Sentimental Education (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (15 page)

“Molière, do you accept him?”

“Certainly!” said Sénécal. “I admire him as the precursor of the French Revolution.”

“Ha! the Revolution! What art! Never was there a more pitiful period!”

“None greater, Monsieur!”

Pellerin folded his arms, and looking at him straight in the face:

“You have the appearance of a member of the National Guard!”
^m

His opponent, accustomed to discussions, responded:

“I am not, and I detest it just as much as you. But with such principles we corrupt the crowd. This sort of thing, however, is profitable to the Government. It would not be so powerful but for the complicity of rogues like Arnoux.

The painter took up the defence of the art-dealer, for Sénécal’s opinions exasperated him. He even went so far as to maintain that Arnoux was really a man with a heart of gold, devoted to his friends, deeply attached to his wife.

“Oho! if you offered him a good sum, he would not refuse to let her serve as a model.”

Frédéric turned pale.

“So then, has he done you some great injury, Monsieur?”

“Me? no! I saw him once at a café with a friend. That’s all.”

Sénécal had spoken truly. But he had his teeth daily set on edge by the announcements in
L
Art Industriel.
Arnoux was for him the representative of a world which he considered fatal to democracy. An austere Republican, he suspected that there was something corrupt in every form of elegance, since he wanted for nothing and was inflexible in his integrity.

They found some difficulty in resuming the conversation. The painter soon recalled his appointment, the tutor his pupils; and, when they had gone, after a long silence, Deslauriers asked a number of questions about Arnoux.

“You will introduce me there later, will you not, old fellow?”

“Certainly,” said Frédéric.

Then they thought about settling their living arrangements. Deslauriers had without much trouble obtained the post of second clerk in a solicitor’s office; he had also entered his name for the terms at the Law School, and bought the necessary books; and the life of which they had dreamed now began.

It was delightful, thanks to their youth, which made everything seem beautiful. As Deslauriers had said nothing as to any financial arrangement, Frédéric did not refer to the subject. He paid all the expenses, kept the cupboard well stocked, and looked after all the household requirements; but if the concierge needed to be reprimanded, the clerk took that on his own shoulders, still playing the part, which he had assumed in their college days, of protector and senior.

Separated all day long, they met again in the evening. Each took his place at the fireside and set about his work. But ere long it would be interrupted. Then would follow endless outpourings, unaccountable bursts of merriment, and occasional disputes about the lamp flaring too much or a book being mislaid, momentary quarrels which subsided in hearty laughter.

While in bed they left open the door of the little room where Deslauriers slept, and kept chattering to each other from a distance.

In the morning they walked in their shirt-sleeves on the terrace. The sun rose; light vapours passed over the river. From the flower-market close beside them the noise of shouting reached their ears; and the smoke from their pipes whirled round in the clear air, which was refreshing to their eyes still puffy from sleep. While they inhaled it, their hearts swelled with great expectations.

When it was not raining on Sunday they went out together, and, arm in arm, they sauntered through the streets. The same reflection nearly always occurred to them at the same time, or else they would go on chatting without noticing anything around them. Deslauriers longed for riches, as a means for gaining power over men. He was anxious to possess an influence over a vast number of people, to create a great stir, to have three secretaries under his command, and to give a big political dinner once a week. Frédéric would have furnished for himself a palace in the Moorish fashion, to spend his life reclining on cashmere divans, to the murmur of a fountain, attended by negro pages. And these things, of which he had only dreamed, became in the end so real that they made him feel as dejected as if he had lost them.

“What is the use of talking about all these things,” said he, “when we’ll never have them?”

“Who knows?” returned Deslauriers.

In spite of his democratic views, he urged Frédéric to get an introduction into the Dambreuses’ house.The other, by way of objection, pointed to the failure of his previous attempts.

“Bah! go back there. They’ll give you an invitation!”

Towards the close of the month of March, they received amongst other large bills that of the restaurant-keeper who supplied them with dinners. Frédéric, not having the entire amount, borrowed a hundred crowns from Deslauriers. A fortnight afterwards, he renewed the same request, and the clerk lectured him on the extravagant habits which he acquired in the Arnoux’s society.

