"I shall be happy, for am not I to stay with you?"
And, as if ashamed of these words, drawing herself from the arms of the prince, who was holding her to his heart, Vera ran to her room to give herself up wholly, in solitude, to the great joy that had taken possession of her.
Henceforward, in accordance with Pierre Olsdorf's will, she continued her drives to the Bois, through which she passed swiftly, shrinking back in the carriage, an object of curiosity for the idlers of Paris, who sought vainly to discover whence came this beautiful foreigner who was so indifferent about the sensation she created. Sometimes she went to the theater with the prince; and these hours were the best of her rather lonely life, for Pierre's tenderness for her then was more real and apparent than ever.
All this, however, was not enough for Vera, whose heart, though she herself was only vaguely conscious of the truth, desired more. Often her eyes would fill with tears, and her smile had lost something of its old-time frankness. Her affection, too, for the prince had grown uneasy and nervous. When he did not lunch or dine at home she eat scarcely anything; and at night, if he were late in coming in, she could not sleep until she had heard him return and had received his affectionate "Good-night," waved to her with his hand as he passed through her room into his own. Since the night of the judicial inquisition, however, Pierre had never gone near Vera's bed. Indeed, he seemed to pass more rapidly through the room than he did formerly.
These successive and constant emotions, the unconscious and irrational aspirations that she felt, all had an injurious effect upon the young girl's health. If the prince, seeing her every day, did not notice the change in her looks, the moral and physical sufferings of Vera were none the less real. She took no interest now either in her drives or the theaters. She would lie for hours at a time on a sofa, scarcely thinking, and not daring to question her own heart.
In such a state of prostration Pierre Olsdorf found her on his return from the house of the arch-priest Wasilieff.
Noticing for the first time how changed she was, he was so troubled by the fact that he understood at once what his own feelings were. He had not lived two months with this adorable and devoted child for nothing; he loved her.
At first the knowledge of the feeling frightened him, and he hesitated to go to Vera. But the young girl's great eyes were raised to his with such softness in their depths, they expressed such pain, that Pierre, charmed, went to her gently, and kneeling by the couch on which she was half lying, he said, in a troubled voice:
"Soon, Vera, there will be no Princess Olsdorf. Now I can tell you that, with my son, you are what I love most in the world."
The daughter of the serf Soublaieff did not reply by a single word; but she raised herself suddenly, and the blood rushed so violently to her heart that she fell, half dead, in the arms that the prince held out to receive her.
CHAPTER XI.
THE MEYRINS.
Things were passing at the home of the Meyrins less worthily and less poetically than in the Rue Auber.
Faithful to the advice of his mistress, Paul had been careful to say nothing of his brother and sister-in-law of the serious events of which he was the hero. Neither Frantz Meyrin, however, nor his wife was ignorant of his amours, but they affected, by one of those middle-class hypocrisies that are so common, to suppose that the ties between the artist and the princess were perfectly moral. Their vanity was flattered at receiving the great Russian lady. If they had acknowledged that they knew the truth they would have been obliged to confess they were playing a degraded part, or to break with the noble foreigner, who was so generous to each of them, and so charming.
For Lise Olsdorf, since her coming to Paris, had used every means to win the Meyrins. She had played on all their weaknesses, good and bad; pride, interest, and maternal love. If the Meyrins received a few friends or gave a musical matinée, she was always there as an intimate friend of the family, helping Barbe, as it were, to do the honors of the house, and one may be sure the Meyrins spoke often enough of "their friend, the princess." Moreover, she let slip no chance of making presents to them all round. Now it would be a piece of jewelry for the violinist, as a mark of her gratitude for the pleasure she had enjoyed in hearing him play such or such a piece; now a dress for Mme. Meyrin, a silver trinket, or a piece of lace for her saint's day, the beginning of the new year, her birthday, or the anniversary of her marriage; while Nadeje received all the finery that could delight the heart of a coquettish young girl.
In exchange for some very paltry pictures by Paul she had adorned his studio with arms, hangings, and costly objects of all sorts. When Frantz gave a concert the princess undertook to dispose of tickets among her Russian friends in the city, and whether they took them or not it is certain the Meyrins pocketed the price of them. So that they all worshiped Lise Olsdorf, and had arrived at the singular state of mind, though without acknowledging it, of being proud that Paul had for his mistress a fine lady whom they had made their friend. They did not say to themselves that each of her presents was, in a manner, the price of their complaisance; and they made a great to-do with the little Tekla, whose real father they well knew, when the princess sent the baby by its nurse to the Rue de Douai.
