him.”
Here the princess shook her head, swaying the beautiful blond curls, full of heather, with a touching gesture. This plaintive expression of grievous doubts and hidden sorrows is indescribable. Daniel understood them all; and he looked at the princess with keen emotion.
“And yet, the night on which I last saw him, after the revolution of July, I was on the point of giving way to the desire I felt to take his hand and press it before all the world, under the peristyle of the opera-house. But the thought came to me that such a proof of gratitude might be misinterpreted; like so many other little things done from noble motives which are called to-day the follies of Madame de Maufrigneuse – things which I can never explain, for none but my son and God have understood me.”
These words, breathed into the ear of the listener, in tones inaudible to the other guests, and with accents worthy of the cleverest actress, were calculated to reach the heart; and they did reach that of d’Arthez. There was no question of himself in the matter; this woman was seeking to rehabilitate herself in favor of the dead. She had been calumniated; and she evidently wanted to know if anything had tarnished her in the eyes of him who had loved her; had he died with all his illusions?
“Michel,” replied d’Arthez, “was one of those men who love absolutely, and who, if they choose ill, can suffer without renouncing the woman they have once elected.”
“Was I loved thus?” she said, with an air of exalted beatitude.
“Yes, madame.”
“I made his happiness?”
“For four years.”
“A woman never hears of such a thing without a sentiment of proud satisfaction,” she said, turning her sweet and noble face to d’Arthez with a movement full of modest confusion.
One of the most skilful manoeuvres of these actresses is to veil their manner when words are too expressive, and speak with their eyes when language is restrained. These clever discords, slipped into the music of their love, be it false or true, produce irresistible attractions.
“Is it not,” she said, lowering her voice and her eyes, after feeling well assured they had produced her effect, – “is it not fulfilling one’s destiny to have rendered a great man happy?”
“Did he not write that to you?”
“Yes; but I wanted to be sure, quite sure; for, believe me, monsieur, in putting me so high he was not mistaken.”
Women know how to give a peculiar sacredness to their words; they communicate something vibrant to them, which extends the meaning of their ideas, and gives them depth; though later their fascinated listener may not remember precisely what they said, their end has been completely attained, – which is the object of all eloquence. The princess might at that moment have been wearing the diadem of France, and her brow could not have seemed more imposing than it was beneath that crown of golden hair, braided like a coronet, and adorned with heather. She was simple and calm; nothing betrayed a sense of any necessity to appear so, nor any desire to seem grand or loving. D’Arthez, the solitary toiler, to whom the ways of the world were unknown, whom study had wrapped in its protecting veils, was the dupe of her tones and words. He was under the spell of those exquisite manners; he admired that perfect beauty, ripened by misfortune, placid in retirement; he adored the union of so rare a mind and so noble a soul; and he longed to become, himself, the heir of Michel Chrestien.
The beginning of this passion was, as in the case of almost all deep thinkers, an idea. Looking at the princess, studying the shape of her head, the arrangement of those sweet features, her figure, her hand, so finely modelled, closer than when he accompanied his friend in their wild rush through the streets, he was struck by the surprising phenomenon of the moral second-sight which a man exalted by love invariably finds within him. With what lucidity had Michel Chrestien read into that soul, that heart, illumined by the fires of love! Thus the princess acquired, in d’Arthez’s eyes, another charm; a halo of poesy surrounded her.
As the dinner proceeded, Daniel called to mind the various confidences of his friend, his despair, his hopes, the noble poems of a true sentiment sung to his ear alone, in honor of this woman. It is rare that a man passes without remorse from the position of confidant to that of rival, and d’Arthez was free to do so without dishonor. He had suddenly, in a moment, perceived the enormous differences existing between a well-bred woman, that flower of the great world, and common women, though of the latter he did not know beyond one specimen. He was thus captured on the most accessible and sensitive sides of his soul and of his genius. Impelled by his simplicity, and by the impetuosity of his ideas, to lay immediate claim to this woman, he found himself restrained by society, also by the barrier which the manners and, let us say the word, the majesty of the princess placed between them. The conversation, which remained upon the topic of Michel Chrestien until the dessert, was an excellent pretext for both to speak in a low voice: love, sympathy, comprehension! she could pose as a maligned and misunderstood woman; he could slip his feet into the shoes of the dead republican. Perhaps his candid mind detected itself in regretting his dead friend less. The princess, at the moment when the dessert appeared upon the table, and the guests were separated by a brilliant hedge of fruits and sweetmeats, thought best to put an end to this flow of confidences by a charming little speech, in which she delicately expressed the idea that Daniel and Michel were twin souls.
After this d’Arthez threw himself into the general conversation with the gayety of a child, and a self-conceited air that was worthy of a schoolboy. When they left the dining-room, the princess took d’Arthez’s arm, in the simplest manner, to return to Madame d’Espard’s little salon. As they crossed the grand salon she walked slowly, and when sufficiently separated from the marquise, who was on Blondet’s arm, she stopped.
