Books: A Romance of Youth, v2
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Francois Coppee >> A Romance of Youth, v2
He was so extremely timid that he never had had the audacity to tell the
girl at the glove counter that he preferred bronze-green gloves, nor the
boldness to show Maria Gerard his poems composed in her honor, in which
he now always put the plural "amours," so as to make it rhyme with
"toujours," which was an improvement. He never had dared to reply to the
glance of the little maid on the second floor; and he was very wrong to
be embarrassed, for one morning, as he passed the butcher's shop, he saw
the butcher's foreman put his arm about the girl's waist and whisper a
love speech over a fine sirloin roast.
Sometimes, in going or coming from the office, Amedee would go to see his
friend Maurice, who had obtained from Madame Roger permission to install
himself in the Latin Quarter so as to be near the law school.
In a very low-studded first-floor room in the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince,
Amedee perceived through a cloud of tobacco-smoke the elegant Maurice in
a scarlet jacket lying upon a large divan. Everything was rich and
voluptuous, heavy carpets, handsomely bound volumes of poems, an open
piano, and an odor of perfumery mingled with that of cigarettes. Upon
the velvet-covered mantel Mademoiselle Irma, the favorite of the master
of the apartment, had left the last fashionable novel, marking, with one
of her hairpins, where she had left off reading. Amedee spent a
delightful hour there. Maurice always greeted him with his joyful,
kind manner, in which one hardly minded the slight shade of patronage.
He walked up and down his room, expanding his finely moulded chest,
lighting and throwing away his cigarettes, seating himself for two
minutes at the piano and playing one of Chopin's sad strains, opening a
book and reading a page, showing his albums to his friend, making him
repeat some of his poems, applauding him and touching lightly upon
different subjects, and charming Amedee more and more by his grace and
manners.
However, Amedee could not enjoy his friend much, as he rarely found him
alone. Every few moments--the key was in the door--Maurice's comrades,
young pleasure-seekers like himself, but more vulgar, not having his
gentlemanly bearing and manners, would come to talk with him of some
projected scheme or to remind him of some appointment for the evening.
Often, some one of them, with his hat upon his head, would dash off a
polka, after placing his lighted cigar upon the edge of the piano. These
fast fellows frightened Amedee a little, as he had the misfortune to be
fastidious.
After these visitors had left, Maurice would ask his friend to dinner,
but the door would open again, and Mademoiselle Irma, in her furs and
small veil--a comical little face--would enter quickly and throw her arms
about Amedee's neck, kissing him, while rumpling his hair with her gloved
hands.
"Bravo! we will all three dine together."
No! Amedee is afraid of Mademoiselle Irma, who has already thrown her
mantle upon the sofa and crowned the bronze Venus de Milo with her otter
toque. The young man excuses himself, he is expected at home.
"Timid fellow, go!" said Maurice to him, as he conducted him to the
door, laughing.
What longings! What dreams! They made up all of poor Amedee's life.
Sometimes they were sad, for he suffered in seeing his father indulge
himself more and more in his vice. No woman loved him, and he never had
one louis in his pocket for pleasure or liberty. But he did not
complain. His life was noble and happy! He smiled with pleasure as he
thought of his good friends; his heart beat in great throbs as he thought
of love; he wept with rapture over beautiful verses. The spectacle of
life, through hope and the ideal, seemed to him transfigured. Happy
Amedee! He was not yet twenty years old!
CHAPTER VII
A GENTLE COUNSELLOR
One sombre, misty, winter morning, as Amedee lingered in his bed, his
father entered, bringing him a letter that the wife of the concierge had
just brought up. The letter was from Maurice, inviting his friend to
dinner that evening at seven o'clock at Foyots, to meet some of his
former companions at the Lycee Henri IV.
"Will you excuse me for not dining with you this evening, papa?" said
Amedee, joyfully. "Maurice Roger entertains us at a restaurant."
The young man's gayety left him suddenly when he looked at his father,
who had seated himself on the side of the bed. He had become almost
frightful to look at; old before his time, livid of complexion, his eyes
bloodshot, the rebellious lock of hair straggling over his right temple.