This was the footing the Meyrins were on with Lise when the prince, coming suddenly to Paris and taking the tone we have seen, forced his wife not to see her lover except in secret, and to restrict her visits to the artist's family.
Mme. Meyrin very soon wondered why she did not see the princess as often as usual; but when her brother-in-law told her that the prince was in Paris she understood Lise's reserve, and was careful not to question Paul, whose explanation might have been of a sort to alarm her modesty as a mother. She was satisfied to tell the young painter each day to give her kind regards, and her husband's and daughter's, to the princess, whose departure for Russia she now began to fear.
Things might have gone on thus for a long time, for Paul, though well posted by the princess in what was occurring, kept silence; when one morning, toward the end of breakfast, which the family took together, Frantz read in the St. Petersburg correspondence of the "Figaro" the news of the coming divorce between the Prince and Princess Olsdorf. The real cause of the separation had been kept so secret that the correspondent of the journal stated, without comment, that a decree would be pronounced against the prince, following upon a petition to the Holy Synod by his wife, involving very grave charges.
"Well, here is a pretty thing!" the violinist could not help exclaiming. "Just listen."
And as his young daughter had a moment ago left the room with her grandmother, he read again, aloud this time, the paragraph in question. Then, speaking to his brother, he added: "Well, the princess is a good one. She is to petition for a divorce! What has the husband been up to? Don't you know anything of the facts?"
"Yes, I know a good deal; all, indeed," Paul replied, embarrassed.
"Then why did you not tell us?" Mme. Meyrin asked, in a prim tone.
"Simply because the princess asked me not to say anything until the thing was done with."
"Does her husband know nothing at all about her?"
"Most likely."
"And he lets his wife get a divorce against him like that? I have heard you say yourself that he was a charming man, and had no vices. There is something behind this. You know something more than you say."
"At any rate, what I do know I may not tell."
"But, after all, what does she want with a divorce? What reason could she give? Is she not as free as a woman need wish to be? Will she be any freer when she hasn't a husband? Frantz, your brother must have told you something of all this."
"Not a word," said the worthy Frantz. "Five minutes ago I knew no more about it than you did. The deuce! The princess no doubt has got a divorce because she is more and more infatuated with this fine fellow here."
"My dear," said Mme. Meyrin, shocked.
"Oh, we need not be so particular between ourselves. I dare say you know well enough what is what in the matter. Very likely she wants to marry Paul."
"Marry Paul!" exclaimed the musician's wife, furious because her husband spoke of the thing in laughing at it.
The painter, ill at ease during the discussion, rose from the table, and was making off.
But there was no escaping Mme. Meyrin in this way.
"Come, don't run away like that," she said, catching her brother-in-law by the arm. "You know very well that all this is of the greatest interest to us. If the princess is getting a divorce that she may marry you, you must have agreed to marry her."
"It is no use asking me questions," said the young man, freeing himself.
"So you are going to marry your mistress, are you?"
Frantz's wife was so vexed at not having been consulted that she lost her usual self-command.
"My mistress?" repeated the painter. "You are deucedly outspoken. Well, what if I do marry the Princess Lise, what harm would there be in it?"
"What harm? Do you hear him, Frantz? What harm! Do you suppose that your mother and your brother would ever let you make such a marriage? A divorced woman!"
"If she were not divorced I could not marry her."
"So much the better."
"What! You who are so strait-laced would rather that she should remain my—my— What you say—than that she should become my wife?"
Seeing that the change of ground was not in her favor, Mme. Meyrin did not know what to answer. Frantz, a good sort of fellow, caring most of all for peace and quietness, did not wish to carry the discussion further. With a look he advised his brother to remain cool.
"Well, for that matter, let us wait; there is no harm done yet." He ended by saying like a coward, "When the princess is divorced, we shall see."
So saying, he left the room abruptly, and his sister-in-law in her astonishment.
Husband and wife kept silence for some moments; then Barbe said to her partner, who had prudently buried himself again in his paper:
"You make very little of this, do you? You may be sure your mother will look at it very differently."
"My dear," Frantz ventured to say, "the case is a delicate one. Here is a woman who has been visiting us for nearly a year back, from whom we have accepted all sorts of favors, and whom we knew very well to be my brother's mistress. Would you now shut the door in her face simply because she thinks of becoming his wife, as we suppose? That seems rather difficult to do."
