Part 21 (1/2)
”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.