A Woman of Thirty

IV.

THE FINGER OF GOD

Between the Barriere d’Italie and the Barriere de la Sante, along the boulevard which leads to the Jardin des Plantes, you have a view of Paris fit to send an artist or the tourist, the most blase in matters of landscape, into ecstasies.  Reach the slightly higher ground where the line of boulevard, shaded by tall, thick-spreading trees, curves with the grace of some green and silent forest avenue, and you see spread out at your feet a deep valley populous with factories looking almost countrified among green trees and the brown streams of the Bievre or the Gobelins.

On the opposite slope, beneath some thousands of roofs packed close together like heads in a crowd, lurks the squalor of the Faubourg Saint-Marceau.  The imposing cupola of the Pantheon, and the grim melancholy dome of the Val-du-Grace, tower proudly up above a whole town in itself, built amphitheatre-wise; every tier being grotesquely represented by a crooked line of street, so that the two public monuments look like a huge pair of giants dwarfing into insignificance the poor little houses and the tallest poplars in the valley.  To your left behold the observatory, the daylight, pouring athwart its windows and galleries, producing such fantastical strange effects that the building looks like a black spectral skeleton.  Further yet in the distance rises the elegant lantern tower of the Invalides, soaring up between the bluish pile of the Luxembourg and the gray tours of Saint-Sulpice.  From this standpoint the lines of the architecture are blended with green leaves and gray shadows, and change every moment with every aspect of the heavens, every alteration of light or color in the sky.  Afar, the skyey spaces themselves seem to be full of buildings; near, wind the serpentine curves of waving trees and green footpaths.

Away to your right, through a great gap in this singular landscape, you see the canal Saint-Martin, a long pale stripe with its edging of reddish stone quays and fringes of lime avenue.  The long rows of buildings beside it, in genuine Roman style, are the public granaries.

Beyond, again, on the very last plane of all, see the smoke-dimmed slopes of Belleville covered with houses and windmills, which blend their freaks of outline with the chance effects of cloud.  And still, between that horizon, vague as some childish recollection, and the serried range of roofs in the valley, a whole city lies out of sight:  a huge city, engulfed, as it were, in a vast hollow between the pinnacles of the Hopital de la Pitie and the ridge line of the Cimetiere de l’Est, between suffering on the one hand and death on the other; a city sending up a smothered roar like Ocean grumbling at the foot of a cliff, as if to let you know that “I am here!”

When the sunlight pours like a flood over this strip of Paris, purifying and etherealizing the outlines, kindling answering lights here and there in the window panes, brightening the red tiles, flaming about the golden crosses, whitening walls and transforming the atmosphere into a gauzy veil, calling up rich contrasts of light and fantastic shadow; when the sky is blue and earth quivers in the heat, and the bells are pealing, then you shall see one of the eloquent fairy scenes which stamp themselves for ever on the imagination, a scene that shall find as fanatical worshipers as the wondrous views of Naples and Byzantium or the isles of Florida.  Nothing is wanting to complete the harmony, the murmur of the world of men and the idyllic quiet of solitude, the voices of a million human creatures and the voice of God.  There lies a whole capital beneath the peaceful cypresses of Pere-Lachaise.

