My acquaintance with Hortense Dufresnoy progressed slowly as, ever, and not even the Froissart incident went far towards promoting it. Absorbed in her studies, living for the intellect only, too self-contained to know the need for sympathy, she continued to be, at all events for me, the most inaccessible of God's creatures. And yet, despite her indifference, I loved her. Her pale, proud face haunted me; her voice haunted me. I thought of her sometimes till it seemed impossible she should not in some way be conscious of how my very soul was centred in her. But she knew nothing--guessed nothing--cared nothing; and the knowledge that I held no place in her life wrought in me at times till it became almost too bitter for endurance.
And this was love--real, passionate, earnest; the first and last love of my heart. Did I believe that I ever loved till now? Ah! no; for now only I felt the god in his strength, and beheld him in his beauty. Was I not blind till I had looked into her eyes and drunk of their light? Was I not deaf till I had heard the music of her voice? Had I ever truly lived, or breathed, or known delight till now?
I never stayed to ask myself how this would end, or whither it would lead me. The mere act of loving was too sweet for questioning. What cared I for the uncertainties of the future, having hope to live upon in the present? Was it not enough "to feed for aye my lamp and flames of love," and worship her till that worship became a religion and a rite?
And now, longing to achieve something which should extort at least her admiration, if not her love, I wished I were a soldier, that I might win glory for her--or a poet, that I might write verses in her praise which should be deathless--or a painter, that I might spend years of my life in copying the dear perfection of her face. Ah! and I would so copy it that all the world should be in love with it. Not a wave of her brown hair that I would not patiently follow through all its windings. Not the tender tracery of a blue vein upon her temples that I would not lovingly render through its transparent veil of skin. Not a depth of her dark eyes that I would not study, "deep drinking of the infinite." Alas! those eyes, so grave, so luminous, so steadfast:--
"Eyes not down-dropt, not over-bright, but fed
With the clear-pointed flame of chastity,"
--eyes wherein dwelt "thought folded over thought," what painter need ever hope to copy them?
And still she never dreamed how dear she had grown to me. She never knew how the very air seemed purer to me because she breathed it. She never guessed how I watched the light from her window night after night--how I listened to every murmur in her chamber--how I watched and waited for the merest glimpse of her as she passed by--how her lightest glance hurried the pulses through my heart--how her coldest word was garnered up in the treasure-house of my memory! What cared she, though to her I had dedicated all the "book and volume of my brain;" hallowed its every page with blazonings of her name; and illuminated it, for love of her, with fair images, and holy thoughts, and forms of saints and angels
"Innumerable, of stains and splendid dyes
As are the tiger-moth's deep damask'd wings?"
Ah me! her hand was never yet outstretched to undo its golden clasps--her eye had never yet deigned to rest upon its records. To her I was nothing, or less than nothing--a fellow-student, a fellow-lodger, a stranger.
And yet I loved her "with a love that was more than love"--with a love dearer than life and stronger than death--a love that, day after day, struck its roots deeper and farther into my very soul, never thence to be torn up here or hereafter.
After a more than usually severe winter, the early spring came, crowned with rime instead of primroses. Paris was intensely cold. In March the Seine was still frozen, and snow lay thickly on the house-tops. Quiet at all times, the little nook in which I lived became monastically still, and at night, when the great gates were closed, and the footsteps of the passers-by fell noiselessly upon the trodden snow, you might have heard a whisper from one side of the street to the other. There was to me something indescribably delightful about this silent solitude in the heart of a great city.
Sitting beside the fire one evening, enjoying the profound calm of the place, attending from time to time to my little coffee-pot on the hob, and slowly turning the pages of a favorite author, I luxuriate in a state of mind half idle, half studious. Leaving off presently to listen to some sound which I hear, or fancy I hear, in the adjoining room, I wonder for the twentieth time whether Hortense has yet returned from her long day's teaching; and so rise--open my window--and look out. Yes; the light from her reading-lamp streams out at last across the snow-laden balcony. Heigho! it is something even to know that she is there so near me--divided only by a thin partition!
Trying to comfort myself with this thought, I close the window again and return to my book, more restless and absent than before. Sitting thus, with the unturned leaf lingering between my thumb and forefinger, I hear a rapid footfall on the stairs, and a musical whistle which, growing louder as it draws nearer, breaks off at my door, and is followed by a prolonged assault and battery of the outer panels.
