Sentimental Education (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (20 page)

The least he ought to do, as it was Madame Arnoux’s feast-day, was to get her a present. He naturally thought of a parasol, in order to make reparation for his clumsiness. Now he came across a shot-silk parasol with a little carved ivory handle, which had come all the way from China. But the price of it was a hundred and seventy-five francs, and he had not a sou, having in fact to live on the credit of his next quarter’s allowance. However, he wished to get it; he was determined to have it; and, in spite of his repugnance to doing so, he turned to Deslauriers.

Deslauriers answered Frédéric’s first question by saying that he had no money.

“I need some,” said Frédéric—“I need some very badly!”

As the other made the same excuse over again, he flew into a fit.

“You might find it to your advantage some time—”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Oh! nothing.”

The clerk understood. He took the sum required out of his reserve-fund, and when he had counted out the money, coin by coin:

“I am not asking you for an IOU, since I’m living off of you!”

Frédéric threw his arms around his friend with a thousand affectionate protestations. Deslauriers received this display of emotion frigidly. Then, next morning, noticing the parasol on the top of the piano:

“Ah! it was for that!”

“I will send it, perhaps,” said Frédéric, weakly.

Good fortune was on his side, for that evening he got a note with a black border from Madame Dambreuse announcing to him that she had lost an uncle, and excusing herself for having to defer till a later time the pleasure of making his acquaintance. At two o’clock, he reached the office of the art journal. Instead of waiting for him in order to drive him in his carriage, Arnoux had left the city the night before, unable to resist his desire to get some fresh air.

Every year it was his custom, as soon as the leaves were budding forth, to start early in the morning and to remain away several days, making long journeys across the fields, drinking milk at the farmhouses, romping with the village girls, asking questions about the harvest, and carrying back home with him lettuce wrapped in his handkerchief Finally, realising a long-cherished dream of his, he had bought a country-house.

While Frédéric was talking to the art-dealer’s clerk, Mademoiselle Vatnaz suddenly made her appearance, and was disappointed at not seeing Arnoux. He would, perhaps, be remaining away two days longer. The clerk advised her “to go there”—she could not go there; to write a letter—she was afraid that the letter might get lost. Frédéric offered to be the bearer of it himself She rapidly scribbled off a letter, and implored him to let nobody see him delivering it.

Forty minutes afterwards, he found himself at Saint-Cloud.
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The house, which was about a hundred yards from the bridge, stood half-way up the hill. The garden-walls were hidden by two rows of linden-trees, and a wide lawn descended to the bank of the river. The gate was open, and Frédéric went in.

Arnoux, stretched on the grass, was playing with a litter of kittens. This amusement appeared to absorb him completely. Mademoiselle Vatnaz’s letter drew him out of his sleepy idleness.

“Darn it all!—what a bore! She is right, though; I must go.” Then, having stuck the missive into his pocket, he showed the young man through the grounds with manifest delight. He pointed out everything—the stable, the cart-house, the kitchen. The drawing-room was at the right, on the side facing Paris, and looked out on a veranda with a trellis, covered over with clematis. Suddenly a few harmonious notes rang out above their heads: Madame Arnoux, thinking that there was nobody near, was singing to amuse herself. She executed scales, trills, arpeggios. There were long notes which seemed to remain suspended in the air; others fell in a rushing shower like the spray of a waterfall; and her voice passing out through the Venetian blind, cut its way through the deep silence and rose towards the blue sky. She ceased all at once, when M. and Madame Oudry, two neighbours, arrived.

Then she appeared herself at the top of the steps in front of the house; and, as she descended, he caught a glimpse of her foot. She wore little open shoes of reddish-brown leather, with three straps criss-crossing each other so as to draw over her stockings a lattice of gold.

Those who had been invited arrived. With the exception of Maitre Lefaucheur, a lawyer, they were the same guests who came to the Thursday evening dinners. Each of them had brought a present—Dittmer a Syrian scarf, Rosenwald a scrap-book of ballads, Burieu a water-colour painting, Sombary one of his own caricatures, and Pellerin a charcoal-drawing, representing a kind of dance of death, a hideous fantasy, the execution of which was rather poor. Hussonnet dispensed with the formality of a present.