The landscape lay in all its beauty, sparkling in the spring sunlight, as I stood looking out over it one morning, my back against a huge elm-tree that flung its yellow flowers to the wind.  At the sight of the rich and glorious view before me, I thought bitterly of the scorn with which even in our literature we affect to hold this land of ours, and poured maledictions on the pitiable plutocrats who fall out of love with fair France, and spend their gold to acquire the right of sneering at their own country, by going through Italy at a gallop and inspecting that desecrated land through an opera-glass.  I cast loving eyes on modern Paris.  I was beginning to dream dreams, when the sound of a kiss disturbed the solitude and put philosophy to flight.  Down the sidewalk, along the steep bank, above the rippling water, I saw beyond the Ponte des Gobelins the figure of a woman, dressed with the daintiest simplicity; she was still young, as it seemed to me, and the blithe gladness of the landscape was reflected in her sweet face.  Her companion, a handsome young man, had just set down a little boy.  A prettier child has never been seen, and to this day I do not know whether it was the little one or his mother who received the kiss.  In their young faces, in their eyes, their smile, their every movement, you could read the same deep and tender thought.  Their arms were interlaced with such glad swiftness; they drew close together with such marvelous unanimity of impulse that, conscious of nothing but themselves, they did not so much as see me.  A second child, however—­a little girl, who had turned her back upon them in sullen discontent —­threw me a glance, and the expression in her eyes startled me.  She was as pretty and engaging as the little brother whom she left to run about by himself, sometimes before, sometimes after their mother and her companion; but her charm was less childish, and now, as she stood mute and motionless, her attitude and demeanor suggested a torpid snake.  There was something indescribably mechanical in the way in which the pretty woman and her companion paced up and down.  In absence of mind, probably, they were content to walk to and fro between the little bridge and a carriage that stood waiting nearby at a corner in the boulevard, turning, stopping short now and again, looking into each other’s eyes, or breaking into laughter as their casual talk grew lively or languid, grave or gay.

I watched this delicious picture a while from my hiding-place by the great elm-tree, and should have turned away no doubt and respected their privacy, if it had not been for a chance discovery.  In the face of the brooding, silent, elder child I saw traces of thought overdeep for her age.  When her mother and the young man at her side turned and came near, her head was frequently lowered; the furtive sidelong glances of intelligence that she gave the pair and the child her brother were nothing less than extraordinary.  Sometimes the pretty woman or her friend would stroke the little boy’s fair curls, or lay a caressing finger against the baby throat or the white collar as he played at keeping step with them; and no words can describe the shrewd subtlety, the ingenuous malice, the fierce intensity which lighted up that pallid little face with the faint circles already round the eyes.  Truly there was a man’s power of passion in the strange-looking, delicate little girl.  Here were traces of suffering or of thought in her; and which is the more certain token of death when life is in blossom—­physical suffering, or the malady of too early thought preying upon a soul as yet in bud?  Perhaps a mother knows.  For my own part, I know of nothing more dreadful to see than an old man’s thoughts on a child’s forehead; even blasphemy from girlish lips is less monstrous.

The almost stupid stolidity of this child who had begun to think already, her rare gestures, everything about her, interested me.  I scrutinized her curiously.  Then the common whim of the observer drew me to compare her with her brother, and to note their likeness and unlikeness.

Her brown hair and dark eyes and look of precocious power made a rich contrast with the little one’s fair curled head and sea-green eyes and winning helplessness.  She, perhaps, was seven or eight years of age; the boy was full four years younger.  Both children were dressed alike; but here again, looking closely, I noticed a difference.  It was very slight, a little thing enough; but in the light of after events I saw that it meant a whole romance in the past, a whole tragedy to come.  The little brown-haired maid wore a linen collar with a plain hem, her brother’s was edged with dainty embroidery, that was all; but therein lay the confession of a heart’s secret, a tacit preference which a child can read in the mother’s inmost soul as clearly as if the spirit of God revealed it.  The fair-haired child, careless and glad, looked almost like a girl, his skin was so fair and fresh, his movements so graceful, his look so sweet; while his older sister, in spite of her energy, in spite of the beauty of her features and her dazzling complexion, looked like a sickly little boy.  In her bright eyes there was none of the humid softness which lends such charm to children’s faces; they seemed, like courtiers’ eyes, to be dried by some inner fire; and in her pallor there was a certain swarthy olive tint, the sign of vigorous character.  Twice her little brother came to her, holding out a tiny hunting-horn with a touching charm, a winning look, and wistful expression, which would have sent Charlet into ecstasies, but she only scowled in answer to his “Here, Helene, will you take it?” so persuasively spoken.  The little girl, so sombre and vehement beneath her apparent indifference, shuddered, and even flushed red when her brother came near her; but the little one seemed not to notice his sister’s dark mood, and his unconsciousness, blended with earnestness, marked a final difference in character between the child and the little girl, whose brow was overclouded already by the gloom of a man’s knowledge and cares.