"Welcome, noisiest of visitors!" I exclaim, knowing it to be Müller before I even open the door. "You are quite a stranger. You have not been near me for a fortnight."
"It will not be your fault, Signor Book-worm, if I don't become a stranger au pied de la lettre" replies he, cheerily. "Why, man, it is close upon three weeks since you have crossed the threshold of my door. The Quartier Latin is aggrieved by your neglect, and the fine arts t'other side of the water languish and are forlorn."
So saying, he shakes the snow from his coat like a St. Bernard mastiff, perches his cap on the head of the plaster Niobe that adorns my chimney-piece, and lays aside the folio which he had been carrying under his arm. I, in the meanwhile, have wheeled an easy-chair to the fire, brought out a bottle of Chambertin, and piled on more wood in honor of my guest.
"You can't think," said I, shaking hands with him for the second time, "how glad I am that you have come round to-night."
"I quite believe it," replied he. "You must be bored to death, if these old busts are all the society you keep. Sacre nom d'une pipe! how can a fellow keep up his conviviality by the perpetual contemplation of Niobe and Jupiter Tonans? What do you mean by living such a life as this? Have you turned Trappist? Shall I head a subscription to present you with a skull and an hour-glass?"
"I'll have the skull made into a drinking-cup, if you do. Take some wine."
Müller filled his glass, tasted with the air of a connoisseur, and nodded approvingly.
"Chambertin, by the god Bacchus!" said he. "Napoleon's favorite wine, and mine--evidence of the sympathy that exists between the truly great."
And, draining the glass, he burst into a song in praise of French wines, beginning--
"Le Chambertin rend joyeux,
Le Nuits rend infatigable,
Le Volnay rend amoureux,
Le Champagne rend amiable.
Grisons-nous, mes chers amis,
L'ivresse
Vaut la richesse;
Pour moi, dès que le suis gris,
Je possède tout Paris!"
"Oh hush!" said I, uneasily; "not so loud, pray!"
"Why not?"
"The--the neighbors, you know. We cannot do as we would in the Quartier Latin."
"Nonsense, my dear fellow. You don't swear yourself to silence when you take apartments in a hôtel meublé! You might as well live in a penitentiary!--
'De bouchons faisons un tas,
Et s'il faut avoir la goutte,
Au moins que ce ne soit pas
Pour n'avoir bu qu'une goutte!'"
"Nay, I implore you!" I interposed again. "The landlord ..."
"Hang the landlord!
'Grisons-nous--'"
"Well, but--but there is a lady in the next room ..."
Müller laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks.
"Allons done!" said he, "why not have told the truth at first? Oh, you sly rogue! You gaillard! This is your seclusion, is it? This is your love of learning--this the secret of your researches into science and art! What art, pray? Ovid's 'Art of Love,' I'll be sworn!"
"Laugh on, pray," I said, feeling my face and my temper growing hot; "but that lady, who is a stranger to me"....
"Oh--oh--oh!" cried Müller.
"Who is a stranger to me," I repeated, "and who passes her evenings in study, must not be annoyed by noises in my room. Surely, my dear fellow, you know me well enough to understand whether I am in jest or in earnest."
Müller laid his hand upon my sleeve.
"Enough--enough," he said, smiling good-naturedly. "You are right, and I will be as dumb as Plato. What is the lady's name."
"Dufresnoy," I answered, somewhat reluctantly. "Mademoiselle Dufresnoy."
"Ay, but her Christian name!"
"Her Christian name," I faltered, more reluctant still. "I--I--"
"Don't say you don't know," said Müller, maliciously. "It isn't worth while. After all, what does it matter? Here's to her health, all the same--à votre santé, Mademoiselle Dufresnoy! What! not drink her health, though I have filled your glass on purpose?"
There was no help for it, so I took the glass and drank the toast with the best grace I could.
"And now, tell me," continued my companion, drawing nearer to the fire and settling himself with a confidential air that was peculiarly provoking, "what is she like? Young or old? Dark or fair? Plain or pretty?"
"Old," said I, desperately. "Old and ugly. Fifty at the least. Squints horribly."
Then, thinking that I had been a little too emphatic, I added:--
"But a very ladylike person, and exceedingly well-informed,"
Müller looked at me gravely, and filled his glass again.
"I think I know the lady," said he.
"Indeed?"
"Yes--by your description. You forgot to add, however, that she is gray."
"To be sure--as a badger."
