Sentimental Education (Barnes & Noble Classics Series) (31 page)

Frédéric resented it. However, Rosanette was beginning to excite his love to an unusual degree. Sometimes, assuming the attitude of a woman of experience, she spoke ill of love with a sceptical smile, that made him feel inclined to slap her. A quarter of an hour afterwards, it was the best thing in the world, and, with her arms crossed over her chest, as if she were holding some one close to her: “Oh, yes! It’s wonderful! It’s so wonderful!” and her eyelids would quiver in a kind of rapturous swoon. It was impossible to understand her, to know, for instance, whether she loved Arnoux, for she made fun of him, and yet seemed jealous of him. So like-wise with Vatnaz, whom she would sometimes call a wretch, and at other times her best friend. In short, there was about her entire person, even to the very arrangement of her chignon over her head, an inexpressible something, which seemed like a challenge; and he desired her for the satisfaction, above all, of conquering her and being her master.

How was he to accomplish this? for she often sent him away unceremoniously, appearing only for a moment between two doors in order to say in a subdued voice, “I’m busy—rbr the evening;” or else he found her surrounded by a dozen people; and when they were alone, so many impediments arose one after the other, that one would have sworn there was a bet to keep matters from going any further. He invited her to dinner; as a rule, she declined the invitation. On one occasion, she accepted it, but did not come.

A Machiavellian idea popped in to his brain.

Having heard from Dussardier about Pellerin’s complaints against him, he thought of giving the artist an order to paint the Maréchale’s portrait, a life-sized portrait, which would necessitate a good number of sittings. He would not fail to be present at all of them. The habitual unpunctuality of the painter would facilitate their private conversations. So then he would urge Rosanette to have the painting executed in order to make a present of her face to her dear Arnoux. She consented, for she saw herself in the midst of the Grand Salon
^ai
in the most prominent position with a crowd of people staring at her picture, and the newspapers would all talk about it, which at once would “launch her.”

As for Pellerin, he eagerly jumped at the offer. This portrait ought to place him in the position of a great man; it ought to be a masterpiece. He reviewed in his mind all the portraits by great masters with which he was acquainted, and decided finally in favour of a Titian, which would be set off with ornaments in the style of Veronese. Therefore, he would carry out his design without artificial backgrounds in a bold light, which would illuminate the flesh-tints with a single tone, and which would make the accessories glitter.

“Suppose I were to put on her,” he thought, “a pink silk dress with an Oriental bournous? Oh, no! the bournous is cheap-looking! Or suppose, rather, I were to make her wear blue velvet with a grey background, richly coloured? We might likewise give her a white lace collar with a black fan and a scarlet curtain behind.” And thus, searching as such, he expanded his concept with every passing day, and marvelled at it.

He felt his heart beating when Rosanette, accompanied by Frédéric, called at his house for the first sitting. He placed her standing up on a sort of platform in the middle of the room, and, finding fault with the light and expressing regret at the loss of his former studio, he first made her lean on her elbow against a pedestal, then sit down in an armchair, and, drawing away from her and coming near her again in order to adjust with a flick the folds of her dress, he looked at her with eyes half-closed, and consulted Frédéric’s taste with a passing word.

“On second thought, no,” he exclaimed; “I’ll return to my first idea. I will set you up in the Venetian style.”

She would have a poppy-coloured velvet gown with a silver belt; and her wide sleeve lined with ermine would afford a glimpse of her bare arm, which was to touch the balustrade of a staircase rising behind her. At her left, a large column would mount as far as the top of the canvas to meet certain structures so as to form an arch. Underneath one would vaguely distinguish groups of orange-trees almost black, through which the blue sky, with its streaks of white clouds, would seem cut into fragments. On the carpeted balustrade, there would be, on a silver dish, a bouquet of flowers, an amber rosary, a dagger, and a little chest of antique ivory, rather yellowed with age, which would appear to be overflowing with old Venetian gold coins. Some of them, falling on the ground here and there, would form brilliant splashes, as it were, in such a way as to direct one’s glance towards the tip of her foot, for she would be standing on the second to last step in a natural position, and in full light.