Frédéric was waiting to offer his, after the others.

She thanked him very much for it. Thereupon, he said:

“Why, ’tis almost a debt. I have been so much annoyed—”

“At what, pray?” she returned. “I don’t understand.”

“Come! dinner is waiting!” said Arnoux, catching hold of his arm; then in a whisper: “You are not very sharp, are you!”

Nothing could have been prettier than the dining-room, painted in sea-green. At one end, a nymph of stone was dipping her toe in a basin formed like a shell. Through the open windows the entire garden could be seen with the long lawn flanked by an old Scotch fir, three-quarters bare; groups of flowers filled it out in uneven beds; and at the other side of the river extended in a wide semicircle the Bois de Boulogne, Neuilly, Sèvres, and Meudon. Before the railed gate in front, a canoe with sail outspread was tacking about.

They chatted first about the view in front of them, then about the countryside in general; and they were beginning to plunge into discussions when Arnoux, at half-past nine o’clock, ordered the horse to be put to the carriage. His cashier had sent him a letter calling him back to Paris.

“Would you like me to go back with you?” said Madame Arnoux.

“Why, certainly!” and, making her a graceful bow: “You know well, madame, that it is impossible to live without you!”

Everyone congratulated her on having so good a husband.

“Ah! it is because I am not the only one,” she replied quietly, pointing towards her little daughter.

Then, the conversation having turned once more to painting, there was some talk about a Ruysdaël, for which Arnoux expected a big sum, and Pellerin asked him if it were true that the celebrated Saul Mathias from London had come over during the past month to make him an offer of twenty-three thousand francs for it.

“‘Tis a fact!” and turning towards Frédéric: “That was the very same gentleman I brought with me a few days ago to the Alhambra, much against my will, I assure you, for these English are by no means amusing companions.”

Frédéric, who suspected that Mademoiselle Vatnaz’s letter contained some reference to an intrigue, was amazed at the facility with which Arnoux found a way of passing it off as a perfectly honourable transaction; but his new lie, which was quite needless, made the young man open his eyes in speechless astonishment.

The art-dealer added, with an air of simplicity:

“What’s the name, by-the-by, of that young fellow, your friend?”

“Deslauriers,” said Frédéric quickly.

And, in order to repair the injustice which he felt he had done to his comrade, he praised him as one who possessed remarkable ability.

“Ah! indeed? But he doesn’t look such a fine fellow as the other—the clerk in the wagon-office.”

Frédéric cursed Dussardier. She would now be taking it for granted that he associated with the common herd.

Then they began to talk about the improvements in the capital—the new districts of the city—and the worthy Oudry happened to refer to M. Dambreuse as one of the big speculators.

Frédéric, taking advantage of the opportunity to make an impression, said he was acquainted with that gentleman. But Pellerin launched into a harangue against tradesmen—he saw no difference between them, whether they were sellers of candles or of money. Then Rosenwald and Burieu talked about old china; Arnoux chatted with Madame Oudry about gardening; Sombary, a comical character of the old school, amused himself by poking fun at her husband, referring to him sometimes as “Odry,” as if he were the actor of that name, and remarking that he must be descended from Oudry, the dog-painter, seeing that the bump of the animals was visible on his forehead. He even wanted to feel M. Oudry’s skull; but the latter excused himself on account of his wig; and the dessert ended with loud bursts of laughter.

When they had had their coffee, while they smoked, under the linden-trees, and strolled about the garden for some time, they went out for a walk along the river.

The party stopped in front of a fishmonger’s shop, where a man was washing eels. Mademoiselle Marthe wanted to look at them. He emptied the box in which he had them out on the grass; and the little girl threw herself on her knees in order to catch them, laughed with delight, and then began to scream with terror. They all got spoiled, and Arnoux paid for them.

He next took it into his head to go out for a sail in the cutter.