"To say nothing of a club foot, an impediment in her speech, a voice like a raven's, and a hump like a dromedary's! Ah! my dear friend, what an amazingly comic fellow you are!"
And the student burst again into a peal of laughter so hearty and infectious that I could not have helped joining in it to save my life.
"And now," said he, when we had laughed ourselves out of breath, "now to the object of my visit. Do you remember asking me, months ago, to make you a copy of an old portrait that you had taken a fancy to in some tumble-down château near Montlhéry!"
"To be sure; and I have intended, over and over again, to remind you of it. Did you ever take the trouble to go over there and look at it?"
"Look at it, indeed! I should rather think so--and here is the proof. What does your connoisseurship say to it?"
Say to it! Good heavens! what could I say, what could I do, but flush up all suddenly with pleasure, and stare at it without power at first to utter a single word?
For it was like her--so like that it might have been her very portrait. The features were cast in the same mould--the brow, perhaps, was a little less lofty--the smile a little less cold; but the eyes, the beautiful, lustrous, soul-lighted eyes were the same--the very same!
If she were to wear an old-fashioned dress, and deck her fair neck and arms with pearls, and put powder on her hair, and stand just so, with her hand upon one of the old stone urns in the garden of that deserted château, she would seem to be standing for the portrait.
Well might I feel, when I first saw her, that the beauty of her face was not wholly unfamiliar to me! Well might I fancy I had seen her in some dream of long ago!
So this was the secret of it--and this picture was mine. Mine to hang before my desk when I was at work--mine to place at my bed's foot, where I might see it on first waking--mine to worship and adore, to weave fancies and build hopes upon, and "burn out the day in idle phantasies" of passionate devotion!
"Well," said Müller impatiently, "what do you think of it?"
I looked up, like one dreaming.
"Think of it!" I repeated.
"Yes--do you think it like?"
"So like that it might be her por ... I mean that it might be the original."
"Oh, that's satisfactory. I was afraid you were disappointed."
"I was only silent from surprise and pleasure."
"Well, however faithful the copy maybe, you know, in these things one always misses the tone of age."
"I would not have it look a day older!" I exclaimed, never lifting my eyes from the canvas.
Müller came and looked down at it over my shoulder.
"It is an interesting head," said he. "I have a great mind to introduce it into my next year's competition picture."
I started as if he had struck me. The thought was sacrilege!
"For Heaven's sake do no such thing!" I ejaculated.
"Why not?" said he, opening his eyes in astonishment.
"I cannot tell you why--at least not yet; but to--to confer a very particular obligation upon me, will you waive this point?" Müller rubbed his head all over with both hands, and sat down in the utmost perplexity.
"Upon my soul and conscience," said he, "you are the most incomprehensible fellow I ever knew in my life!"
"I am. I grant it. What then? Let us see, I am to give you a hundred and fifty francs for this copy ..."
"I won't take it," said Müller. "I mean you to accept it as a pledge of friendship and good-will."
"Nay, I insist on paying for it. I shall be proud to pay for it; but a hundred and fifty are not enough. Let me give you three hundred, and promise me that you will not put the head into your picture!"
Müller laughed, and shook his own head resolutely. "I will give you both the portrait and the promise," said he; "but I won't take your money, if I know it."
"But ..."
"But I won't--and so, if you don't like me well enough to accept such a trifle from me, I'll e'en carry the thing home again!"
And, snatching up his cap and cloak, he made a feint of putting the portrait back into the folio.
"Not for the world!" I exclaimed, taking possession of it without further remonstrance. "I would sooner part from all I possess. How can I ever thank you enough?"
"By never thanking me at all! What little time the thing has cost me is overpaid, not only by the sight of your pleasure, but by my own satisfaction in copying it. To copy a good work is to have a lesson from the painter, though he were dead a hundred years before; and the man who painted that portrait, be he who he might, has taught me a trick or two that I never knew before. Sapristi! see if I don't dazzle you some day with an effect of white satin and pearls against a fair skin!"
"An ingenious argument; but it leaves me unconvinced, all the same. How! you are not going to run away already? Here's another bottle of Chambertin waiting to be opened; and it is yet quite early."
"Impossible! I have promised to meet a couple of men up at the Prado, and have, besides, invited them afterwards to supper."
"What is the Prado?"
"The Prado! Why, is it possible that I have never yet introduced you to the Prado? It's one of the joiliest places in all the Quartier Latin--it's close to the Palais de Justice. You can dance there, or practise pistol-shooting, or play billiards, or sup--or anything you please. Everybody smokes--ladies not excepted."