He went to look for a picture-crate, which he laid on the platform to represent the step. Then he arranged as accessories, on a stool in the role of the balustrade, his jacket, a shield, a sardine-box, a bundle of feathers, and a knife; and when he had flung in front of Rosanette a dozen coins, he made her assume the pose he required.

“Just try to imagine that these things are riches, magnificent presents. The head a little on one side! Perfect! and don’t move! This majestic posture exactly suits your style of beauty.”

She wore a plaid dress and carried a big muff, and only kept from laughing outright by an effort of self-control.

“As regards the headdress, we will mingle with it a circle of pearls. It always produces a striking effect with red hair.”

The Maréchale burst out into an exclamation, remarking that she did not have red hair.

“Nonsense! The red of painters is not that of ordinary people.”

He began to sketch the main outlines; and he was so much preoccupied with the great artists of the Renaissance that he kept talking about them persistently. For a whole hour he went on musing aloud on those splendid lives, full of genius, glory, and sumptuous displays, with triumphal entries into the cities, and galas by torchlight among half-naked women, beautiful as goddesses.

“You were made to live in those days. A creature of your calibre would have deserved a prince.”

Rosanette thought the compliments he paid her very kind. The day was fixed for the next sitting. Frédéric took it on himself to bring the accessories.

As the heat of the stove had dazed her a little, they went home on foot through the Rue du Bac, and reached the Pont Royal.

It was fine weather, piercingly bright and warm. Some windows of houses in the city shone in the distance, like plates of gold, whilst behind them at the right the towers of Nôtre Dame showed their outlines in black against the blue sky, softly bathed at the horizon in a grey haze.

The wind began to blow; and as Rosanette declared that she felt hungry, they entered the “Patisserie Anglaise.”

Young women with their children stood eating in front of the marble counter, where plates of little cakes had glass covers over them. Rosanette ate two cream-tarts. The powdered sugar formed moustaches at the sides of her mouth. From time to time, in order to wipe it, she drew out her handkerchief from her muff, and her face, under her green silk hood, resembled a rose blooming amidst its leaves.

They resumed their walk. In the Rue de la Paix she stood before a goldsmith’s shop to look at a bracelet. Frédéric wished to make her a present of it.

“No!” said she; “keep your money!”

He was hurt by these words.

“What’s the matter now with my pet? Is he melancholy?”

And, when the conversation resumed, he began making the same declarations of love to her as usual.

“You know well ’tis impossible!”

“Why?”

“Ah! because—”

They went on side by side, she leaning on his arm, and the flounces of her gown kept flapping against his legs. Then, he remembered one winter twilight when on the same sidewalk Madame Arnoux walked thus by his side, and he became so much absorbed in this recollection that he no longer saw Rosanette, and stopped thinking of her.

She kept looking straight ahead in a careless fashion, lagging a little, like a lazy child. It was the hour when people had just come back from their promenade, and carriages were making their way at a quick trot over the hard pavement.

Pellerin’s flatteries having undoubtedly come to mind, she heaved a sigh.

“Ah! there are some lucky women in the world. Decidedly, I was made for a rich man!”

He replied, with a certain brutality in his tone:

“But you already have one!” for M. Oudry was looked upon as a man that could count a million three times over.

She asked for nothing more than to be free of him.

“What prevents you from doing so?” And he made bitter jokes about this old bourgeois in his wig, pointing out to her that such a relationship was unworthy of her, and that she ought to break it off.

“Yes,” replied the Maréchale, as if talking to herself. “ ’Tis what I shall end by doing, no doubt!”

Frédéric was charmed by this disinterestedness. She slackened her pace, and he imagined that she was fatigued. She obstinately refused to let him take a cab, and she parted with him at her door, blowing him a kiss with her finger-tips.

“Ah! what a pity! and to think that some fools take me for a wealthy man!”

He reached home in a gloomy frame of mind.