"But think of Paul marrying a woman older than himself, accustomed to live in luxury, and already the mother of two children."
"One of which is his whom she wants to make her husband."
"It may be so; and it may not. There is no certainty."
"Oh Barbe, Barbe! I can't see anything so dreadful for my brother in all this. The princess is older than he, but by a few months only; and she certainly won't be dependent on him. I have heard him say that she has a good private fortune. Besides, her mother, still alive, is rich."
The worthy fellow emphasized these particulars, for he knew that what angered his wife more than the marriage of her brother-in-law was the change that it would cause in the household.
Paul gone, the income of the family would be greatly reduced. As a husband and the father of a family, the painter would necessarily cease to be the prospective rich uncle that they had hoped for Nadeje. And lastly, the princess herself when once she was Paul's wife would probably not be so open-handed with the Meyrins as she had been in the past.
As, without daring to acknowledge them, these were the thoughts that had moved the artist's sister-in-law, she blushed at finding them so well guessed by her husband.
She said no more for the moment, but as soon as her mother-in-law came in she told her all that had passed, and Frantz's mother, who worshiped her younger son, though rather egotistically, at once agreed with her daughter-in-law that Paul ought not to marry.
Meanwhile the inquiry before the Holy Synod was going on, the prince was still living at Paris with Vera whom he loved deeply, though he had not yet told her so; and Lise Olsdorf, more infatuated than ever, was eager for the marriage with her lover, who had not been able to hide from her the opposition the idea met with in his family.
CHAPTER XII.
THE DIVORCE.
Money being in Russia, as elsewhere, a powerful aid, and Pierre Olsdorf not sparing it, matters moved forward with great speed. In less than a month the Holy Synod had closed its inquiry, and one morning the prince received intimation of the judgment pronounced in favor of his wife and condemning him to two months' claustral retirement in a convent at Moscow. The judgment, however, left the children of the marriage under his care.
We know, as well, that according to the Russian law celibacy is a consequence of divorce in the case of the guilty husband or wife. Pierre Olsdorf, therefore, might not marry again without the authority of the czar; and it was his duty to go at once to St. Petersburg, and submit to the will of the Holy Synod.
That evening he told Vera that at last he was free, and a smile of ineffable joy played about her lips; but when he added that they must go back to Russia, the poor child's happiness changed to despair. In St. Petersburg or at Pampeln she would not live with Pierre, who was now all in all to her, though her tenderness was and had been chaste.
This man, young, healthy, full of ardor, such as he had never felt before, had had the courage not to possess himself of this young maiden who awaited only the moment to yield herself to him. He loved and knew himself beloved; but faithful to the oath that he had sworn to himself he had mastered his passions. His oath was that Vera should return pure to her father. After suffering himself to be condemned by the law as an adulterer to gain his end, he would not be one in reality, as much because his pride dictated the sacrifice to its end, without recompense or compensation, as for the satisfaction of his own conscience.
The struggle had been a painful and terrible one for him. Very often in passing through Vera's room to his own he had avoided her glance so that he might not see in her eyes the fever that was burning within her; and he would bid her "good-night" by gesture, so that the trembling of his voice might not betray him.
How many times in the silence of the night he had listened at the door, softly half opened by him, of the young girl, to hear her gentle breathing, her sighs, and to aspire with delight the fragrance which floated from the couch of the adorable young sleeper.
But he had resisted his passions, and was justly proud of conquering them.
The combat had been less painful for Vera. Spared, by her ignorance and chastity, those desires of the flesh that burn like a brand, her love for Pierre, when she believed herself loved in return, was a long sweet dream, full of charming ecstasies and voluptuous tremors. She suspected that from this intimacy, from their exchange of tendernesses, the abandoning of herself at the fateful hour would follow; but she did not even blush at the thought. Full of confidence in the future, she awaited the great unknown, forgetful of all—her father, Russia, the past, and living in a sort of rapture that grew upon her more and more.
And it was at the time when she was in this frame of mind that Pierre Olsdorf came to tell her of their near return to St. Petersburg; that was, of the compulsory return to her former life, under the eyes of her family, perhaps far from the prince whom she would no longer see every day, almost every hour. At the words, the unhappy girl felt herself on the edge of an abyss, a terrible vertigo seized her upon looking into its depths, her face grew deathly pale, her eyes closed. If Pierre had not caught her in his arms she would have fallen like a stone to the ground.
