Frederick had not enough energy left to lie. He opened his arms, and flung himself on his friend"s breast.
Then the clerk told his story. His father thought to avoid giving an account of the expense of tutelage, fancying that the period limited for rendering such accounts was ten years; but, well up in legal procedure, Deslauriers had managed to get the share coming to him from his mother into his clutches--seven thousand francs clear--which he had there with him in an old pocket-book.
""Tis a reserve fund, in case of misfortune. I must think over the best way of investing it, and find quarters for myself to-morrow morning.
To-day I"m perfectly free, and am entirely at your service, my old friend."
"Oh! don"t put yourself about," said Frederick. "If you had anything of importance to do this evening----"
"Come, now! I would be a selfish wretch----"
This epithet, flung out at random, touched Frederick to the quick, like a reproachful hint.
The door-keeper had placed on the table close to the fire some chops, cold meat, a large lobster, some sweets for dessert, and two bottles of Bordeaux.
Deslauriers was touched by these excellent preparations to welcome his arrival.
"Upon my word, you are treating me like a king!"
They talked about their past and about the future; and, from time to time, they grasped each other"s hands across the table, gazing at each other tenderly for a moment.
But a messenger came with a new hat. Deslauriers, in a loud tone, remarked that this head-gear was very showy. Next came the tailor himself to fit on the coat, to which he had given a touch with the smoothing-iron.
"One would imagine you were going to be married," said Deslauriers.
An hour later, a third individual appeared on the scene, and drew forth from a big black bag a pair of shining patent leather boots. While Frederick was trying them on, the bootmaker slyly drew attention to the shoes of the young man from the country.
"Does Monsieur require anything?"
"Thanks," replied the clerk, pulling behind his chair his old shoes fastened with strings.
This humiliating incident annoyed Frederick. At length he exclaimed, as if an idea had suddenly taken possession of him:
"Ha! deuce take it! I was forgetting."
"What is it, pray?"
"I have to dine in the city this evening."
"At the Dambreuses"? Why did you never say anything to me about them in your letters?"
"It is not at the Dambreuses", but at the Arnoux"s."
"You should have let me know beforehand," said Deslauriers. "I would have come a day later."
"Impossible," returned Frederick, abruptly. "I only got the invitation this morning, a little while ago."
And to redeem his error and distract his friend"s mind from the occurrence, he proceeded to unfasten the tangled cords round the trunk, and to arrange all his belongings in the chest of drawers, expressed his willingness to give him his own bed, and offered to sleep himself in the dressing-room bedstead. Then, as soon as it was four o"clock, he began the preparations for his toilet.
"You have plenty of time," said the other.
At last he was dressed and off he went.
"That"s the way with the rich," thought Deslauriers.
And he went to dine in the Rue Saint-Jacques, at a little restaurant kept by a man he knew.
Frederick stopped several times while going up the stairs, so violently did his heart beat. One of his gloves, which was too tight, burst, and, while he was fastening back the torn part under his shirt-cuff, Arnoux, who was mounting the stairs behind him, took his arm and led him in.
The anteroom, decorated in the Chinese fashion, had a painted lantern hanging from the ceiling, and bamboos in the corners. As he was pa.s.sing into the drawing-room, Frederick stumbled against a tiger"s skin. The place had not yet been lighted up, but two lamps were burning in the boudoir in the far corner.
Mademoiselle Marthe came to announce that her mamma was dressing. Arnoux raised her as high as his mouth in order to kiss her; then, as he wished to go to the cellar himself to select certain bottles of wine, he left Frederick with the little girl.
She had grown much larger since the trip in the steamboat. Her dark hair descended in long ringlets, which curled over her bare arms. Her dress, more puffed out than the petticoat of a _danseuse_, allowed her rosy calves to be seen, and her pretty childlike form had all the fresh odour of a bunch of flowers. She received the young gentleman"s compliments with a coquettish air, fixed on him her large, dreamy eyes, then slipping on the carpet amid the furniture, disappeared like a cat.
After this he no longer felt ill at ease. The globes of the lamps, covered with a paper lace-work, sent forth a white light, softening the colour of the walls, hung with mauve satin. Through the fender-bars, as through the slits in a big fan, the coal could be seen in the fireplace, and close beside the clock there was a little chest with silver clasps.
Here and there things lay about which gave the place a look of home--a doll in the middle of the sofa, a fichu against the back of a chair, and on the work-table a knitted woollen vest, from which two ivory needles were hanging with their points downwards. It was altogether a peaceful spot, suggesting the idea of propriety and innocent family life.
Arnoux returned, and Madame Arnoux appeared at the other doorway. As she was enveloped in shadow, the young man could at first distinguish only her head. She wore a black velvet gown, and in her hair she had fastened a long Algerian cap, in a red silk net, which coiling round her comb, fell over her left shoulder.