Hussonnet and Deslauriers were awaiting him. The Bohemian, seated before the table, made sketches of Turks; and the lawyer, in dirty boots, lay asleep on the sofa.

“Ah! at last,” he exclaimed. “But how sullen you look! Can you listen to what I have to say?”

His popularity as a tutor had fallen off, for he crammed his pupils with unfavourable theories for their examinations. He had appeared in two or three cases in which he had been unsuccessful, and each new disappointment flung him back with greater force on the dream of his earlier days—a journal in which he could show himself off, avenge himself, and spit forth his bile and his opinions. Fortune and reputation, moreover, would follow as a necessary consequence. It was with this hope in mind that he had persuaded the Bohemian, Hussonnet happening to be the possessor of a press.

At present, he printed it on pink paper. He invented hoaxes, composed puzzles, tried to start controversies, and even intended, in spite of the premises, to put concerts together. A year’s subscription entitled the subscriber to an orchestra seat in one of the principal theatres of Paris. In addition, the board of management took on itself to furnish foreigners with all necessary information, artistic and otherwise. But the printer was making threats; there were three quarters’ rent due to the landlord. All sorts of difficulties arose; and Hussonnet would have allowed
L ’Art
to perish, were it not for the exhortations of the lawyer, who encouraged him every day. He had brought Frédéric along with him, in order to give more weight to his appeals.

“We’ve come about the journal,” he said.

“What! are you still thinking about that?” said Frédéric, in an absent tone.

“Certainly, I am thinking about it!”

And he explained his plan anew. By means of reports on the stock exchange, they would get into communication with financiers, and would thus obtain the hundred thousand francs needed as security. But, in order that the print might be transformed into a political journal, it was necessary beforehand to have a large
clientèle,
and for that purpose to make up their minds to go to some expense—so much for the cost of paper and printing, and for outlay at the office; in short, a sum of about fifteen thousand francs.

“I have no funds,” said Frédéric.

“And what are we to do, then?” said Deslauriers, with folded arms.

Frédéric, hurt by the attitude which Deslauriers was assuming, replied:

“Is that my fault?”

“Ah! very fine. A man has wood in his fire, truffles on his table, a good bed, a library, a carriage, every kind of comfort. But let another man shiver under the slates, dine at twenty sous, work like a convict, and wallow in the mire—is it the rich man’s fault?”

And he repeated, “Is it the rich man’s fault?” with a Ciceronian irony which smacked of the law-court.

Frédéric tried to speak.

“However, I understand one has certain wants—aristocratic wants; for, no doubt, some woman—”

“Well, even if that were so? Am I not free—?”

“Oh! quite free!”

And, after a minute’s silence:

“Promises are so convenient!”

“Good God! I don’t deny that I gave them!” said Frédéric.

The lawyer went on:

“At college we take oaths; we are going to set up a phalanx; we are going to imitate Balzac’s Thirteen.
^aj
Then, on meeting a friend after a separation: ‘Good night, old fellow! Go about your business!’ For he who might help the other carefully keeps everything for himself alone.”

“How is that?”

“Yes, you have not even introduced me to the Dambreuses.”

Frédéric cast a scrutinising glance at him. With his shabby frock-coat, his spectacles of rough glass, and his sallow face, the lawyer seemed to him such a typical specimen of the penniless pedant that he could not prevent his lips from curling with a disdainful smile.

Deslauriers perceived this, and reddened.

He had already taken his hat to leave. Hussonnet, filled with uneasiness, tried to mollify him with appealing looks, and, as Frédéric was turning his back on him:

“Look here, my boy, become my Mæcenas!
^ak
Protect the arts!”

Frédéric, with an abrupt movement of resignation, took a sheet of paper, and, having scrawled some lines on it, handed it to him. The Bohemian’s face lighted up.

Then, passing across the sheet of paper to Deslauriers:

“Apologise, my fine fellow!”

Their friend was asking his notary to send him fifteen thousand francs as quickly as possible.

“Ah! That’s the old friend I used to know,” said Deslauriers.