The kisses of the prince, delighted and alarmed as he was at one and the same time, soon recalled the farmer's daughter to consciousness. His lips spoke such sweet words, laid to her lips, that they gave her full courage again, she trusted him so entirely; and the next day at the hour fixed by her master, she was ready to set out.
It was agreed that she should go alone with Yvan, at half past seven, to the Great Northern Railway Station, where the prince had reserved two compartments in the train, and that he would join them there.
While Pierre Olsdorf was making ready for his departure, Lise Barineff was hastening the preparations for her marriage with Paul. Knowing that the Russian law authorized her to marry, if she thought well, the very day after the decree of divorce, and being aware of the ill will of the Meyrins, she would scarcely suffer her lover to be a moment from her side; first because her love for him grew in proportion as obstacles were opposed to it, and next because she feared that Paul, whose feeble and wavering nature she knew, might escape her, yielding to the pressure brought to bear upon him by his family.
She had not hidden from the painter the oath the prince had sworn, to kill him if he did not become her husband; nor had she failed to tell him of the good position, monetarily, that her divorce left her in. Not only had the prince returned her dowry, eight thousand pounds, but he had left her his mansion in St. Petersburg, worth twelve thousand more. She could count on an income, therefore, of from eight hundred to a thousand pounds a year. She thought, as Paul did, that here was a fact that would plead in her favor with the Meyrins. When she was informed, at the same time as he who had been her husband, of the decision of the Holy Synod, she began to hope that the family in the Rue de Douai would come to have a better feeling toward her.
The artist himself thought so. Moreover, humiliated at being treated as a mere boy by his mother and sister-in-law, he had quite made up his mind to do without a consent that he would have to win, if indeed he were ever to get it, by too long a struggle; and he had given them to understand that he would not wait until the day of his marriage to leave them and set up housekeeping for himself. After dinner one evening, therefore, he told his mother very plainly that the Princess Olsdorf being divorced, he was going to marry her as speedily as possible.
At this news, though it was expected, the storm that had been gathering for several weeks in the Meyrin family burst forth violently. Mme. Frantz had repressed her feelings too long not to take a full revenge now.
Mme. Meyrin, who was completely under the domination of her daughter-in-law, only said to her son:
"I will never consent to your marrying a divorced woman, who is older than you and belongs to neither your rank nor your class."
Mme. Frantz hastened to add:
"Not to mention that she is the mother of two children, and accustomed to an idle and luxurious life that would not fit in with ours. Do you imagine that with eight hundred a year she can keep up an establishment, when she is used to scattering her money about as she does?"
"Then I am good for nothing, I suppose?" Paul retorted. "Good years and bad, I make not less than eight hundred, and I hope to make more. I shall bring to the support of the household as much as my wife."
The artist could not have used a more unwelcome argument to his sister-in-law. Barbe had the best reason to know what her brother-in-law's resources were, as she had made herself his cashier. It was exactly this money that he threw into the common stock that she regretted, though she would not acknowledge as much. It was therefore a bad move to let her understand that she would not have it to count on in future. Beside herself with rage, she went on coarsely:
"Very likely; but that won't alter the fact that your fine princess is a compromised woman. Do you suppose we don't know of her goings-on with you? She sha'n't set foot in here, that is certain."
"Ah, bah!" exclaimed Paul, provoked. "You will not receive her when she is my wife; but you received her—her and her presents—when she was my mistress. Very well, so be it. We shall each keep to ourselves, that is all."
"Paul!" said Mme. Meyrin, the mother, in a beseeching tone, frightened at the anger of her son, whom she had never seen other than gentle and submissive.
"Well, well, mother," said the painter, in a very different tone, "it is my sister-in-law that irritates me. One would think she was my guardian. Besides, I won't have the woman I love insulted—the woman, who, for my sake, has lost the high position that she had in the world."
"Oh, for your sake," sneered Mme. Frantz.
This was too much for the artist.
"Look here," he exclaimed, "you will never be anything better than a backbiter and selfish. What maddens you is my shaking myself free from you. You don't care for the morality of the thing, but for your pocket. You thought I should make a good fortune-leaving uncle. I love my niece, I know; but I love Tekla, my dear little baby daughter, better. I shall marry Lise whether you like it or not. As for you, mother, you know my affection for you. It won't change, you may be sure, because I am not living with you. From this night I shall live here no longer. I will give you timely notice of my marriage, and I hope, in spite of my sweet sister-in-law, that you will be present at it."