One side of the horizon was beginning to grow pale, while on the other side a wide strip of orange showed itself in the sky, deepening into purple at the summits of the hills, which were steeped in shadow. Madame Arnoux seated herself on a big stone with this glittering splendour at her back. The other ladies sauntered about here and there. Hussonnet, at the lower end of the river’s bank, skimmed stones over the water.

Arnoux returned, followed by a weather-beaten long boat, into which, in spite of their prudent objections, he packed his guests. The boat began to sink, and they had to get out again.

By this time candles were burning in the drawing-room, covered in chintz, and with crystal sconces on the walls. Mere Oudry was sleeping comfortably in an armchair, and the others were listening to M. Lefaucheux expounding the glories of the Bar. Madame Arnoux was sitting by herself near the window. Frédéric came over to her.

They chatted about the remarks which were being made in their vicinity. She admired oratory; he preferred the renown gained by authors. But, she ventured to suggest, it must give a man greater pleasure to move crowds directly by addressing them in person, face to face, than it does to infuse into their souls by his pen all the sentiments that animate his own. Such triumphs as these did not tempt Frédéric much, as he had no ambition.

“Ah, why?” she said. “One must have a little!”

They were standing close to one another in the window recess. Before them, the night spread out like an immense dark veil, speckled with silver. It was the first time they did not talk about trivial things. He even came to know her likes and dislikes. Certain scents made her feel ill, history books interested her, she believed in dreams.

Then he broached the subject of sentimental exploits. She spoke pityingly of the havoc wrought by passion, but expressed indignation at hypocritical vileness, and this rectitude of spirit harmonised so well with the beauty of her face that it seemed indeed as if her physical attractions were the outcome of her moral nature.

She smiled, every now and then, letting her eyes rest on him for a minute. Then he felt her glances penetrating his soul like those great rays of sunlight which descend into the depths of the water. He loved her without mental reservation, without any hope of his love being returned, unconditionally; and in those silent transports, which were like outbursts of gratitude, he would have happily covered her forehead with a rain of kisses. However, an inspiration from within carried him beyond himself—he felt moved by a longing for self-sacrifice, an imperative impulse towards immediate self-devotion, and all the stronger from the fact that he could not gratify it.

He did not leave along with the rest. Neither did Hussonnet. They were to go back in the carriage; and the vehicle was waiting just in front of the steps when Arnoux rushed down and hurried into the garden to gather some flowers there. Then the bouquet having been tied round with a thread, as the stems fell down unevenly, he searched in his pocket, which was full of papers, took out a piece at random, wrapped them up, completed his handiwork with the aid of a strong pin, and then offered it to his wife with a certain amount of tenderness.

“Look here, my darling! Excuse me for having forgotten you!”

But she uttered a little scream: the pin, having been clumsily inserted, had pricked her, and she hastened up to her room. They waited nearly a quarter of an hour for her. At last, she reappeared, carried off Marthe, and threw herself into the carriage.

“And your bouquet?” said Arnoux.

“No! no—it is not worth while!” Frédéric was running off to fetch it for her; she called out to him:

“I don’t want it!”

But he speedily brought it to her, saying that he had just put it into the paper again, as he had found the flowers lying on the floor. She thrust them behind the leather apron of the carriage close to the seat, and off they started.

Frédéric, seated by her side, noticed that she was trembling frightfully. Then, when they had passed the bridge, as Arnoux was turning to the left:

“Why, no! you are making a mistake!—that way, to the right!” She seemed irritated; everything annoyed her. Finally, Marthe having closed her eyes, Madame Arnoux drew forth the bouquet, and flung it out through the carriage-door, then caught Frédéric’s arm, making a sign to him with the other hand to say nothing about it.

After this, she pressed her handkerchief against her lips, and sat quite motionless.

The two others, on the box, kept talking about printing and about subscribers. Arnoux, who was driving recklessly, lost his way in the middle of the Bois de Boulogne. Then they plunged down narrow lanes. The horse proceeded along at a walking pace; the branches of the trees grazed the hood. Frédéric could see nothing of Madame Arnoux save her two eyes in the dark. Marthe lay stretched across her lap while he supported the child’s head.