One of Cleopatra's Nights (19 page)

Well, then, I had only just left college. I was full of dreams and
illusions. I was as naive as a
rosière
of Salency, perhaps more so.
Delighted at having no more pensums to make, everything seemed to me for
the best in the best of all possible worlds. I believed in an infinity
of things. I believed in M. de Florian's shepherdess with her combed and
powdered sheep. I never for a moment doubted the reality of Madame
Deshoulière's flock. I believed that there were actually nine muses, as
stated in Father Jouvency's
Appendix de Diis et Heroïbus.
My
recollections of Berquin and of Gessner had created a little world for
me in which everything was rose-colored, sky-blue, and apple-green. Oh,
holy innocence!—
sancta simplicitas
! as Mephistopheles says.

When I found myself alone in this fine room—my own room, all to
myself!—I felt superlatively overjoyed. I made a careful inventory of
everything, even the smallest article of furniture. I rummaged every
corner, and explored the chamber in the fullest sense of the word. I was
in the fourth heaven, as happy as a king, or rather as two kings. After
supper (for we used to sup at my uncle's—a charming custom, now
obsolete, together with many other equally charming customs which I
mourn for with all the heart I have left), I took my candle and retired
forthwith, so impatient did I feel to enjoy my new dwelling-place.

While I was undressing I fancied that Omphale's eyes had moved. I looked
more attentively in that direction, not without a slight sensation of
fear, for the room was very large, and the feeble luminous penumbra
which floated about the candle only served to render the darkness still
more visible. I thought I saw her turning her head toward me. I became
frightened in earnest, and blew out the light. I turned my face to the
wall, pulled the bed-clothes over my head, drew my night-cap down to my
chin, and finally went to sleep.

I did not dare to look at the accursed tapestry again for several days.

It may be well here, for the sake of imparting something of
verisimilitude to the very unlikely story I am about to relate, to
inform my fair readers that in those days I was really a very pretty
boy. I had the handsomest eyes in the world, at least they used to tell
me so; a much fairer complexion than I have now, a true carnation tint;
curly brown hair, which I still have, and seventeen years, which I have
no longer. I needed only a pretty stepmother to be a very tolerable
cherub. Unfortunately mine was fifty-seven years of age, and had only
three teeth, which was too much of one thing and too little of the
other.

One evening, however, I finally plucked up courage enough to take a peep
at the fair mistress of Hercules. She was looking at me with the saddest
and most languishing expression possible. This time I pulled my night-cap
down to my very shoulders, and buried my head in the coverlets.

I had a strange dream that night, if indeed it was a dream.

I heard the rings of my bed-curtains sliding with a sharp squeak upon
their curtain-rods, as if the curtains had been suddenly pulled back. I
awoke, at least in my dream it seemed to me that I awoke. I saw no one.

The moon shone full upon the window-panes, and projected her wan bluish
light into the room. Vast shadows, fantastic forms, were defined upon
the floor and the walls. The clock chimed a quarter, and the vibration
of the sound took a long time to die away. It seemed like a sigh. The
plainly audible strokes of the pendulum seemed like the pulsations of a
young heart, throbbing with passion.

I felt anything but comfortable, and a very bewilderment of fear took
possession of me.

A furious gust of wind banged the shutters and made the window-sashes
tremble. The woodwork cracked, the tapestry undulated. I ventured to
glance in the direction of Omphale, with a vague suspicion that she was
instrumental in all this unpleasantness, for some secret purpose of her
own. I was not mistaken.

The tapestry became violently agitated. Omphale detached herself from
the wall and leaped lightly to the carpet. She came straight toward my
bed, after having first turned herself carefully in my direction. I
fancy it will hardly be necessary to describe my stupefaction. The most
intrepid old soldier would not have felt very comfortable under similar
circumstances, and I was neither old nor a soldier. I awaited the end of
the adventure in terrified silence.