"How very delightful!"
"Oh, magnificent! Won't you come with me? I know a dozen pretty girls who will be delighted to be introduced to you."
"Not to-night, thank you," said I, laughing.
"Well, another time?"
"Yes, to be sure--another time."
"Well, good-night."
"Good-night, and thank you again, a thousand times over."
But he would not stay to hear me thank him, and was half way down the first flight before my sentence was finished. Just as I was going back into my room, and about to close the door, he called after me from the landing.
"Holà, amigo! When my picture is done, I mean to give a bachelor's supper-party--chiefly students and chicards. Will you come?"
"Gladly."
"Adieu, then. I will let you know in time."
And with this, he broke out into a fragment of Beranger, gave a cheerful good-night to Madame Bouïsse in the hall, and was gone.
And now to enjoy my picture. Now to lock the door, and trim the lamp, and place it up against a pile of books, and sit down before it in silent rapture, like a devotee before the portrait of his patron saint. Now I can gaze, unreproved, into those eyes, and fancy they are hers. Now press my lips, unforbidden, upon that exquisite mouth, and believe it warm. Ah, will her eyes ever so give back the look of love in mine? Will her lips ever suffer mine to come so near? Would she, if she knew the treasure I possessed, be displeased that I so worshipped it?
Hanging over it thus, and suffering my thoughts to stray on at their own will and pleasure, I am startled by the fall of some heavy object in the adjoining chamber. The fall is followed by a stifled cry, and then all is again silent.
To unlock my door and rush to hers--to try vainly to open it--to cry "Hortense! Hortense! what has happened? For Heaven's sake, what has happened?" is the work of but an instant.
The antechamber lay between, and I remembered that she could not hear me. I ran back, knocked against the wall, and repeated:--
"What has happened? Tell me what has happened?"
Again I listened, and in that interval of suspense heard her garments rustle along the ground, then a deep sigh, and then the words:--
"Nothing serious. I have hurt my hand."
"Can you open the door?"
There was another long silence.
"I cannot," she said at length, but more faintly.
"In God's name, try!"
No answer.
"Shall I get over the balcony?"
I waited another instant, heard nothing, and then, without, further hesitation, opened my own window and climbed the iron rail that separated her balcony from mine, leaving my footsteps trampled in the snow.
I found her sitting on the floor, with her body bent forward and her head resting against the corner of a fallen bookcase. The scattered volumes lay all about. A half-filled portmanteau stood close by on a chair. A travelling-cloak and a passport-case lay on the table.
Seeing, yet scarcely noting all this, I flung myself on my knees beside her, and found that one hand and arm lay imprisoned under the bookcase. She was not insensible, but pain had deprived her of the power of speech. I raised her head tenderly, and supported it against a chair; then lifted the heavy bookcase, and, one by one, removed the volumes that had fallen upon her.
Alas! the white little hand all crushed and bleeding--the powerless arm--the brave mouth striving to be firm!
I took the poor maimed arm, made a temporary sling for it with my cravat, and, taking her up in my arms as if she had been an infant, carried her to the sofa. Then I closed the window; ran back to my own room for hot water; tore up some old handkerchiefs for bandages; and so dressed and bound her wounds--blessing (for the first time in my life) the destiny that had made me a surgeon.
"Are you in much pain?" I asked, when all was done.
"Not now--but I feel very faint,"
I remembered my coffee in the next room, and brought it to her. I lifted her head, and supported her with my arm while she drank it.
"You are much better now," I said, when she had again lain down. "Tell me how it happened."
She smiled languidly.
"It was not my fault," she said, "but Froissart's. Do you remember that Froissart?"
Remember it! I should think so.
"Froissart!" I exclaimed. "Why, what had he to do with it?"
"Only this. I usually kept him on the top of the bookcase that fell down this evening. Just now, while preparing for a journey upon which I must start to-morrow morning, I thought to remove the book to a safer place; and so, instead of standing on a chair, I tried to reach up, and, reaching up, disturbed the balance of the bookcase, and brought it down."
"Could you not have got out of the way when you saw it falling?"
"Yes--but I tried to prevent it, and so was knocked down and imprisoned as you found me."
"Merciful Heaven! it might have killed you."
"That was what flashed across my mind when I saw it coming," she replied, with a faint smile.
