The American (19 page)

“Oh, I think there is something,” said Newman.

“What is it?”

“Well,” murmured Newman, “I will tell you some other time!”

In this way our hero delayed from day to day broaching a subject which he had very much at heart. Meanwhile, however, he was growing practically familiar with it; in other words, he had called again, three times, on Madame de Cintré. On only two of these occasions had he found her at home, and on each of them she had other visitors. Her visitors were numerous and extremely
loquacious, and they exacted much of their hostess’s attention. She found time, however, to bestow a little of it on Newman, in an occasional vague smile, the very vagueness of which pleased him, allowing him as it did to fill it out mentally, both at the time and afterwards, with such meanings as most pleased him. He sat by without speaking, looking at the entrances and exits, the greetings and chatterings, of Madame de Cintré’s visitors. He felt as if he were at the play, and as if his own speaking would be an interruption; sometimes he wished he had a book to follow the dialogue; he half expected to see a woman in a white cap and pink ribbons
¹³
come and offer him one for two francs. Some of the ladies looked at him very hard—or very soft, as you please; others seemed profoundly unconscious of his presence. The men only looked at Madame de Cintré. This was inevitable; for whether one called her beautiful or not, she entirely occupied and filled one’s vision, just as an agreeable sound fills one’s ear. Newman had but twenty distinct words with her, but he carried away an impression to which solemn promises could not have given a higher value. She was part of the play that he was seeing acted, quite as much as her companions; but how she filled the stage, and how much better she did it! Whether she rose or seated herself; whether she went with her departing friends to the door and lifted up the heavy curtain as they passed out, and stood an instant looking after them and giving them the last nod; or whether she leaned back in her chair with her arms crossed and her eyes resting, listening and smiling; she gave Newman the feeling that he should like to have her always before him, moving slowly to and fro along the whole scale of expressive hospitality. If it might be
to
him, it would be well; if it might be
for
him, it would be still better! She was so tall and yet so light, so active and yet so still, so elegant and yet so simple, so frank and yet so mysterious! It was the mystery—it was what she was off the
stage, as it were—that interested Newman most of all. He could not have told you what warrant he had for talking about mysteries; if it had been his habit to express himself in poetic figures he might have said that in observing Madame de Cintré he seemed to see the vague circle which sometimes accompanies the partly-filled disc of the moon. It was not that she was reserved; on the contrary, she was as frank as flowing water. But he was sure she had qualities which she herself did not suspect.

He had abstained for several reasons from saying some of these things to Bellegarde. One reason was that before proceeding to any act he was always circumspect, conjectural, contemplative; he had little eagerness, as became a man who felt that whenever he really began to move he walked with long steps. And then it simply pleased him not to speak—it occupied him, it excited him. But one day Bellegarde had been dining with him, at a restaurant, and they had sat long over their dinner. On rising from it, Bellegarde proposed that, to help them through the rest of the evening, they should go and see Madame Dandelard. Madame Dandelard was a little Italian lady who had married a Frenchman who proved to be a rake and a brute and the torment of her life. Her husband had spent all her money, and then, lacking the means of obtaining more expensive pleasures, had taken, in his duller hours, to beating her. She had a blue spot
¹⁴
somewhere, which she showed to several persons, including Bellegarde. She had obtained a separation from her husband, collected the scraps of her fortune (they were very meagre) and come to live in Paris, where she was staying at a
hôtel garni.
¹⁵
She was always looking for an apartment, and visiting inquiringly, those of other people. She was very pretty, very childlike, and she made very extraordinary remarks. Bellegarde had made her acquaintance, and the source of his interest in her was, according to his own declaration, a curiosity as to what would become of her. “She is poor, she is pretty,
and she is silly,” he said; “it seems to me she can go only one way. It’s a pity, but it can’t be helped. I will give her six months. She has nothing to fear from me, but I am watching the process. I am curious to see just how things will go. Yes, I know what you are going to say: this horrible Paris hardens one’s heart. But it quickens one’s wits, and it ends by teaching one a refinement of observation! To see this little woman’s little drama play itself out, now, is, for me, an intellectual pleasure.”

“If she is going to throw herself away,” Newman had said, “you ought to stop her.”

“Stop her? How stop her?”

“Talk to her; give her some good advice.”

Bellegarde laughed. “Heaven deliver us both! Imagine the situation! Go and advise her yourself.”

It was after this that Newman had gone with Bellegarde to see Madame Dandelard. When they came away, Bellegarde reproached his companion. “Where was your famous advice?” he asked. “I didn’t hear a word of it.”

“Oh, I give it up,” said Newman, simply.

“Then you are as bad as I!” said Bellegarde.

“No, because I don’t take an ‘intellectual pleasure’ in her prospective adventures. I don’t in the least want to see her going down hill. I had rather look the other way. But why,” he asked, in a moment, “don’t you get your sister to go and see her?”

Bellegarde stared. “Go and see Madame Dandelard—my sister?”

“She might talk to her to very good purpose.”

Bellegarde shook his head with sudden gravity. “My sister can’t see that sort of person. Madame Dandelard is nothing at all; they would never meet.”

“I should think,” said Newman, “that your sister might see whom she pleased.” And he privately resolved that after he knew her a little better, he would ask Madame de Cintré to go and talk to the foolish little Italian lady.

After his dinner with Bellegarde, on the occasion I have mentioned, he demurred to his companion’s proposal that they should go again and listen to Madame Dandelard describe her sorrows and her bruises. “I have something better in mind,” he said; “come home with me and finish the evening before my fire.”

Bellegarde always welcomed the prospect of a long stretch of conversation, and before long the two men sat watching the great blaze which scattered its scintillations over the high adornments of Newman’s ballroom.

“T
ell me something about your sister,” Newman began, abruptly.

Bellegarde turned and gave him a quick look. “Now that I think of it, you have never yet asked me a question about her.”

“I know that very well.”

“If it is because you don’t trust me, you are very right,” said Bellegarde. “I can’t talk of her rationally. I admire her too much.”

“Talk of her as you can,” rejoined Newman. “Let yourself go.”

“Well, we are very good friends; we are such a brother and sister as have not been seen since Orestes and Electra.
¹
You have seen her; you know what she is: tall, thin, light, imposing, and gentle, half a
grande dame
²
and half an angel; a mixture of pride and humility, of the eagle and the dove. She looks like a statue which had failed as stone, resigned itself to its grave defects, and come to life as flesh and blood, to wear white capes and long trains.
³
All I can say is that she really possesses every merit that her face, her glance, her smile, the tone of her voice, lead you to expect; it is saying a great deal. As a general thing, when a woman seems very charming, I should say ‘Beware!’ But in proportion as Claire seems charming you may fold your arms and let yourself float with the current; you are safe. She is so good! I have
never seen a woman half so perfect or so complete. She has everything; that is all I can say about her. There!” Bellegarde concluded: “I told you I should rhapsodise.”

Newman was silent awhile, as if he were turning over his companion’s words. “She is very good, eh?” he repeated at last.

“Divinely good!”

“Kind, charitable, gentle, generous?”

“Generosity itself; kindness double-distilled!”

“Is she clever?”

“She is the most intelligent woman I know. Try her, some day, with something difficult, and you will see.”

“Is she fond of admiration?”

“Parbleu!”
⁴
cried Bellegarde; “what woman is not?”

“Ah, when they are too fond of admiration they commit all kinds of follies to get it.”

“I did not say she was too fond!” Bellegarde exclaimed. “Heaven forbid I should say anything so idiotic. She is not
too
anything! If I were to say she was ugly, I should not mean she was too ugly. She is fond of pleasing, and if you are pleased she is grateful. If you are not pleased, she lets it pass and thinks the worse neither of you nor of herself. I imagine, though, she hopes the saints in heaven are, for I am sure she is incapable of trying to please by any means of which they would disapprove.”

“Is she grave or gay?” asked Newman.

“She is both; not alternately, for she is always the same. There is gravity in her gaiety, and gaiety in her gravity. But there is no reason why she should be particularly gay.”

“Is she unhappy?”

“I won’t say that, for unhappiness is according as one takes things, and Claire takes them according to some receipt
⁵
communicated to her by the Blessed Virgin in a vision. To be unhappy is to be disagreeable, which, for her, is out of the question. So she has arranged her circumstances so as to be happy in them.”

“She is a philosopher,” said Newman.

“No, she is simply a very nice woman.”

“Her circumstances, at any rate, have been disagreeable?”

Bellegarde hesitated a moment—a thing he very rarely did. “Oh, my dear fellow, if I go into the history of my family I shall give you more than you bargain for.”

“No, on the contrary, I bargain for that,” said Newman.

“We shall have to appoint a special séance, then, beginning early. Suffice it for the present that Claire has not slept on roses. She made, at eighteen, a marriage that was expected to be brilliant, but that turned out like a lamp that goes out; all smoke and bad smell. M. de Cintré was sixty years old, and an odious old gentleman. He lived, however, but a short time, and after his death his family pounced upon his money, brought a lawsuit against his widow, and pushed things very hard. Their case was a good one, for M. de Cintré, who had been trustee for some of his relatives, appeared to have been guilty of some very irregular practices. In the course of the suit some revelations were made as to his private history which my sister found so displeasing that she ceased to defend herself and washed her hands of the property. This required some pluck, for she was between two fires, her husband’s family opposing her and her own family forcing her. My mother and my brother wished her to cleave to what they regarded as her rights. But she resisted firmly, and at last bought her freedom—obtained my mother’s assent to dropping the suit at the price of a promise.”

“What was the promise?”

“To do anything else, for the next ten years, that was asked of her—anything, that is, but marry.”

“She had disliked her husband very much?”

“No one knows how much!”

“The marriage had been made in your horrible French way,” Newman continued, “made by the two families without her having any voice?”

“It was a chapter for a novel. She saw M. de Cintré for the first time a month before the wedding, after everything, to the minutest detail, had been arranged. She turned white when she looked at him, and white she remained till her wedding-day. The evening before the ceremony she swooned away, and she spent the whole night in sobs. My mother sat holding her two hands, and my brother walked up and down the room. I declared it was revolting, and told my sister publicly that if she would refuse downright, I would stand by her. I was told to go about my business, and she became Comtesse de Cintré.”

“Your brother,” said Newman reflectively, “must be a very nice young man.”

“He is very nice,
⁶
though he is not young. He is upwards of fifty; fifteen years my senior. He has been a father to my sister and me. He is a very remarkable man; he has the best manners in France. He is extremely clever; indeed he is very learned. He is writing a history of The Princesses of France who never Married.” This was said by Bellegarde with extreme gravity, looking straight at Newman, and with an eye that betokened no mental reservation; or that, at least, almost betokened none.

Newman perhaps discovered there what little there was, for he presently said: “You don’t love your brother.”