Leaving then his mother and Mme. Frantz, who had not looked for such determination in him, Paul hurried to the ex-Princess Olsdorf to tell her what had passed.
Chance had prepared for him in the Rue Lafitte an unexpected and fateful meeting.
The door had been opened for him, and, without asking any question of the footman, he was passing through the anteroom to the room where he expected to find Lise, when the servant stopped him, saying:
"Pardon me, monsieur, but Madame la Princess is with her mother."
"Her mother!" exclaimed Paul, in surprise.
He remembered suddenly that he too, as well as Lise, had ignored rather too much the woman whose son-in-law he was to be.
Left by her daughter in complete ignorance of the conjugal drama in which Lise was the heroine, Mme. Podoi had only heard of the divorce at St. Petersburg as everybody else had, through the talk that the scandal gave rise to. The news had come upon her like a clap of thunder. It was the destruction of her dream of ambition, the realization of which she had striven for so ardently; and, though she knew that the decree of divorce had been pronounced against Prince Olsdorf, she suspected a mystery and wished to fathom it.
Not saying a word to anybody of her intended journey, she had left St. Petersburg, and suddenly appeared before her daughter in Paris.
She had been there but a short time when Paul called. There had been a violent scene between the two women.
Attacked unexpectedly, and feeling a sort of pride in hiding nothing, Lise had told her mother everything—her love for the painter, the prince's ultimatum, what had happened since, and lastly, her intention to marry again at once.
The general's wife, having listened frowningly to her daughter's story, broke out at this latter part, exclaiming:
"You are mad. Whether you have deceived your husband, concerns, perhaps, yourself alone; but that you should become Madame Meyrin after having been the Princess Olsdorf! No, that you never shall! What! have I lived for twenty years with this one object before me, that you should be a great lady, and am I to see you turned into a miserable little artist's wife? Never! Monsieur Meyrin is a scoundrel. He loved you through vanity, and would now marry you through interest. I will speak to him plainly, depend upon me."
Lise tried vainly to calm her mother.
"He knows you are rich," she went on, "and that after my death you will be richer. That is his sort of love. If you were poor he would not dream of making you his wife. I swear that neither of you need expect anything from me. Is it possible that after my training of you, you can be in love with this showy fellow, a dauber of no name or talent? Ah! you are your father's own daughter."
"What do you mean?" said Lise, quickly, in great surprise.
"Nothing, nothing," said Mme. Podoi, biting her lips.
She had almost forgotten in her anger that for everybody, and above all for Lise herself, her daughter was the daughter of Count Barineff.
She went on a moment afterward:
"Have you thought nothing of your children who will be taken from you?"
"The prince will not dream of taking Tekla from me. He knows she is not his child."
"But your son Alexander? What will he be to you when you are called Madame Meyrin? You don't suppose Pierre will ever let you see him or speak to him? What will they tell him when he asks where his mother is? If he is sick who will care for him?"
Lise Barineff turned very pale. As we have said, she had always been a good mother. Her head drooped; she answered nothing. It was plain that she suffered.
"Is your marriage fixed?"
"Yes," said the young woman. "In the first place, I love Monsieur Paul Meyrin."
"A fine reason!"
"Besides, if he does not marry me—of course, you can't have known this—the prince will kill him."
"And a good thing, too."
"Oh, mother, mother!"
"Do you suppose I can easily fall in with this ridiculous change in your life? If my pride could bear it, would not my motherly love take the alarm! Think of the society you have lived in, and compare it with that which you will have to live in."
"Monsieur Meyrin is a great artist, and artists, in France, as elsewhere, are received by everybody."
"To make a Madame Meyrin of a Princess Olsdorf! It is shameful. Any way, I warn you everything is at an end between us. Adieu. I will never see you again, until you can tell me that you have made up your mind to remain Lise Barineff."
As she suddenly opened the door of the room Mme. Podoi found herself face to face with Paul Meyrin, whom she recognized at once.
"So it is you, Mr. Painter," she said in a haughty voice. "My sincere compliments. I have paid dearly for my patronage of you in Russia. After betraying the prince who honored you by his hospitality, you carry off his wife and part a mother and her child. It is as an honorable man would have acted—exactly. To pay some debts a man must risk his life. You prefer marrying. Well, it is your business and my daughter's. Before a year has passed she will sing a different song."
Paul, hat in hand, let the flood sweep over him.