“Mamma, Helene will not play,” cried the little one, seizing an opportunity to complain while the two stood silent on the Ponte des Gobelins.

“Let her alone, Charles; you know very well that she is always cross.”

Tears sprang to Helene’s eyes at the words so thoughtlessly uttered by her mother as she turned abruptly to the young man by her side.  The child devoured the speech in silence, but she gave her brother one of those sagacious looks that seemed inexplicable to me, glancing with a sinister expression from the bank where he stood to the Bievre, then at the bridge and the view, and then at me.

I as afraid lest my presence should disturb the happy couple; I slipped away and took refuge behind a thicket of elder trees, which completely screened me from all eyes.  Sitting quietly on the summit of the bank, I watched the ever-changing landscape and the fierce-looking little girl, for with my head almost on a level with the boulevard I could still see her through the leaves.  Helene seemed uneasy over my disappearance, her dark eyes looked for me down the alley and behind the trees with indefinable curiosity.  What was I to her?  Then Charles’ baby laughter rang out like a bird’s song in the silence.  The tall, young man, with the same fair hair, was dancing him in his arms, showering kisses upon him, and the meaningless baby words of that “little language” which rises to our lips when we play with children.  The mother looked on smiling, now and then, doubtless, putting in some low word that came up from the heart, for her companion would stop short in his full happiness, and the blue eyes that turned towards her were full of glowing light and love and worship.  Their voices, blending with the child’s voice, reached me with a vague sense of a caress.  The three figures, charming in themselves, composed a lovely scene in a glorious landscape, filling it with a pervasive unimaginable grace.  A delicately fair woman, radiant with smiles, a child of love, a young man with the irresistible charm of youth, a cloudless sky; nothing was wanting in nature to complete a perfect harmony for the delight of the soul.  I found myself smiling as if their happiness had been my own.

The clocks struck nine.  The young man gave a tender embrace to his companion, and went towards the tilbury which an old servant drove slowly to meet him.  The lady had grown grave and almost sad.  The child’s prattle sounded unchecked through the last farewell kisses.  Then the tilbury rolled away, and the lady stood motionless, listening to the sound of the wheels, watching the little cloud of dust raised by its passage along the road.  Charles ran down the green pathway back to the bridge to join his sister.  I heard his silver voice calling to her.

“Why did you not come to say good-bye to my good friend?” cried he.

Helene looked up.  Never surely did such hatred gleam from a child’s eyes as from hers at that moment when she turned them on the brother who stood beside her on the bank side.  She gave him an angry push.  Charles lost his footing on the steep slope, stumbled over the roots of a tree, and fell headlong forwards, dashing his forehead on the sharp-edged stones of the embankment, and, covered with blood, disappeared over the edge into the muddy river.  The turbid water closed over a fair, bright head with a shower of splashes; one sharp shriek after another rang in my ears; then the sounds were stifled by the thick stream, and the poor child sank with a dull sound as if a stone had been thrown into the water.  The accident had happened with more than lightning swiftness.  I sprang down the footpath, and Helene, stupefied with horror, shrieked again and again: 

“Mamma! mamma!”

The mother was there at my side.  She had flown to the spot like a bird.  But neither a mother’s eyes nor mine could find the exact place where the little one had gone under.  There was a wide space of black hurrying water, and below in the bed of the Bievre ten feet of mud.  There was not the smallest possibility of saving the child.  No one was stirring at that hour on a Sunday morning, and there are neither barges nor anglers on the Bievre.  There was not a creature in sight, not a pole to plumb the filthy stream.  What need was there for me to explain how the ugly-looking accident had happened—­accident or misfortune, whichever it might be?  Had Helene avenged her father?  Her jealousy surely was the sword of God.  And yet when I looked at the mother I shivered.  What fearful ordeal awaited her when she should return to her husband, the judge before whom she must stand all her days?  And here with her was an inseparable, incorruptible witness.  A child’s forehead is transparent, a child’s face hides no thoughts, and a lie, like a red flame set within glows out red that colors even the eyes.  But the unhappy woman had not thought as yet of the punishment awaiting her at home; she was staring into the Bievre.

Such an event must inevitably send ghastly echoes through a woman’s life, and here is one of the most terrible of the reverberations that troubled Julie’s love from time to time.

Several years had gone by.  The Marquis de Vandenesse wore mourning for his father, and succeeded to his estates.  One evening, therefore, after dinner it happened that a notary was present in his house.  This was no pettifogging lawyer after Sterne’s pattern, but a very solid, substantial notary of Paris, one of your estimable men who do a stupid thing pompously, set down a foot heavily upon your private corn, and then ask what in the world there is to cry out about?  If, by accident, they come to know the full extent of the enormity, “Upon my word,” cry they, “I hadn’t a notion!” This was a well-intentioned ass, in short, who could see nothing in life but deeds and documents.

Mme. de Aiglemont had been dining with M. de Vandenesse; her husband had excused himself before dinner was over, for he was taking his two children to the play.  They were to go to some Boulevard theatre or other, to the Ambigu-Comique or the Gaiete, sensational melodrama being judged harmless here in Paris, and suitable pabulum for childhood, because innocence is always triumphant in the fifth act.  The boy and girl had teased their father to be there before the curtain rose, so he had left the table before dessert was served.

But the notary, the imperturbable notary, utterly incapable of asking himself why Mme. d’Aiglemont should have allowed her husband and children to go without her to the play, sat on as if he were screwed to his chair.  Dinner was over, dessert had been prolonged by discussion, and coffee delayed.  All these things consumed time, doubtless precious, and drew impatient movements from that charming woman; she looked not unlike a thoroughbred pawing the ground before a race; but the man of law, to whom horses and women were equally unknown quantities, simply thought the Marquise a very lively and sparkling personage.  So enchanted was he to be in the company of a woman of fashion and a political celebrity, that he was exerting himself to shine in conversation, and taking the lady’s forced smile for approbation, talked on with unflagging spirit, till the Marquise was almost out of patience.

The master of the house, in concert with the lady, had more than once maintained an eloquent silence when the lawyer expected a civil reply; but these significant pauses were employed by the talkative nuisance in looking for anecdotes in the fire.  M. de Vandenesse had recourse to his watch; the charming Marquise tried the experiment of fastening her bonnet strings, and made as if she would go.  But she did not go, and the notary, blind and deaf, and delighted with himself, was quite convinced that his interesting conversational powers were sufficient to keep the lady on the spot.

“I shall certainly have that woman for a client,” said he to himself.

Meanwhile the Marquise stood, putting on her gloves, twisting her fingers, looking from the equally impatient Marquis de Vandenesse to the lawyer, still pounding away.  At every pause in the worthy man’s fire of witticisms the charming pair heaved a sigh of relief, and their looks said plainly, “At last!  He is really going!”

Nothing of the kind.  It was a nightmare which could only end in exasperating the two impassioned creatures, on whom the lawyer had something of the fascinating effect of a snake on a pair of birds; before long they would be driven to cut him short.

The clever notary was giving them the history of the discreditable ways in which one du Tillet (a stockbroker then much in favor) had laid the foundations of his fortune; all the ins and outs of the whole disgraceful business were accurately put before them; and the narrator was in the very middle of his tale when M. de Vandenesse heard the clock strike nine.  Then it became clear to him that his legal adviser was very emphatically an idiot who must be sent forthwith about his business.  He stopped him resolutely with a gesture.

“The tongs, my lord Marquis?” queried the notary, handing the object in question to his client.

“No, monsieur, I am compelled to send you away.  Mme. d’Aiglemont wishes to join her children, and I shall have the honor of escorting her.”

“Nine o’clock already!  Time goes like a shadow in pleasant company,” said the man of law, who had talked on end for the past hour.

He looked for his hat, planted himself before the fire, with a suppressed hiccough; and, without heeding the Marquise’s withering glances, spoke once more to his impatient client: 

“To sum up, my lord Marquis.  Business before all things.  To-morrow, then, we must subpoena your brother; we will proceed to make out the inventory, and faith, after that——­”

So ill had the lawyer understood his instructions, that his impression was the exact opposite to the one intended.  It was a delicate matter, and Vandenesse, in spite of himself, began to put the thick-headed notary right.  The discussion which followed took up a certain amount of time.

“Listen,” the diplomatist said at last at a sign from the lady, “You are puzzling my brains; come back to-morrow, and if the writ is not issued by noon to-morrow, the days of grace will expire, and then—­”

As he spoke, a carriage entered the courtyard.  The poor woman turned sharply away at the sound to hide the tears in her eyes.  The Marquis rang to give the servant orders to say that he was not at home; but before the footman could answer the bell, the lady’s husband reappeared.  He had returned unexpectedly from the Gaiete, and held both children by the hand.  The little girl’s eyes were red; the boy was fretful and very cross.

“What can have happened?” asked the Marquise.

“I will tell you by and by,” said the General, and catching a glimpse through an open door of newspapers on the table in the adjoining sitting-room, he went off.  The Marquise, at the end of her patience, flung herself down on the sofa in desperation.  The notary, thinking it incumbent upon him to be amiable with the children, spoke to the little boy in an insinuating tone: 

“Well, my little man, and what is there on at the theatre?”

“The Valley of the Torrent,” said Gustave sulkily.

“Upon my word and honor,” declared the notary, “authors nowadays are half crazy. The Valley of the Torrent!  Why not the Torrent of the Valley?  It is conceivable that a valley might be without a torrent in it; now if they had said the Torrent of the Valley, that would have been something clear, something precise, something definite and comprehensible.  But never mind that.  Now, how is the drama to take place in a torrent and in a valley?  You will tell me that in these days the principal attraction lies in the scenic effect, and the title is a capital advertisement.—­And did you enjoy it, my little friend?” he continued, sitting down before the child.

When the notary pursued his inquiries as to the possibilities of a drama in the bed of a torrent, the little girl turned slowly away and began to cry.  Her mother did not notice this in her intense annoyance.

“Oh! yes, monsieur, I enjoyed it very much,” said the child.  “There is a dear little boy in the play, and he was all alone in the world, because his papa could not have been his real papa.  And when he came to the top of the bridge over the torrent, a big, naughty man with a beard, dressed all in black, came and threw him into the water.  And then Helene began to sob and cry, and everybody scolded us, and father brought us away quick, quick——­”

M. de Vandenesse and the Marquise looked on in dull amazement, as if all power to think or move had been suddenly paralyzed.

“Do be quiet, Gustave!” cried the General.  “I told you that you were not to talk about anything that happened at the play, and you have forgotten what I said already.”

“Oh, my lord Marquis, your lordship must excuse him,” cried the notary.  “I ought not to have asked questions, but I had no idea—­”

“He ought not to have answered them,” said the General, looking sternly at the child.

It seemed that the Marquise and the master of the house both perfectly understood why the children had come back so suddenly.  Mme. d’Aiglemont looked at her daughter, and rose as if to go to her, but a terrible convulsion passed over her face, and all that could be read in it was relentless severity.

“That will do, Helene,” she said.  “Go into the other room, and leave off crying.”

“What can she have done, poor child!” asked the notary, thinking to appease the mother’s anger and to stop Helene’s tears at one stroke.  “So pretty as she his, she must be as good as can be; never anything but a joy to her mother, I will be bound.  Isn’t that so, my little girl?”

Helene cowered, looked at her mother, dried her eyes, struggled for composure, and took refuge in the next room.

“And you, madame, are too good a mother not to love all your children alike.  You are too good a woman, besides, to have any of those lamentable preferences which have such fatal effects, as we lawyers have only too much reason to know.  Society goes through our hands; we see its passions in that most revolting form, greed.  Here it is the mother of a family trying to disinherit her husband’s children to enrich the others whom she loves better; or it is the husband who tries to leave all his property to the child who has done his best to earn his mother’s hatred.  And then begin quarrels, and fears, and deeds, and defeasances, and sham sales, and trusts, and all the rest of it; a pretty mess, in fact, it is pitiable, upon my honor, pitiable!  There are fathers that will spend their whole lives in cheating their children and robbing their wives.  Yes, robbing is the only word for it.  We were talking of tragedy; oh!  I can assure you of this that if we were at liberty to tell the real reasons of some donations that I know of, our modern dramatists would have the material for some sensational bourgeois dramas.  How the wife manages to get her way, as she invariably does, I cannot think; for in spite of appearances, and in spite of their weakness, it is always the women who carry the day.  Ah! by the way, they don’t take me in.  I always know the reason at the bottom of those predilections which the world politely styles ‘unaccountable.’  But in justice to the husbands, I must say that they never discover anything.  You will tell me that this is a merciful dispens—­”

Helene had come back to the drawing-room with her father, and was listening attentively.  So well did she understand all that was said, that she gave her mother a frightened glance, feeling, with a child’s quick instinct, that these remarks would aggravate the punishment hanging over her.  The Marquise turned her white face to Vandenesse; and, with terror in her eyes, indicated her husband, who stood with his eyes fixed absently on the flower pattern of the carpet.  The diplomatist, accomplished man of the world though he was, could no longer contain his wrath, he gave the man of law a withering glance.

“Step this way, sir,” he said, and he went hurriedly to the door of the ante-chamber; the notary left his sentence half finished, and followed, quaking, and the husband and wife were left together.

“Now, sir” said the Marquise de Vandenesse—­he banged the drawing-room door, and spoke with concentrated rage—­“ever since dinner you have done nothing but make blunders and talk folly.  For heaven’s sake, go.  You will make the most frightful mischief before you have done.  If you are a clever man in your profession, keep to your profession; and if by any chance you should go into society, endeavor to be more circumspect.”

With that he went back to the drawing-room, and did not even wish the notary good-evening.  For a moment that worthy stood dumfounded, bewildered, utterly at a loss.  Then, when the buzzing in his ears subsided, he thought he heard someone moaning in the next room.  Footsteps came and went, and bells were violently rung.  He was by no means anxious to meet the Marquis again, and found the use of his legs to make good his escape, only to run against a hurrying crowd of servants at the door.

“Just the way of all these grand folk,” said he to himself outside in the street as he looked about for a cab.  “They lead you on to talk with compliments, and you think you are amusing them.  Not a bit of it.  They treat you insolently; put you at a distance; even put you out at the door without scruple.  After all, I talked very cleverly, I said nothing but what was sensible, well turned, and discreet; and, upon my word, he advises me to be more circumspect in future.  I will take good care of that!  Eh! the mischief take it!  I am a notary and a member of my chamber it was an ambassador’s fit of temper, nothing is sacred for people of that kind.  To-morrow he shall explain what he meant by saying that I had done nothing but blunder and talk nonsense in his house.  I will ask him for an explanation—­that is, I will ask him to explain my mistake.  After all is done and said, I am in the wrong perhaps——­ Upon my word, it is very good of me to cudgel my brains like this.  What business is it of mine?”

So the notary went home and laid the enigma before his spouse, with a complete account of the evening’s events related in sequence.

And she replied, “My dear Crottat, His Excellency was perfectly right when he said that you had done nothing but blunder and talk folly.”

“Why?”

“My dear, if I told you why, it would not prevent you from doing the same thing somewhere else to-morrow.  I tell you again—­talk of nothing but business when you go out; that is my advice to you.”

“If you will not tell me, I shall ask him to-morrow—­”

“Why, dear me! the veriest noodle is careful to hide a thing of that kind, and do you suppose that an ambassador will tell you about it?  Really, Crottat, I have never known you so utterly devoid of common-sense.”

“Thank you, my dear.”