A flute-toned, pearly little voice sounded softly in my ears, with that
pretty lisp affected during the Regency by marchionesses and people of
high degree:

"Do I really frighten you, my child? It is true that you are only a
child, but it is not nice to be afraid of ladies, especially when they
are young ladies and only wish you well. It is uncivil and unworthy of a
French gentleman. You must be cured of such silly fears. Come, little
savage, leave off these foolish airs, and cease hiding your head under
the bed-clothes. Your education is by no means complete yet, my pretty
page, and you have not learned so very much. In my time cherubs were
more courageous."

"But, lady, it is because—"

"Because it seems strange to you to find me here instead of there," she
said, biting her ruddy lip with her white teeth, and pointing toward the
wall with her long taper finger. "Well, in fact, the thing does not look
very natural, but were I to explain it all to you, you would be none the
wiser. Let it be sufficient for you to know that you are not in any
danger."

"I am afraid you may be the—the—"

"The devil—out with the word!—is it not? That is what you wanted to
say. Well, at least you will grant that I am not black enough for a
devil, and that if hell were peopled with devils shaped as I am, one
might have quite as pleasant a time there as in Paradise."

And to prove that she was not flattering herself, Omphale threw back her
lion's skin and allowed me to behold her exquisitely moulded shoulders
and bosom, dazzling in their white beauty.

"Well, what do you think of me?" she exclaimed, with a pretty little air
of satisfied coquetry.

"I think that even were you the devil himself I should not feel afraid
of you any more, Madame Omphale."

"Ah, now you talk sensibly, but do not call me madame, or Omphale. I do
not wish you to look upon me as a madame, and I am no more Omphale than
I am the devil."

"Then who are you?"

"I am the Marchioness de T—. A short time after I was married the
marquis had this tapestry made for my apartments, and had me represented
on it in the character of Omphale. He himself figures there as Hercules.
That was a queer notion he took, for God knows there never was anybody
in the world who bore less resemblance to Hercules than the poor
marquis! It has been a long time since this chamber was occupied. I
naturally love company, and I almost died of
ennui
in consequence. It
gave me the headache. To be only with one's husband is the same thing as
being alone. When you came I was overjoyed. This dead room became
reanimated. I had found some one to feel interested in. I watched you
come in and go out, I heard you murmuring in your sleep, I watched you
reading, and my eyes followed the pages. I found you were nicely
behaved, and had a fresh, innocent way about you that pleased me. In
short, I fell in love with you. I tried to make you understand. I
sighed. You thought it was only the sighing of the wind. I made signs to
you. I looked at you with languishing eyes, and only succeeded in
frightening you terribly. So at last in despair I resolved upon this
rather improper course which I have taken, to tell you frankly what you
could not take a hint about. Now that you know I love you, I hope
that—"

The conversation was interrupted at this juncture by the grating of a
key in the lock of the chamber door.

Omphale started and blushed to the very whites of her eyes.

"Adieu," she whispered, "till to-morrow." And she returned to her place
on the wall, walking backward, for fear that I should see her reverse
side, doubtless.

It was Baptiste, who came to brush my clothes.

"You ought not to sleep with your bed-curtains open, sir," he remarked.
"You might catch a bad cold. This room is so chilly."

The curtains were actually open, and as I had been under the impression
that I was only dreaming, I felt very much astonished, for I was certain
that they had been closed when I went to bed.

As soon as Baptiste left the room, I ran to the tapestry. I felt it all
over. It was indeed a real woollen tapestry, rough to the touch like any
other tapestry. Omphale resembled the charming phantom of the night only
as a dead body resembles a living one. I lifted the hangings. The wall
was solid throughout. There were no masked panels or secret doors. I
only noticed that a few threads were broken in the groundwork of the
tapestry where the feet of Omphale rested. This afforded me food for
reflection.

All that day I remained buried in the deepest brown study imaginable. I
longed for evening with a mingled feeling of anxiety and impatience. I
retired early, resolved on learning how this mystery was going to end.
I got into bed. The marchioness did not keep me waiting long. She leaped
down from the tapestry in front of the pier-glass, and dropped right by
my bed. She seated herself by my pillow, and the conversation commenced.