The young woman, who had followed her mother, put an end to the scene by drawing her future husband into the room.
The general's wife looked at them for a moment with angry eyes, muttering, "The idiots!" and disappeared.
"Forgive me," said Lise to Paul, winding her arms about his neck.
"Forgive you?" said Paul, laughing. "Why, I've been hearing worse than that at home. They are all densely stupid. I beg your pardon for saying so. If I do not love you as much as I do they would make me adore you."
He crushed her in his arms, covering her eyes and lips with kisses.
A sudden ring was heard at the bell, and almost immediately the footman brought a letter to his mistress which a commissionaire had brought from the Great Northern Railway Station.
The letter was from the prince.
After reading the first few lines, Lise cried out and fell back on the sofa.
"Madame," wrote Pierre Olsdorf to the woman who was once his wife, "the decree of divorce having left me guardian of my children—I am taking away Tekla. When you receive this letter we shall be on our way to Russia, which is closed against you by my order."
The outraged husband avenged himself on the mother. At least, in her despair, so Lise Barineff interpreted his action.
"Remember your undertaking to marry again as soon as possible, if you wish that I should not return to Paris and keep the oath I have sworn. In due time, when the law permits, you must become Madame Meyrin."
The painter picked up the letter which had fallen from the hand of the ex-Princess Olsdorf. He stood before her with head lowered, without daring to address a word of consolation to her.
This day, for the first time, they parted without a word, without the exchange of a kiss.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE LAST OF A PRINCESS.
The days that followed the carrying off of her daughter by Pierre Olsdorf were a terrible trial to Lise Barineff. Her heart had bled, as her mother reminded her, that the divorce would rear an impassable barrier between her and her son, but being prepared, so to speak, in advance for this separation, she had sought a refuge from the sorrow it caused her in her tenderness for her last-born infant. And this doubly adored child had been taken from her now. Who would give to this babe of a few months old the care that was the duty of its mother? Its mother would not now watch its growth, or tend on it if it were sick; a stranger would dry its tears, win its smiles, and have its love.
She fully understood the fatal logic by which the prince's conduct had been dictated in taking away Tekla. In the eyes of the law he was her father; if he had left the child to its mother it would have been a disavowal of his paternity, and consequently the casting upon her, the adulterous wife, the sin that he had taken upon himself in order that the decree of divorce might be pronounced against him. She was forced, therefore, to acknowledge that if he had cruelly used his power, Pierre Olsdorf had, in doing so, only been faithful to the line of conduct he had adopted; and she suffered the more in being able to accuse only herself.
For the first time the unhappy woman regretted the past, and felt remorse. For many days nothing could console her. She was insensible even to Paul's caresses, and he himself was much affected by the loss of their daughter; but little by little their love gained through this trial an elevation that hitherto it had been lacking in. They loved less coarsely, because they wept together.
There is nothing that transforms a deep passion as a deep sorrow does. Passion tried in the fire quits in part the senses to penetrate to the heart, till then scarcely touched. Suffering undergone together often makes lasting the frail bond between two beings whom their desires alone have drawn one to the other.
Lise and Paul experienced this psychological truth. They spoke less of their love, but it was deeper. The isolation that circumstances imposed upon them drew them more together; and it made them feel, too, that they must hasten their marriage.
They were no longer two lovers desirous of freedom to live in each other's arms; they were two wanderers from the path wishing to gain the right to hold up their heads, two outcasts longing for the joys of the domestic hearth.
Unhappily they had reason to fear an enforced delay of several months, as, the Code Napoleon having been adopted in Roumania, Paul was compelled to obtain his mother's consent. If he had written to her for it, Mme. Meyrin, although she adored her son, would not have replied, goaded to resistance by her daughter-in-law.
The painter, however, had an ally in the house—his brother Frantz; but that good fellow was himself under the domination of his wife, and any timid remarks that he ventured on were fruitless.
Paul determined then to have recourse to extreme measures, that is, to the "respectful summon" prescribed by law. However, wishing, out of deference, to forewarn his mother, he wrote to her as follows:
"Dear Mother,—I have a duty to fulfill, touching my honor, and you oppose me because you are ill-advised. If you listened only to your love for me you would long since have consented to my marriage with a woman whom you already love and who, whatever happens, will never be aught but the most affectionate and devoted of daughters to you. In face of your opposition and what my honor imposes upon me, I have no other course but to seek from the law what you deny me. I am deeply pained to have to do this, but my determination is unchangeable.