“I do not wish to be inaccessible to the friend of that poor man,” she said to d’Arthez; “and though I have made it a rule to receive no visitors, you will always be welcome in my house. Do not think this a favor. A favor is only for strangers, and to my mind you and I seem old friends; I see in you the brother of Michel.”
D’Arthez could only press her arm, unable to make other reply.
After coffee was served, Diane de Cadignan wrapped herself, with coquettish motions, in a large shawl, and rose. Blondet and Rastignac were too much men of the world, and too polite to make the least remonstrance, or try to detain her; but Madame d’Espard compelled her friend to sit down again, whispering in her ear: —
“Wait till the servants have had their dinner; the carriage is not ready yet.”
So saying, the marquise made a sign to the footman, who was taking away the coffee-tray. Madame de Montcornet perceived that the princess and Madame d’Espard had a word to say to each other, and she drew around her d’Arthez, Rastignac, and Blondet, amusing them with one of those clever paradoxical attacks which Parisian women understand so thoroughly.
“Well,” said the marquise to Diane, “what do you think of him?”
“He is an adorable child, just out of swaddling-clothes! This time, like all other times, it will only be a triumph without a struggle.”
“Well, it is disappointing,” said Madame d’Espard. “But we might evade it.”
“How?”
“Let me be your rival.”
“Just as you please,” replied the princess. “I’ve decided on my course. Genius is a condition of the brain; I don’t know what the heart gets out of it; we’ll talk about that later.”
Hearing the last few words, which were wholly incomprehensible to her, Madame d’Espard returned to the general conversation, showing neither offence at that indifferent “As you please,” nor curiosity as to the outcome of the interview. The princess stayed an hour longer, seated on the sofa near the fire, in the careless, nonchalant attitude of Guerin’s Dido, listening with the attention of an absorbed mind, and looking at Daniel now and then, without disguising her admiration, which never went, however, beyond due limits. She slipped away when the carriage was announced, with a pressure of the hand to the marquise, and an inclination of the head to Madame de Montcornet.
The evening concluded without any allusion to the princess. The other guests profited by the sort of exaltation which d’Arthez had reached, for he put forth the treasures of his mind. In Blondet and Rastignac he certainly had two acolytes of the first quality to bring forth the delicacy of his wit and the breadth of his intellect. As for the two women, they had long been counted among the cleverest in society. This evening was like a halt in the oasis of a desert, – a rare enjoyment, and well appreciated by these four persons, habitually victimized to the endless caution entailed by the world of salons and politics. There are beings who have the privilege of passing among men like beneficent stars, whose light illumines the mind, while its rays send a glow to the heart. D’Arthez was one of those beings. A writer who rises to his level, accustoms himself to free thought, and forgets that in society all things cannot be said; it is impossible for such a man to observe the restraint of persons who live in the world perpetually; but as his eccentricities of thought bore the mark of originality, no one felt inclined to complain. This zest, this piquancy, rare in mere talent, this youthfulness and simplicity of soul which made d’Arthez so nobly original, gave a delightful charm to this evening. He left the house with Rastignac, who, as they drove home, asked him how he liked the princess.
“Michel did well to love her,” replied d’Arthez; “she is, indeed, an extraordinary woman.”
“Very extraordinary,” replied Rastignac, dryly. “By the tone of your voice I should judge you were in love with her already. You will be in her house within three days; and I am too old a denizen of Paris not to know what will be the upshot of that. Well, my dear Daniel, I do entreat you not to allow yourself to be drawn into any confusion of interests, so to speak. Love the princess if you feel any love for her in your heart, but keep an eye on your fortune. She has never taken or asked a penny from any man on earth, she is far too much of a d’Uxelles and a Cadignan for that; but, to my knowledge, she has not only spent her own fortune, which was very considerable, but she has made others waste millions. How? why? by what means? No one knows; she doesn’t know herself. I myself saw her swallow up, some thirteen years ago, the entire fortune of a charming young fellow, and that of an old notary, in twenty months.”
“Thirteen years ago!” exclaimed d’Arthez, – “why, how old is she now?”
“Didn’t you see, at dinner,” replied Rastignac, laughing, “her son, the Duc de Maufrigneuse. That young man is nineteen years old; nineteen and seventeen make – ”
“Thirty-six!” cried the amazed author. “I gave her twenty.”
“She’ll accept them,” said Rastignac; “but don’t be uneasy, she will always be twenty to you. You are about to enter the most fantastic of worlds. Good-night, here you are at home,” said the baron, as they entered the rue de Bellefond, where d’Arthez lived in a pretty little house of his own. “We shall meet at Mademoiselle des Touches’s in the course of the week.”