The Parisians — Complete by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton (best novels ever txt) 📕

In vain persons, be they male or female, there is a complacent self-satisfaction in any momentary personal success, however little that success may conduce to—nay, however much it may militate against—the objects to which their vanity itself devotes its more permanent desires. A vain woman may be very anxious to win A———, the magnificent, as a partner for life; and yet feel a certain triumph when a glance of her eye has made an evening’s conquest of the pitiful B———-, although by that achievement she incurs the imminent hazard of losing A——— altogether. So, when Gustave Rameau quitted Isaura, his first feeling was that of triumph. His eloquence had subdued her will; she had not finally discarded him. But as he wandered abstractedly in the biting air, his self-complacency was succeeded by mortification and discontent. He felt that he had committed himself to promises which he was by no means prepared to keep. True, the promises were vague in words; but in substance they were perfectly clear—“to spare, nay, to aid all that Isaura esteemed and reverenced.” How was this possible to him? How could he suddenly change the whole character of his writings?—how become the defender of marriage and property, of church and religion?—how proclaim himself so utter an apostate? If he did, how become a leader of the fresh revolution? how escape being its victim? Cease to write altogether?

But then how live? His pen was his sole subsistence, save 30 sous a-day as a National Guard—30 sous a day to him, who, in order to be Sybarite in tastes, was Spartan in doctrine. Nothing better just at that moment than Spartan doctrine, “Live on black broth and fight the enemy.” And the journalists in vogue so thrived upon that patriotic sentiment, that they were the last persons compelled to drink the black broth or to fight the enemy.

“Those women are such idiots when they meddle in politics,” grumbled between his teeth the enthusiastic advocate of Woman’s Rights on all matters of love. “And,” he continued, soliloquising, “it is not as if the girl had any large or decent dot; it is not as if she said, ‘In return for the sacrifice of your popularity, your prospects, your opinions, I give you not only a devoted heart, but an excellent table and a capital fire and plenty of pocket-money.’ Sacre bleu! when I think of that frozen salon, and possibly the leg of a mouse for dinner, and a virtuous homily by way of grace, the prospect is not alluring; and the girl herself is not so pretty as she was—grown very thin. Sur mon ame, I think she asks too much—far more than she is worth. No, No; I had better have accepted her dismissal. Elle n’est pas digne de moi.”

Just as he arrived at that conclusion, Gustave Rameau felt the touch of a light, a soft, a warm, yet a firm hand, on his aria. He turned, and beheld the face of the woman whom, through so many dreary weeks, he had sought to shun—the face of Julie Caumartin. Julie was not, as Savarin had seen her, looking pinched and wan, with faded robes, nor, as when met in the cafe by Lemercier, in the faded robes of a theatre. Julie never looked more beautiful, more radiant, than she did now; and there was a wonderful heartfelt fondness in her voice when she cried, “Mon homme! mon homme! seul homme au monde a mon coeur, Gustave, cheri adore! I have found thee-at last—at last!” Gustave gazed upon her, stupefied. Involuntarily his eye glanced from the freshness of bloom in her face which the intense cold of the atmosphere only seemed to heighten into purer health, to her dress, which was new and handsome—black—he did not know that it was mourning—the cloak trimmed with costly sables. Certainly it was no mendicant for alms who thus reminded the shivering Adonis of the claims of a pristine Venus. He stammered out her naive, “Julie!”—and then he stopped.

“Oui, ta Julie! Petit ingrat! how I have sought for thee! how I have hungered for the sight of thee! That monster Savarin! he would not give me any news of thee. That is ages ago. But at least Frederic Lemercier, whom I saw since, promised to remind thee that I lived still. He did not do so, or I should have seen thee—n’est ce, pas?”

“Certainly, certainly—only—chere amie—you know that—that—as I before announced to thee, I—I—was engaged in marriage—and—and—”

“But are you married?”

“No, no. Hark! Take care—is not that the hiss of an obus?”

“What then? Let it come! Would it might slay us both while my hand is in thine!”

“Ah!” muttered Gustave, inwardly, “what a difference! This is love! No preaching here! Elle est plus digne de moi que d’autre.”

“No,” he said, aloud, “I am not married. Marriage is at best a pitiful ceremony. But if you wished for news of me, surely you must have heard of my effect as an orator not despised in the Salle Favre. Since, I have withdrawn from that arena. But as a journalist I flatter myself that I have had a beau succes.”