I asked her questions as I had done the evening before, and demanded
explanations. She eluded the former, and replied in an evasive manner to
the latter, yet always after so witty a fashion that within a quarter of
an hour I felt no scruples whatever in regard to my liaison with her.

While conversing she passed her fingers through my hair, tapped me
gently on the cheeks, and softly kissed my forehead.

She chatted and chatted in a pretty mocking way, in a style at once
elegantly polished and yet familiar and altogether like a great lady,
such as I have never since heard from the lips of any human being.

She was then seated upon the easy-chair beside the bed. In a little
while she slipped one of her arms around my neck, and I felt her heart
beating passionately against me. It was indeed a charming and handsome
real woman, a veritable marchioness whom I found beside me, poor student
of seventeen! There was more than enough to make one lose his head, so I
lost mine. I did not know very well what was going to happen, but I felt
a vague presentiment that it would displease the marquis.

"And Monsieur le Marquis, on the wall up there—what will he say?"

The lion's skin had fallen to the floor, and the soft lilac-colored
buskins, filigreed with silver, were lying beside my shoes.

"He will not say anything," replied the marchioness, laughing heartily.
"Do you suppose he ever sees anything? Besides, even should he see, he
is the most philosophical and inoffensive husband in the world. He is
used to such things. Do you love me, little one?"

"Indeed I do, ever so much!—ever so much!"

Morning dawned. My mistress stole away.

The day seemed to me frightfully long. At last evening came. The same
things happened as on the evening before, and the second night left no
regrets for the first. The marchioness became more and more adorable,
and this state of affairs continued for a long time. As I never slept at
night, I wore a somnolent expression in the day-time which did not augur
well for me with my uncle. He suspected something. He probably listened
at the door and heard everything, for one fine morning he entered my
room so brusquely that Antoinette had scarcely time to get back to her
place on the tapestry.

He was followed by a tapestry-hanger with pincers and a ladder.

He looked at me with a shrewd and severe expression which convinced me
that he knew all.

"This Marchioness de T— is certainly crazy. What the devil could have
put it into her head to fall in love with a brat like that?" muttered my
uncle between his teeth. "She promised to behave herself.

"Jean, take that tapestry down, roll it up, and put it in the garret."

Every word my uncle spoke went through my heart like a poniard-thrust.

Jean rolled up my sweetheart Omphale, otherwise the Marchioness
Antoinette de T—, together with Hercules, or the Marquis de T—,
and carried the whole thing off to the garret. I could not restrain my
tears.

Next day my uncle sent me back in the B— diligence to my respectable
parents, to whom, you may feel assured, I never breathed a word of my
adventure.

My uncle died; his house and furniture were sold; probably the tapestry
was sold with the rest.

But a long time afterward, while foraging the shop of a bric-à-brac
merchant in search of oddities, I stumbled over a great dusty roll of
something covered with cobwebs.

"What is that?" I said to the Auvergnat.

"That is a rococo tapestry representing the amours of Madame Omphale and
Monsieur Hercule. It is genuine Beauvais, worked in silk, and in an
excellent state of preservation. Buy this from me for your study. I will
not charge you dear for it, since it is you."

At the name of Omphale all my blood rushed to my heart.

"Unroll that tapestry," I said to the merchant in a hurried, gasping
voice, like one in a fever.

It was indeed she! I fancied that her mouth smiled graciously at me, and
that her eye lighted up on meeting mine.

"How much do you ask?"

"Well, I could not possibly let you have it for any less than five
hundred francs."

"I have not that much with me now. I will get it and be back in an
hour."

I returned with the money, but the tapestry was no longer there. An
Englishman had bargained for it during my absence, offered six hundred
francs for it, and taken it away with him.

After all, perhaps it was best that it should have been thus, and that I
should preserve this delicious souvenir intact. They say one should
never return to a first love, or look at the rose which one admired the
evening before.