"Once more then, my dear good mother, consult, I say, your own heart alone, and do not force me to take so painful a step.
"Your loving and respectful son,
"Paul."
Much touched at reading this letter, which had reached her in the absence of her daughter-in-law, Mme. Meyrin hurried to her son. Since the rupture with his family he had been living at his studio.
Paul opened the door to her.
"So, my son, you would leave me?" said the poor woman, sinking on to the sofa to which he had led her. "Between your old mother and a stranger you do not hesitate; your choice is at once made. Ah, I could curse the day you went to Russia. If I were to consent to your marriage, how could I live afterward with your sister-in-law? She would never forgive me my weakness."
"You shall come and live with us," said Paul, kneeling beside her. "Be sure that Lise and I will love you dearly."
"I could not, my son. Habits are not changed when one is my age. And, then, my love for Frantz is as great as my love for you. If I left him I should be ungrateful, for these ten years he has made my life a pleasant and happy one. You see, we are in a coil. Do you love this woman so much, then?"
"Yes, mother, I love her sincerely; I love her more now than I did before. Besides, it is my duty, having ruined her life, not to abandon her, alone as she is, without her children. You know that the prince has taken from her her little daughter—her daughter and mine."
"God is punishing you both."
Feeling that she had really lost her hold on her son, Mme. Meyrin began to cry.
Paul, unable to bear up against his mother's tears, sprung to his feet, and after looking at her for some moments, said, with a calmness and determination foreign to his nature:
"Well, so be it, mother. We will speak no more of this marriage. I will not appeal to the law; I will wait for your consent to my marriage with Lise. But I will start for St. Petersburg to-morrow."
"For St. Petersburg? What to do?"
"To put myself at the disposal of Prince Olsdorf."
"At the disposal of Prince Olsdorf?"
"The last words of the prince to his wife were these: 'If Monsieur Paul Meyrin does not marry you, I will kill him.' I will not have it that a Russian shall be able to say a Roumanian is, in my person, a coward."
"My son, my son!" cried Mme. Meyrin, seizing him in her arms. "You will fight? It is my refusal that would send you to brave this man? Give me ink and a pen. I will sign my consent. Tell me—tell me quick what I am to write. A duel! And I, your mother—"
The good creature, interrupting her words with kisses, dragged her son to a table in one of the corners of the studio. She was eager to sign the consent at once.
The artist yielded to her wish and dictated the few lines necessary.
"There, are you satisfied, bad boy?" said Mme. Meyrin, after writing and signing with a trembling hand. "You will talk no more of going away, will you? A duel!"
"Dear mother," replied Paul, his eyes filled with tears of gratitude as he kissed her. "I will stay in Paris, and owe you more than ever."
"And now I will go and get my scolding over—yonder."
She pressed her son again to her heart and returned to the Rue de Douai, where, to have it over and done with, she told all to her daughter-in-law, who had just come in.
"You are a free agent," said Mme. Frantz, in a tart voice, "but this woman shall not put foot in my house."
Thinking it prudent to enter into no dispute and so avoid a scene, Mme. Meyrin returned to her room.
Immediately after his mother had left him, Paul ran to tell Lise Barineff that the last obstacle to their union was done away with.
"At last, thank God!" replied the young woman. "If you had been forced to appeal to the law, I think it would have brought us bad luck. Then, too, people would have begun talking about us again. They have done so already more than enough, not only in St. Petersburg, which I have just had some letters from, but also in Paris. The newspapers are taking it up now. Have you seen this morning's 'Figaro?'"
"No. What does it say?"
"It announces our coming marriage. And see in what terms."
The painter took the journal that Lise offered him and read in the "Echos":
"All Paris must have noticed at the last Salon a very beautiful portrait of a woman, a picture which won a medal for its painter, Monsieur Paul Meyrin. The artist had excellent opportunities for studying his charming model, as he was often seen hiding himself at the back of her box at the opera or the Opera Comique. It was a case, no doubt, of budding love, as the great Russian lady, none other than the ex-Princess Olsdorf, will very soon be known as simply Madame Meyrin.
"The young painter made the acquaintance of the princess at St. Petersburg. But what rather surprises the fashionable world of Russia is that the divorce has been pronounced against the prince who, it is said, is a charming man, distinguished, and with the reputation, moreover, of having been a model husband. There is some piquant, domestic mystery under the surface which it is not for us to seek after. We will content ourselves by applauding this marriage, for it wins back for us a countrywoman of our own, or pretty nearly so. The ex-princess is, in fact, the daughter of that beautiful Madame Froment who, after winning much applause at the Odéon in classical pieces with Dumesnil, was engaged in St. Petersburg at the Michael Theatre, which she left only to become the Countess Barineff."