Arnoux introduced Frederick.
"Oh! I remember Monsieur perfectly well," she responded.
Then the guests arrived, nearly all at the same time--Dittmer, Lovarias, Burrieu, the composer Rosenwald, the poet Theophile Lorris, two art critics, colleagues of Hussonnet, a paper manufacturer, and in the rear the ill.u.s.trious Pierre Paul Meinsius, the last representative of the grand school of painting, who blithely carried along with his glory his forty-five years and his big paunch.
When they were pa.s.sing into the dining-room, Madame Arnoux took his arm.
A chair had been left vacant for Pellerin. Arnoux, though he took advantage of him, was fond of him. Besides, he was afraid of his terrible tongue, so much so, that, in order to soften him, he had given a portrait of him in _L"Art Industriel_, accompanied by exaggerated eulogies; and Pellerin, more sensitive about distinction than about money, made his appearance about eight o"clock quite out of breath.
Frederick fancied that they had been a long time reconciled.
He liked the company, the dishes, everything. The dining-room, which resembled a mediaeval parlour, was hung with stamped leather. A Dutch whatnot faced a rack for chibouks, and around the table the Bohemian gla.s.ses, variously coloured, had, in the midst of the flowers and fruits, the effect of an illumination in a garden.
He had to make his choice between ten sorts of mustard. He partook of das.p.a.chio, of curry, of ginger, of Corsican blackbirds, and a species of Roman macaroni called lasagna; he drank extraordinary wines, lip-fraeli and tokay. Arnoux indeed prided himself on entertaining people in good style. With an eye to the procurement of eatables, he paid court to mail-coach drivers, and was in league with the cooks of great houses, who communicated to him the secrets of rare sauces.
But Frederick was particularly amused by the conversation. His taste for travelling was tickled by Dittmer, who talked about the East; he gratified his curiosity about theatrical matters by listening to Rosenwald"s chat about the opera; and the atrocious existence of Bohemia a.s.sumed for him a droll aspect when seen through the gaiety of Hussonnet, who related, in a picturesque fashion, how he had spent an entire winter with no food except Dutch cheese. Then, a discussion between Lovarias and Burrieu about the Florentine School gave him new ideas with regard to masterpieces, widened his horizon, and he found difficulty in restraining his enthusiasm when Pellerin exclaimed:
"Don"t bother me with your hideous reality! What does it mean--reality?
Some see things black, others blue--the mult.i.tude sees them brute-fashion. There is nothing less natural than Michael Angelo; there is nothing more powerful! The anxiety about external truth is a mark of contemporary baseness; and art will become, if things go on that way, a sort of poor joke as much below religion as it is below poetry, and as much below politics as it is below business. You will never reach its end--yes, its end!--which is to cause within us an impersonal exaltation, with petty works, in spite of all your finished execution.
Look, for instance, at Ba.s.solier"s pictures: they are pretty, coquettish, spruce, and by no means dull. You might put them into your pocket, bring them with you when you are travelling. Notaries buy them for twenty thousand francs, while pictures of the ideal type are sold for three sous. But, without ideality, there is no grandeur; without grandeur there is no beauty. Olympus is a mountain. The most swagger monument will always be the Pyramids. Exuberance is better than taste; the desert is better than a street-pavement, and a savage is better than a hairdresser!"
Frederick, as these words fell upon his ear, glanced towards Madame Arnoux. They sank into his soul like metals falling into a furnace, added to his pa.s.sion, and supplied the material of love.
His chair was three seats below hers on the same side. From time to time, she bent forward a little, turning aside her head to address a few words to her little daughter; and as she smiled on these occasions, a dimple took shape in her cheek, giving to her face an expression of more dainty good-nature.
As soon as the time came for the gentlemen to take their wine, she disappeared. The conversation became more free and easy. M. Arnoux shone in it, and Frederick was astonished at the cynicism of men. However, their preoccupation with woman established between them and him, as it were, an equality, which raised him in his own estimation.
When they had returned to the drawing-room, he took up, to keep himself in countenance, one of the alb.u.ms which lay about on the table. The great artists of the day had ill.u.s.trated them with drawings, had written in them s.n.a.t.c.hes of verse or prose, or their signatures simply. In the midst of famous names he found many that he had never heard of before, and original thoughts appeared only underneath a flood of nonsense. All these effusions contained a more or less direct expression of homage towards Madame Arnoux. Frederick would have been afraid to write a line beside them.
She went into her boudoir to look at the little chest with silver clasps which he had noticed on the mantel-shelf. It was a present from her husband, a work of the Renaissance. Arnoux"s friends complimented him, and his wife thanked him. His tender emotions were aroused, and before all the guests he gave her a kiss.