"You spoke of a journey," I said presently, turning my face away lest she should read its story too plainly; "but now, of course, you must not move for a few days."
"I must travel to-morrow," she said, with quiet decision.
"Impossible!"
"I have no alternative."
"But think of the danger--the imprudence--the suffering."
"Danger there cannot be," she replied, with a touch of impatience in her voice. "Imprudent it may possibly be; but of that I have no time to think. And as for the suffering, that concerns myself alone. There are mental pains harder to bear than the pains of the body, and the consciousness of a duty unfulfilled is one of the keenest of them. You urge in vain; I must go. And now, since it is time you bade me good-night, let me thank you for your ready help and say good-bye."
"But may I do no more for you?"
"Nothing--unless you will have the goodness to bid Madame Bouïsse to come up-stairs, and finish packing my portmanteau for me."
"At what hour do you start?"
"At eight."
"May I not go with you to the station, and see that you get a comfortable seat?"
"Many thanks," she replied, coldly; "but I do not go by rail, and my seat in the diligence is already taken."
"You will want some one to see to your luggage--to carry your cloaks."
"Madame Bouïsse has promised to go with me to the Messageries."
Silenced, and perhaps a little hurt, I rose to take my leave.
"I wish you a safe journey, mademoiselle," I said, "and a safe return,"
"And think me, at the same time, an ungrateful patient."
"I did not say that."
"No--but you thought so. After all, it is possible that I seem so. I am undemonstrative--unused to the amenities of life--in short, I am only half-civilized. Pray, forgive me."
"Mademoiselle," I said, "your apology pains me. I have nothing to forgive. I will send Madame Bouïsse to you immediately."
And with this I had almost left the room, but paused upon the threshold.
"Shall you be long away?" I asked, with assumed indifference.
"Shall I be long away?" she repeated, dreamily. "How can I tell?" Then, correcting herself, "Oh, not long," she added. "Not long. Perhaps a fortnight--perhaps a week."
"Once more, then, good-night."
"Good-night," she answered, absently; and I withdrew.
I then went down, sent Madame Bouïsse to wait upon her, and sat up anxiously listening more than half the night. Next morning, at seven, I heard Madame Bouïsse go in again. I dared not even go to her door to inquire how she had slept, lest I should seem too persistent; but when they left the room and went downstairs together, I flew to my window.
I saw her cross the street in the gray morning. She walked feebly, and wore a large cloak, that hid the disabled arm and covered her to the feet. Madame Bouïsse trotted beside her with a bundle of cloaks and umbrellas; a porter followed with her little portmanteau on his shoulder.
And so they passed under the archway across the trampled snow, and vanished out of sight.
A week went by--a fortnight went by--and still Hortense prolonged her mysterious absence. Where could she be gone? Was she ill? Had any accident befallen her on the road? What if the wounded hand had failed to heal? What if inflammation had set in, and she were lying, even now, sick and helpless, among strangers? These terrors came back upon me at every moment, and drove me almost to despair. In vain I interrogated Madame Bouïsse. The good-natured concierge knew no more than myself, and the little she had to tell only increased my uneasiness.
Hortense, it appeared, had taken two such journeys before, and had, on both occasions, started apparently at a moment's notice, and with every indication of anxiety and haste. From the first she returned after an interval of more than three weeks; from the second after about four or five days. Each absence had been followed by a long season of despondency and lassitude, during which, said the concierge, Mademoiselle scarcely spoke, or ate, or slept, but, silent and pale as a ghost, sat up later than ever with her books and papers. As for this last journey, all she knew about it was that Mam'selle had had her passport regulated for foreign parts the afternoon of the day before she started.
"But can you not remember in what direction the diligence was going?" I asked, again and again.
"No, M'sieur--not in the least,"
"Nor the name of the town to which her place was taken?"
"I don't know that I ever heard it, M'sieur."
"But at least you must have seen the address on the portmanteau?"
"Not I, M'sieur--I never thought of looking at it."
"Did she say nothing to account for the suddenness of her departure?"
"Nothing at all."
"Nor about her return either. Madame Bouïsse? Just think a moment--surely she said something about when you might expect her back again?"
"Nothing, M'sieur, except, by the way--"
"Except what?"
"Dame! only this--as she was just going to step into the diligence, she turned back and shook hands with me--Mam'selle Hortense, proud as she is, is never above shaking hands with me, I can tell you, M'sieur."
"No, no--I can well believe it. Pray, go on!"
"Well, M'sieur," she shakes hands with me, and she says, "Thank you, good Madame Bouïsse, for all your kindness to me.... Hear that, M'sieur, 'good Madame Bouïsse,'--the dear child!"
"And then--?"
"Bah! how impatient you are! Well, then, she says (after thanking me, you observe)--'I have paid you my rent, Madame Bouïsse, up to the end of the present month, and if, when the time has expired, I have neither written nor returned, consider me still as your tenant. If, however, I do not come back at all, I will let you know further respecting the care of my books and other property."
If she did not come back at all! Oh, Heaven! I had never contemplated such a possibility. I left Madame Bouïsse without another word, and going up to my own rooms, flung myself upon my bed, as if I were stupefied.
All that night, all the next day, those words haunted me. They seemed to have burned themselves into my brain in letters of fire. Dreaming, I woke up with them upon my lips; reading, they started out upon me from the page. "If I never come back at all!"
At last, when the fifth day came round--the fifth day of the third week of her absence--I became so languid and desponding that I lost all power of application.
Even Dr. Chéron noticed it, and calling me in the afternoon to his private room, said:--
"Basil Arbuthnot, you look ill. Are you working too hard?"
"I don't think so, sir."
"Humph! Are you out much at night?"
"Out, sir?"
"Yes--don't echo my words--do you go into society: frequent balls, theatres, and so forth?"
"I have not done so, sir, for several months past."
"What is it, then? Do you read late?"
"Really, sir, I hardly know--up to about one or two o'clock; on the average, I believe."
"Let me feel your pulse."
I put out my wrist, and he held it for some seconds, looking keenly at me all the time.
"Got anything on your mind?" he asked, after he had dropped it again. "Want money, eh?"
"No, sir, thank you."
"Home-sick?"
"Not in the least."
"Hah! want amusement. Can't work perpetually--not reasonable to suppose it. There, mon garçon," (taking a folded paper from his pocket-book) "there's a prescription for you. Make the most of it."
It was a stall-ticket for the opera. Too restless and unhappy to reject any chance of relief, however temporary, I accepted it, and went.
I had not been to a theatre since that night with Josephine, nor to the Italian Opera since I used to go with Madame de Marignan. As I went in listlessly and took my place, the lights, the noise, the multitude of faces, confused and dazzled me. Presently the curtain rose, and the piece began. The opera was I Capuletti. I do not remember who the singers were, I am not sure that I ever knew. To me they were Romeo and Juliet, and I was a dweller in Verona. The story, the music, the scenery, took a vivid hold upon my imagination. From the moment the curtain rose, I saw only the stage, and, except that I in some sort established a dim comparison between Romeo's sorrows and my own disquietude of mind, I seemed to lose all recollection of time and place, and almost of my own identity.
It seemed quite natural that that ill-fated pair of lovers should go through life, love, wed, and die singing. And why not? Are they not airy nothings, "born of romance, cradled in poetry, thinking other thoughts, and doing other deeds than ours?" As they live in poetry, so may they not with perfect fitness speak in song?
I went home in a dream, with the melodies ringing in my ears and the story lying heavy at my heart. I passed upstairs in the dark, went over to the window, and saw, oh joy! the light--the dear, familiar, welcome, blessed light, streaming forth, as of old, from Hortense's chamber window!
To thank Heaven that she was safe was my first impulse--to step out on the balcony, and watch the light as though it were a part of herself, was the second. I had not been there many moments when it was obscured by a passing shadow. The window opened and she came out.
"Good-evening," she said, in her calm, clear voice. "I heard you out here, and thought you might like to know that, thanks to your treatment in the first instance, and such care as I have been able since to give it, my hand is once more in working order."
"You are kind to come out and tell me so," I said. "I had no hope of seeing you to-night. How long is it since you arrived?"
"About two hours," she replied, carelessly.
"And you have been nearly three weeks away!"
"Have I?" said she, leaning her cheek upon her hand, and looking up dreamily into the night. "I did not count the days."
"That proves you passed them happily," I said; not without some secret bitterness.
"Happily!" she echoed. "What is happiness?"
"A word that we all translate differently," I replied.
"And your own reading of it?" she said, interrogatively.
I hesitated.
"Do you inquire what is my need, individually?" I asked, "or do you want my general definition?"
"The latter."
"I think, then, that the first requirement of happiness is work; the second, success."
She sighed.
"I accept your definition," she said, "and hope that you may realize it to the full in your own experience. For myself, I have toiled and failed--sought, and found not. Judge, then, how I came to leave the days uncounted."
The sadness of her attitude, the melancholy import of her words, the abstraction of her manner, filled me with a vague uneasiness.
"Failure is often the forerunner of success," I replied, for want, perhaps, of something better to say.
She shook her head drearily, and stood looking up at the sky, where, every now and then, the moon shone out fitfully between the flying clouds.
"It is not the first time," she murmured, "nor will it be the last--and yet they say that God is merciful."
She had forgotten my presence. These words were not spoken to me, but in answer to her own thoughts. I said nothing, but watched her upturned face. It was pale as the wan moon overhead; thinner than before she went away; and sadder--oh, how much sadder!
She roused herself presently, and turning to me, said:--"I beg your pardon. I am very absent; but I am greatly fatigued. I have been travelling incessantly for two days and nights."
"Then I will wish you good-night at once," I said.
"Good-night," she replied; and went back into her room.
The next morning Dr. Chéron smiled one of his cold smiles, and said:--
"You look better to-day, my young friend. I knew how it was with you--no worse malady, after all, than ennui. I shall take care to repeat the medicine from time to time."
Hoping, yet scarcely expecting to see her, I went out upon my balcony the next night at the same hour; but the light of her lamp was bright within, no shadow obscured it, and no window opened. So, after waiting for more than an hour, I gave her up, and returned to my work. I did this for six nights in succession. On the seventh she came.
"You are fond of your balcony, fellow-student," said she. "I often hear you out here."
"My room gets heated," I replied, "and my eyes weary, after several hours of hard reading; and this keen, clear air puts new life into one's brains."
"Yes, it is delicious," said she, looking up into the night. "How dark the space of heaven is, and, how bright are the stars! What a night for the Alps! What a night to be upon some Alpine height, watching the moon through a good telescope, and waiting for the sunrise!"
"Defer that wish for a few months," I replied smiling. "You would scarcely like Switzerland in her winter robes."
"Nay, I prefer Switzerland in winter," she said. "I passed through part of the Jura about ten days ago, and saw nothing but snow. It was magnificent--like a paradise of pure marble awaiting the souls of all the sculptors of all the ages."
"A fantastic idea," said I, "and spoken like an artist."
"Like an artist!" she repeated, musingly. "Well, are not all students artists?"
"Not those who study the exact sciences--not the student of law or divinity--nor he who, like myself, is a student of medicine. He is the slave of Fact, and Art is the Eden of his banishment. His imagination is for ever captive. His horizon is for ever bounded. He is fettered by routine, and paralyzed by tradition. His very ideas must put on the livery of his predecessors; for in a profession where originality of thought stands for the blackest shade of original sin, skill--mere skill--must be the end of his ambition."
She looked at me, and the moonlight showed me that sad smile which her lips so often wore.
"You do not love your profession," she said.
"I do not, indeed."
"And yet you labor zealously to acquire it--how is that?"
"How is it with hundreds of others? My profession was chosen for me. I am not my own master."
"But are you sure you would be happier in some other pursuit? Supposing, for instance, that you were free to begin again, what career do you think you would prefer?"
"I scarcely know, and I should scarcely care, so long as there was freedom of thought and speculation in it."
"Geology, perhaps--or astronomy," she suggested, laughingly.
"Merci! The bowels of the earth are too profound, and the heavens too lofty for me. I should choose some pursuit that would set the Ariel of the imagination free. That is to say, I could be very happy if my life were devoted to Science, but my soul echoes to the name of Art."
"'The artist creates--the man of science discovers," said Hortense. "Beware lest you fancy you would prefer the work of creation only because you lack patience to pursue the work of discovery. Pardon me, if I suggest that you may, perhaps, be fitted for neither. Your sphere, I fancy, is reflection--comparison--criticism. You are not made for action, or work. Your taste is higher than your ambition, and you love learning better than fame. Am I right?"
"So right that I regret I can be read so easily."
"And therefore, it may be that you would find yourself no happier with Art than with Science. You might even fall into deeper discouragement; for in Science every onward step is at least certain gain, but in Art every step is groping, and success is only another form of effort. Art, in so far as it is more divine, is more unattainable, more evanescent, more unsubstantial. It needs as much patience as Science, and the passionate devotion of an entire life is as nothing in comparison with the magnitude of the work. Self-sacrifice, self-distrust, infinite patience, infinite disappointment--such is the lot of the artist, such the law of aspiration."
"A melancholy creed."
"But a true one. The divine is doomed to suffering, and under the hays of the poet lurk ever the thorns of the self-immolator."
"But, amid all this record of his pains, do you render no account of his pleasures?" I asked. "You forget that he has moments of enjoyment lofty as his aims, and deep as his devotion.
"I do not forget it," she said. "I know it but too well. Alas! is not the catalogue of his pleasures the more melancholy record of the two? Hopes which sharpen disappointment; visions which cheat while they enrapture; dreams that embitter his waking hours--fellow-student, do you envy him these?"
"I do; believing that he would not forego them for a life of common-place annoyances and placid pleasures."
"Forego them! Never. Who that had once been the guest of the gods would forego the Divine for the Human? No--it is better to suffer than to stagnate. The artist and poet is overpaid in his brief snatches of joy. While they last, his soul sings 'at heaven's gate,' and his forehead strikes the stars."
She spoke with a rare and passionate enthusiasm; sometimes pacing to and fro; sometimes pausing with upturned face--
"A dauntless muse who eyes a dreadful fate!"
There was a long, long silence--she looking at the stars, I upon her face.
By-and-by she came over to where I stood, and leaned upon the railing that divided our separate territories.
"Friend," said she, gravely, "be content. Art is the Sphinx, and to question her is destruction. Enjoy books, pictures, music, statues--rifle the world of beauty to satiety, if satiety be possible--but there pause Drink the wine; seek not to crush the grape. Be happy, be useful, labor honestly upon the task that is thine, and be assured that the work will itself achieve its reward. Is it nothing to relieve pain--to prolong the days of the sickly--to restore health to the suffering--to soothe the last pangs of the dying? Is it nothing to be followed by the prayers and blessing of those whom you have restored to love, to fame, to the world's service? To my thinking, the physician's trade hath something god-like in it. Be content. Harvey's discovery was as sublime as Newton's, and it were hard to say which did God's work best--Shakespeare or Jenner."
"And you," I said, the passion that I could not conceal trembling in my voice; "and you--what are you, poet, or painter, or musician, that you know and reason of all these things?"
She laughed with a sudden change of mood, and shook her head.
"I am a woman," said she. "Simply a woman--no more. One of the inferior sex; and, as I told you long ago, only half civilized."
"You are unlike every other woman!"
"Possibly, because I am more useless. Strange as it may seem, do you know I love art better than sewing, or gossip, or dress; and hold my liberty to be a dower more precious than either beauty or riches? And yet--I am a woman!"
"The wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best!"
"By no means. You are comparing me with Eve; but I am
not in the least like Eve, I assure you. She was an excellent housewife, and, if we may believe Milton, knew how to prepare 'dulcet creams,' and all sorts of Paradisaical dainties for her husband's dinner. I, on the contrary, could not make a cream if Adam's life depended on it."
"Eh bien! of the theology of creams I know nothing. I only know that Eve was the first and fairest of her sex, and that you are as wise as you are beautiful."
"Nay, that is what Titania said to the ass," laughed Hortense. "Your compliments become equivocal, fellow-student. But hush! what hour is that?"
She stood with uplifted finger. The air was keen, and over the silence of the house-tops chimed the church-clocks--Two.
"It is late, and cold," said she, drawing her cloak more closely round her.
"Not later than you usually sit up," I replied. "Don't go yet. 'Tis now the very witching hour of night, when churchyards yawn--"
"I beg your pardon," she interrupted. "The churchyards have done yawning by this time, and, like other respectable citizens, are sound asleep. Let us follow their example. Good-night."
"Good-night," I replied, reluctantly; but almost before I had said it, she was gone.
After this, as the winter wore away, and spring drew on, Hortense's balcony became once more a garden, and she used to attend to her flowers every evening. She always found me on my balcony when she came out, and soon our open-air meetings became such an established fact that, instead of parting with "good-night," we said "au revoir--till to-morrow." At these times we talked of many things; sometimes of subjects abstract and mystical--of futurity, of death, of the spiritual life--but oftenest of Art in its manifold developments. And sometimes our speculations wandered on into the late hours of the night.
And yet, for all our talking and all our community of tastes, we became not one jot more intimate. I still loved in silence--she still lived in a world apart.