"Where has the 'Figaro' got all its information?" asked Paul, having read the paragraphs.
"From some good soul in St. Petersburg, no doubt," said the young woman, in whose mind the name of her mother's former friend did not seem to suggest any thought.
The painter made a shrewd guess that Sarah Lamber was no stranger to this tittle-tattle; but, careful not to recall the unpleasant memory of her, he said, affecting indifference:
"There is nothing offensive in the article."
"No; but it will provoke my mother more and more against us. Nothing is so disagreeable to her as to be reminded that she was once an actress."
"I confess I did not know it."
"She fancies always that nobody knows anything about it. I am not so proud. All I ask of the future is your eternal love."
Lise Barineff could not foresee what effect the coupling of her name with that of Dumesnil was to have upon the vain countess.
Certainly the author of the article knew more about the affair than he cared to tell.
To make an end of the matter, Paul held out his hands to his future wife, and they fixed forthwith the date of the marriage for a fortnight later.
All that was needful then to be done was for the artist to find suitable rooms, which he did at 112 Rue d'Assas, one of them being fit for a studio, and to furnish them.
In the intervening fortnight Paul saw his mother and his brother several times, but not once his sister-in-law. Though Mme. Meyrin and Frantz had promised to be present at the marriage, Barbe was firm; she would stay at home.
Lise and Paul felt that the ceremony ought to be as quiet a one as possible. For that matter the chapel where it was to take place would scarcely have allowed it to be otherwise. It was a place of primitive simplicity and would not have held fifty people.
Few of our readers know, even by name, this little chapel of the Greek Church, which stands on the left bank of the Seine, in the Rue Racine, on the second floor.
In a set of very common rooms, the residence of the Patriarch of Constantinople, one had been turned into a chapel. Where the bed used to stand, an altar had been reared, with its Byzantine ornaments polished and shining for the occasion.
When the bride and bridegroom arrived the priest was awaiting them, and, being in mourning, he wore a great black veil, which gave him almost a lugubrious look. The walls were covered with a grayish paper, and hung sparsely with tawdry religious pictures in gold frames. The room had a wretched look, which struck Lise. This was very different from the splendor her mother had made a show of in the Church of Isaac at St. Petersburg.
In spite of herself she could not but recall that day. Representatives of the oldest Russian families, nearly all of them connected by blood or marriage one with the other, were present to do honor to Prince Olsdorf. The arch-priest who officiated wore the richest of his sacerdotal ornaments; the air was heavy with perfumes; from amid women of the highest title and most exclusive fashion in St. Petersburg, her mother smiled on her proudly. Now the scene was a furnished room, the priest, a priest of low grade, wrapped in black. There were a score or so of onlookers, acquaintances of her husband, artists, curious or indifferent, as the case might be, all of them, except Mme. Meyrin, the mother, Frantz, and the good and gentle Mme. Daubrel, who, bent in prayer over her chair, sent up to Heaven sincere supplications for the happiness of her friend, as she herself, too, cast a sad look backward upon the past.
The daughter of the Countess Barineff had noticed among the spectators a stout man, perhaps sixty years old, whom she had often seen at the Meyrins', and who now kept his eyes fixed on her, while his attitude, his smile, and his muttered asides, indicated strange emotion as well as inexpressible vanity. By reason of his clean-shaven face, his pale complexion, the way in which he held his hat, resting it on his left hip and rounding his arm, his right hand thrust into the depths of his double-breasted and carefully buttoned coat, in the style of the portraits of the first Napoleon, he was unmistakably an actor.
It was none other than the old Dumesnil, one of the most faithful interpreters of stock rôles at the Odéon, a very good sort of fellow at bottom, but rather ludicrous from his habit of always fancying himself on the stage, the buskins on his legs, the toga hanging from his shoulders. Lise had given him an affectionate smile.
In less than half an hour all was over, and the bride and bridegroom, having shaken hands with the witnesses of the marriage, got into their carriage and were driven to their apartments in the Rue d'Assas, while Dumesnil, who had looked after them with tearful eyes, walked away muttering a verse which his memory of classical rôles supplied him with, or which was an indifferent impromptu for the occasion: