In the Days of My Youth Part 21

"Everye white will have its blacke, And everye sweet its sowere."

_Old Ballad_.

Neither the example of Oscar Dalrymple nor the broadcloth of the great Michaud, achieved half so much for my education as did the apprentices.h.i.+p I was destined to serve to Madame de Marignan. Having once made up her mind to civilize me, she spared no pains for the accomplishment of that end, cost what it might to herself--or me. Before I had been for one week her subject, she taught me how to bow; how to pick up a pocket-handkerchief; how to present a bouquet; how to hold a fan; how to pay a compliment; how to turn over the leaves of a music-book--in short, how to obey and antic.i.p.ate every imperious wish; and how to fetch and carry, like a dog. My va.s.salage began from the very day when I first ventured to call upon her. Her house was small, but very elegant, and she received me in a delicious little room overlooking the Champs Elysees--a very nest of flowers, books, and birds. Before I had breathed the air of that fatal boudoir for one quarter of an hour, I was as abjectly her slave as the poodle with the rose-colored collar which lay curled upon a velvet cus.h.i.+on at her feet.

"I shall elect you my _cavaliere servente_," said she, after I had twice nervously risen to take my leave within the first half hour, and twice been desired to remain a little longer. "Will you accept the office?"

I thought it the greatest privilege under heaven. Perhaps I said so.

"The duties of the situation are onerous," added she, "and I ought not to accept your allegiance without setting them before you. In the first place, you will have to bring me every new novel of George Sand, Flaubert, or About, on the day of publication."

"I will move heaven and earth to get them the day before, if that be all!" I exclaimed.

Madame de Marignan nodded approvingly, and went on telling off my duties, one by one, upon her pretty fingers.

"You will have to accompany me to the Opera at least twice a week, on which occasions you will bring me a bouquet--camellias being my favorite flowers."

"Were they the flowers that bloom but once in a century," said I, with more enthusiasm than sense, "they should be yours!"

Madame de Marignan smiled and nodded again.

"When I drive in the Bois, you will sometimes take a seat in my carriage, and sometimes ride beside it, like an attentive cavalier."

I was just about to avow that I had no horse, when I remembered that I could borrow Dalrymple's, or hire one, if necessary; so I checked myself, and bowed.

"When I go to an exhibition," said Madame de Marignan, "it will be your business to look out the pictures in the catalogue--when I walk, you will carry my parasol--when I go into a shop, you will take care of my dog--when I embroider, you will wind off my silks, and look for my scissors--when I want amus.e.m.e.nt, you must make me laugh--and when I am sleepy, you must read to me. In short, my _cavaliere servente_ must be my shadow."

"Then, like your shadow, Madame," said I, "his place is ever at your feet, and that is all I desire!"

Madame de Marignan laughed outright, and showed the loveliest little double row of pearls in all the world.

"Admirable!" said she. "Quite an elegant compliment, and worthy of an accomplished lady-killer! _Allons_! you are a promising scholar."

"In all that I have dared to say, Madame, I am, at least, sincere," I added, abashed by the kind of praise.

"Sincere? Of course you are sincere. Who ever doubted it? Nay, to blush like that is enough to spoil the finest compliment in the world.

There--it is three o'clock, and at half-past I have an engagement, for which I must now make my _toilette_. Come to-morrow evening to my box at the _Italiens_, and so adieu. Stay--being my _cavaliere_, I permit you, at parting, to kiss my hand."

Trembling, breathless, scarcely daring to touch it with mine, I lifted the soft little hand to my lips, stammered something which was, no doubt, sufficiently foolish, and hurried away, as if I were treading on air and breathing suns.h.i.+ne.

All the rest of that day went by in a kind of agreeable delirium. I walked about, almost without knowledge where I went. I talked, without exactly knowing what I said. I have some recollection of marching to and fro among the side-alleys of the Bois de Boulogne, which at that time was really a woody park, and not a pleasure-garden--of lying under a tree, and listening to the birds overhead, and indulging myself in some idiotic romance about love, and solitude, and Madame de Marignan--of wandering into a _restaurant_ somewhere about seven o'clock, and sitting down to a dinner for which I had no appet.i.te--of going back, sometime during the evening, to the Rue Castellane, and walking to and fro on the opposite side of the way, looking up for ever so long at the darkened windows where my divinity did not show herself--of coming back to my lodgings, weary, dusty, and not a bit more sober, somewhere about eleven o'clock at night, driven to-bed by sheer fatigue, and, even then, too much in love to go to sleep!

The next day I went through my duties at Dr. Cheron's, and attended an afternoon lecture at the hospital; but mechanically, like one dreaming.

In the evening I presented myself at the Opera, where Madame de Marignan received me very graciously, and deigned to accept a superb bouquet for which I had paid sixteen francs. I found her surrounded by elegant men, who looked upon me as n.o.body, and treated me accordingly. Driven to the back of the box where I could neither speak to her, nor see the stage, nor achieve even a glimpse of the house, I spent an evening which certainly fell short of my antic.i.p.ations. I had, however, the gratification of seeing my bouquet thrown to Grisi at the end of the second act, and was permitted the privilege of going in search of Madame de Marignan's carriage, while somebody else handed her downstairs, and a.s.sisted her with her cloak. A whispered word of thanks, a tiny pressure of the hand, and the words "come early to-morrow," compensated me, nevertheless, for every disappointment, and sent me home as blindly happy as ever.

The next day I called upon her, according to command, and was transported to the seventh heaven by receiving permission to accompany her to a morning concert, whereby I missed two lectures, and spent ten francs.

On the Sunday, having hired a good horse for the occasion, I had the honor of riding beside her carriage till some better-mounted acquaintance came to usurp my place and her attention; after which I was forced to drop behind and bear the eclipse of my glory as philosophically as I could.

Thus day after day went by, and, for the delusive sake of Madame de Marignan's bright eyes, I neglected my studies, spent my money, wasted my time, and incurred the displeasure of Dr. Cheron. Led on from folly to folly, I was perpetually buoyed up by coquetries which meant nothing, and as perpetually mortified, disappointed, and neglected. I hoped; I feared; I fretted; I lost my sleep and my appet.i.te; I felt dissatisfied with all the world, sometimes blaming myself, and sometimes her--yet ready to excuse and forgive her at a moment's notice. A boy in experience even more than in years, I loved with a boy's headlong pa.s.sion, and suffered with all a boy's acute susceptibility. I was intensely sensitive--abashed by a slight, humbled by a glance, and so easily wounded that there were often times when, seeing myself forgotten, I could with difficulty drive back the tears that kept rising to my eyes. On the other hand, I was as easily elated. A kind word, an encouraging smile, a lingering touch upon my sleeve, was enough at any time to make me forget all my foregone troubles. How often the mere gift of a flower sent me home rejoicing! How the tiniest show of preference set my heart beating! How proud I was if mine was the arm chosen to lead her to her carriage! How more than happy, if allowed for even one half-hour in the whole evening to occupy the seat beside her own! To dangle after her the whole day long--to traverse all Paris on her errands--to wait upon her pleasure like a slave, and this, too, without even expecting to be thanked for my devotion, seemed the most natural thing in the world. She was capricious; but caprice became her. She was exacting; but her exactions were so coquettish and attractive, that one would not have wished her more reasonable. She was, at least, ten or twelve years my senior; but boys proverbially fall in love with women older than themselves, and this one was in all respects so charming, that I do not, even now, wonder at my infatuation.

After all, there are few things under heaven more beautiful, or more touching, than a boy's first love.

Pa.s.sionate is it as a man's--pure as a woman's--trusting as a child's--timid, through the very excess of its unselfishness--chivalrous, as though handed down direct from the days of old romance--poetical beyond the utterances of the poet. To the boy-lover, his mistress is only something less than a divinity. He believes in her truth as in his own; in her purity, as in the sun at noon. Her practised arts of voice and manner are, in his eyes, the unstudied graces that spring as naturally from her beauty as the scent from the flower. Single-hearted himself, it seems impossible that she whom he adores should trifle with the most sacred sentiment he has ever known. Conscious of his own devotion, he cannot conceive that his wealth is poured forth in vain, and that he is but the plaything of her idle hours. Yet it is so. The boy's first love is almost always misplaced; seldom rated at its true value; hardly ever productive of anything but disappointment. Aspirant of the highest mysteries of the soul, he pa.s.ses through the ordeal of fire and tears, happy if he keep his faith unshaken and his heart pure, for the wiser wors.h.i.+p hereafter. We all know this; and few know it better than myself. Yet, with all its suffering, which of us would choose to obliterate all record of his first romance? Which of us would be without the memory of its smiles and tears, its suns.h.i.+ne and its clouds? Not I for one.

CHAPTER XVI.

A CONTRETEMPS IN A CARRIAGE.

My slavery lasted somewhat longer than three weeks, and less than a month; and was brought, oddly enough, to an abrupt conclusion. This was how it happened.

I had, as usual, attended Madame de Marignan one evening to the Opera, and found myself, also as usual, neglected for a host of others. There was one man in particular whom I hated, and whom (perhaps because I hated him) she distinguished rather more than the rest. His name was Delaroche, and he called himself Monsieur le Comte Delaroche. Most likely he was a Count---I have no reason to doubt his t.i.tle; but I chose to doubt it for mere spite, and because he was loud and conceited, and wore a little red and green ribbon in his b.u.t.ton-hole. He had, besides, an offensive sense of my youth and his own superiority, which I have never forgiven to this day. On the particular occasion of which I am now speaking, this person had made his appearance in Madame de Marignan's box at the close of the first act, established himself in the seat behind hers, and there held the lists against all comers during the remainder of the evening. Everything he said, everything he did, aggravated me. When he looked through her lorgnette, I loathed him. When he admired her fan, I longed to thrust it down his throat. When he held her bouquet to his odious nose (the bouquet that I had given her!) I felt it would have been justifiable manslaughter to take him up bodily, and pitch him over into the pit.

At length the performance came to a close, and M. Delaroche, having taken upon himself to arrange Madame de Marignan's cloak, carry Madame de Marignan's fan, and put Madame de Marignan's opera-gla.s.s into its morocco case, completed his officiousness by offering his arm and conducting her into the lobby, whilst I, outwardly indifferent but inwardly boiling, dropped behind, and consigned him silently to all the torments of the seven circles.

It was an oppressive autumnal night without a star in the sky, and so still that one might have carried a lighted taper through the streets.

Finding it thus warm, Madame de Marignan proposed walking down the line of carriages, instead of waiting till her own came up; and so she and M.

Delaroche led the way and I followed. Having found the carriage, he a.s.sisted her in, placed her fan and bouquet on the opposite seat, lingered a moment at the open door, and had the unparalleled audacity to raise her hand to his lips at parting. As for me, I stood proudly back, and lifted my hat.

"_Comment_!" she said, holding out her hand--the pretty, ungloved hand that had just been kissed--"is that your good night?"

I bowed over the hand, I would not have touched it with my lips at that moment for all the wealth of Paris.

"You are coming to me to-morrow morning at twelve?" she murmured tenderly.

"If Madame desires it."

"Of course I desire it. I am going to Auteuil, to look at a house for a friend--and to Pignot's for some flowers--and to Lubin's for some scent--and to a host of places. What should I do without you? Nay, why that grave face? Have I done anything to offend you?"

"Madame, I--I confess that--"

"That you are jealous of that absurd Delaroche, who is so much in love with himself that he has no place in his heart for any one else! _Fi donc!_ I am ashamed of you. There--adieu, twelve to-morrow!"

And with this she laughed, waved her hand, gave the signal to drive on, and left me looking after the carriage, still irritated but already half consoled.

I then sauntered moodily on, thinking of my tyrant, and her caprices, and her beauty. Her smile, for instance; surely it was the sweetest smile in the world--if only she were less lavish of it! Then, what a delicious little hand--if mine were the only lips permitted to kiss it!

Why was she so charming?--or why, being so charming, need she prize the attentions of every _flaneur_ who had only enough wit to admire her? Was I not a fool to believe that she cared more for my devotion than for another's! Did I believe it? Yes ... no ... sometimes. But then that "sometimes" was only when under the immediate influence of her presence.

She fascinated me; but she would fascinate a hundred others in precisely the same way. It was true that she accepted from me more devotion, more wors.h.i.+p, more time, more outward and visible homage than from any other.

Was I not her _Cavaliere servente?_ Did she not accept my bouquets? Did she not say the other day, when I gave her that volume of Tennyson, that she loved all that was English for my sake? Surely, I was worse than ungrateful, when, having so much, I was still dissatisfied! Why was I not the happiest fellow in Paris? Why .....

My meditations were here interrupted by a sudden flash of very vivid lightning, followed by a low muttering of distant thunder. I paused, and looked round. The sky was darker than ever, and though the air was singularly stagnant, I could hear among the uppermost leaves of the tall trees that stealthy rustling that generally precedes a storm.

Unfortunately for myself, I had not felt disposed to go home at once on leaving the theatre; but, being restless alike in mind and body, had struck down through the Place Vendome and up the Rue de Rivoli, intending to come home by a circuitous route. At this precise moment I found myself in the middle of the Place de la Concorde, with Cleopatra's needle towering above my head, the lamps in the Champs Elysees twinkling in long chains of light through the blank darkness before me, and no vehicle anywhere in sight. To be caught in a heavy shower, was not, certainly, an agreeable prospect for one who had just emerged from the opera in the thinnest of boots and the lightest of folding hats, with neither umbrella nor paletot of proof; so, having given a hasty glance in every direction from which a cab might be expected, I took valiantly to my heels, and made straight for the Madeleine.

Long before I had accomplished half the distance, however, another flash announced the quick coming of the tempest, and the first premonitory drops began to plash down heavily upon the pavement. Still I ran on, thinking that I should find a cab in the Place de la Madeleine; but the Place de la Madeleine was empty. Even the cafe at the corner was closed.

Even the omnibus office was shut up, and the red lamp above the door extinguished.

What was I to do now? Panting and breathless, I leaned up against a doorway, and resigned myself to fate. Stay, what was that file of carriages, dimly seen through the rain which was now coming down in earnest? It was in a private street opening off at the back of the Madeleine--a street in which I could remember no public stand. Perhaps there was an evening party at one of the large houses lower down, and, if so, I might surely find a not wholly incorruptible cabman, who would consent for a liberal _pourboire_ to drive me home and keep his fare waiting, if need were, for one little half-hour! At all events it was worth trying for; so away I darted again, with the wind whistling about my ears, and the rain driving in my face.