As a matter of fact, he had no restraint in this respect. A view of Venice, a view of Naples, and another of Constantinople occupying the centre of three walls respectively, equestrian subjects by Alfred de Dreux here and there, a group by Pradier over the mantelpiece, issues of
L
Art Industriel
lying on the piano, and works in folders in the corners of the flour, encumbered the apartment which he occupied to such an extent that it was hard to find a place to lay a book on, or to move one’s elbows about freely. Frédéric maintained that he needed all this for his painting.

He pursued his art-studies under Pellerin. But when he called on the artist, the latter was often out, being accustomed to attend every funeral and public occurrence of which an account was given in the newspapers, and so it was that Frédéric spent entire hours alone in the studio. The quietude of this spacious room, which nothing disturbed save the scampering of the mice, the light falling from the ceiling, or the hissing noise of the stove, made him sink into a kind of intellectual ease. Then his eyes, wandering away from the task at which he was engaged, roamed over the chipped paint on the wall, around the objects on the whatnot, along the torsos on which the dust that had collected made, as it were, shreds of velvet; and, like a traveller who has lost his way in the middle of a wood, and whom every path brings back to the same spot, continually, he found underlying every idea in his mind the recollection of Madame Arnoux.

He selected days for calling on her. When he had reached the second floor, he would pause on the threshold, hesitating as to whether he ought to ring or not. Steps drew nigh, the door opened, and the announcement “Madame is gone out,” a sense of relief would come upon him, as if a weight had been lifted from his heart.

Yet there were moments when he met her. On the first occasion there were three other ladies with her; the next time it was in the afternoon, and Mademoiselle Marthe’s writing-master came on the scene. Besides, the men who were invited to Madame Arnoux’s dinner parties did not pay her visits. For the sake of prudence he deemed it better not to call again.

But he did not fail to present himself regularly at the office of
L
Art Industriel
every Wednesday in order to get an invitation to the Thursday dinners, and he remained there after all the others, even longer than Regimbart, up to the last moment, pretending to be looking at an engraving or to be running his eye through a newspaper. At last Arnoux would say to him, “Are you free to-morrow evening?” and, before the sentence was finished, he would give an affirmative answer. Arnoux appeared to have taken a fancy to him. He showed him how to become a good judge of wines, how to make hot punch, and how to prepare a woodcock ragout. Frédéric meekly followed his advice, feeling an attachment to everything connected with Madame Arnoux—her furniture, her servants, her house, her street.

During these dinners he scarcely uttered a word; he kept gazing at her. She had a little mole close to her temple. Her head-bands were darker than the rest of her hair, and were always a little damp at the edges; from time to time she stroked them with only two fingers. He knew the shape of each of her nails. He took delight in listening to the rustle of her silk skirt as she swept past doors; he stealthily inhaled the perfume that came from her handkerchief; her comb, her gloves, her rings were for him things of special interest, important as works of art, almost endowed with life like people; all took possession of his heart and strengthened his passion.

He had not been sufficiently self-contained to conceal it from Deslauriers. When he came home from Madame Arnoux
s, he would wake up his friend, as if inadvertently, in order to have an opportunity of talking about her.

Deslauriers, who slept in the little room, close to where they had their water-supply, would give a great yawn. Frédéric seated himself on the side of the bed. At first, he spoke about the dinner; then he referred to a thousand petty details, in which he saw marks of contempt or of affection. On one occasion, for instance, she had refused his arm, in order to take Dittmer’s; and Frédéric vented his humiliation:

“Ah! how stupid!”

Or else she had called him her “dear friend.”

“Then go after her!”

“But I dare not do that,” said Frédéric.

“Well, then, think no more about her! Good night!”

Deslauriers thereupon turned on his side, and fell asleep. He felt utterly unable to comprehend this love, which seemed to him the last weakness of adolescence; and, as his own company was apparently not enough to satisfy Frédéric, he conceived the idea of bringing together, once a week, those whom they both recognised as friends.

They came on Saturday about nine o
clock. The three Algerine curtains were carefully drawn. The lamp and four candles were burning. In the middle of the table the tobacco-jar, filled with pipes, displayed itself between the beer-bottles, the tea-pot, a flagon of rum, and some fancy biscuits. They discussed the immortality of the soul, and drew comparisons between the different professors.