Nothing was more heartbreaking than his senile smile when he placed his
bony trembling hands upon his thighs. Amedee, who knew, alas, why his
father had reached such a pass, felt his heart moved with pity and shame.
"Are you suffering to-day?" asked the young man. "Would you prefer that
we should dine together as usual? I will send word to Maurice. Nothing
is easier."
"No, my child, no!" replied M. Violette, in a hollow tone. "Go and
amuse yourself with your friends. I know perfectly well that the life
you lead with me is too monotonous. Go and amuse yourself, it will
please me--only there is an idea that troubles me more than usual--and
I want to confide it to you."
"What is it then, dear papa?"
"Amedee, last March your mother had been dead fifteen years. You hardly
knew her. She was the sweetest and best of creatures, and all that I can
wish you is, that you may meet such a woman, make her your companion for
life, and be more fortunate than I, my poor Amedee, and keep her always.
During these frightful years since your mother's death I have suffered,
do you see? suffered horribly, and I have never, never been consoled.
If I have lived--if I have had the strength to live, in spite of all, it
was only for you and in remembrance of her. I think I have nearly
finished my task. You are a young man, intelligent and honest, and you
have now an employment which will give you your bread. However, I often
ask myself--oh, very often--whether I have fulfilled my duty toward you.
Ah! do not protest," added the unhappy man, whom Amedee had clasped in
his arms. "No, my poor child, I have not loved you sufficiently; grief
has filled too large a place in my heart; above all, during these last
few years I have not been with you enough. I have sought solitude. You
understand me, Amedee, I can not tell you more," he said, with a sob.
"There are some parts of my life that you must ignore, and if it grieves
you to know what I have become during that time, you must never think of
it; forget it. I beg of you, my child, do not judge me severely. And
one of these days, if I die-ah! we must expect it--the burden of my
grief is too heavy for me to bear, it crushes me! Well, my child, if I
die, promise me to be indulgent to my memory, and when you think of your
father only say: 'He was very unhappy!'"
Amedee shed tears upon his father's shoulder, who softly stroked his
son's beautiful hair with his trembling hands.
"My father, my good father!" sobbed Amedee, "I love and respect you with
all my heart. I will dress myself quickly and we will go to the office
together; we will return the same way and dine like a pair of good
friends. I beg of you, do not ask me to leave you to-day!"
But M. Violette suddenly arose as if he had formed some resolution.
"No, Amedee," said he, firmly. "I have said what I had to say to you,
and you will remember it. That is sufficient. Go and amuse yourself
this evening with your friends. Sadness is dangerous at your age. As
for myself, I shall go to dine with Pere Bastide, who has just received
his pension, and has invited me more than twenty times to come and see
his little house at Grand Montrouge. It is understood; I wish it. Now
then, wipe your eyes and kiss me."
Having tenderly embraced his son, M. Violette left the room. Amedee
could hear him in the vestibule take down his hat and cane, open and
close the door, and go down the stairs with a heavy step. A quarter of
an hour after, as the young man was crossing the Luxembourg to go to the
office, he met Louise Gerard with her roll of music in her hand, going to
give some lessons in the city. He walked a few steps beside her, and the
worthy girl noticed his red eyes and disturbed countenance.
"What is the matter with you, Amedee?" she inquired, anxiously.
"Louise," he replied, "do you not think that my father has changed very
much in the last few months?"
She stopped and looked at him with eyes shining with compassion.
"Very much changed, my poor Amedee. You would not believe me if I told
you that I had not remarked it. But whatever may be the cause--how shall
I say it?--that has affected your father's health, you should think of
only one thing, my friend; that is, that he has been tender and devoted
to you; that he became a widower very young and he did not remarry; that
he has endured, in order to devote himself to his only child, long years
of solitude and unhappy memories. You must think of that, Amedee, and
that only."
"I never shall forget it, Louise, never fear; my heart is full of
gratitude. This morning, even, he was so affectionate and kind to me--
but his health is ruined; he is now a weak old man. Soon--I not only
fear it, but I am certain of it--soon he will be incapable of work.
I can see his poor hands tremble now. He will not even have a right to a
pension. If he could not continue to work in the office he could hardly
obtain a meagre relief, and that by favor only. And for long years I can
only hope for an insufficient salary. Oh! to think that the catastrophe
draws near, that one of these days he may fall ill and become infirm,
perhaps, and that we shall be almost needy and I shall be unable to
surround him with care in his old age. That is what makes me tremble!"
They walked along side by side upon the moist, soft ground of the large
garden, under the leafless trees, where hung a slight penetrating mist
which made them shiver under their wraps.
"Amedee," said she, looking at the young man with a serious gentleness,
"I have known you from a child, and I am the elder. I am twenty-two;
that makes me almost an old maid, Amedee, and gives me the right to scold
you a little. You lack confidence in life, my friend, and it is wrong at
your age. Do you think I do not see that my father has aged very much,
that his eyesight fails, that we are much more cramped in circumstances
in the house than formerly? Are we any the more sad? Mamma makes fewer
little dishes and I teach in Paris, that is all. We live nearly the same
as before, and our dear Maria--she is the pet of us all, the joy and
pride of the house-well, our Maria, all the same, has from time to time a
new frock or a pretty hat. I have no experience, but it seems to me that
in order to feel really unhappy I must have nobody to love--that is the
only privation worth the trouble of noticing. Do you know that I have
just had one of the greatest pleasures of my life? I noticed that papa
did not smoke as much as usual, in order to be economical, poor man!
Fortunately I found a new pupil at Batignolles, and as soon as I had the
first month's pay in my pocket I bought a large package of tobacco and
put it beside his work. One must never complain so long as one is
fortunate enough to keep those one loves. I know the secret grief that
troubles you regarding your father; but think what he has suffered, that
he loves you, that you are his only consolation. And when you have
gloomy thoughts, come and see your old friends, Amedee. They will try to
warm your heart at the fireside of their friendship, and to give you some
of their courage, the courage of poor people which is composed of a
little indifference and a little resignation."
They had reached the Florentine Terrace, where stand the marble statues
of queens and ladies, and on the other side of the balustrade, ornamented
with large vases, they could see through the mist the reservoir with its
two swans, the solitary gravel walks, the empty grass-plots of a pale
green, surrounded by the skeletons of lilac-trees, and the facade of the
old palace, whose clock-hands pointed to ten.
"Let us hasten," said Louise, after a glance at the dial. "Escort me as
far at the Odeon omnibus. I am a little late."
As he walked by her side he looked at her. Alas! Poor Louise was not
pretty, in spite of her large eyes, so loving but not coquettish. She
wore a close, ugly hat, a mantle drawn tightly about her shoulders,
colored gloves, and heavy walking-shoes. Yes, she was a perfect picture
of a "two francs an hour" music-teacher. What a good, brave girl! With
what an overflowing heart she had spoken of her family! It was to earn
tobacco for her father and a new frock for her pretty sister that she
left thus, so early in the misty morning, and rode in public conveyances,
or tramped through the streets of Paris in the mud. The sight of her,
more than what she said, gave the weak and melancholy Amedee courage and
desire for manly resolutions.
"My dear Louise," said he, with emotion, "I am very fortunate to have
such a friend as you, and for so many years! Do you remember when we
used to have our hunts after the bearskin cap when we were children?"
They had just left the garden and found themselves behind the Odeon. Two
tired-out omnibus horses, of a yellowish-white, and showing their ribs,
were rubbing their noses against each other like a caress; then the horse
on the left raised his head and placed it in a friendly way upon the
other's mane. Louise pointed to the two animals and said to Amedee,
smilingly:
"Their fate is hard, is it not? No matter! they are good friends, and
that is enough to help them endure it."
Then, shaking hands with Amedee, she climbed lightly up into the
carriage.
All that day at the office Amedee was uneasy about his father, and about
four o'clock, a little before the time for his departure, he went to M.
Violette's office. There they told him that his father had just left,
saying that he would dine at Grand Montrouge with an old friend; and
Amedee, a trifle reassured, decided to rejoin his friend Maurice at the
Foyot restaurant.
CHAPTER VIII
BUTTERFLIES AND GRASSHOPPERS
Amedee was the first to arrive at the rendezvous. He had hardly
pronounced Maurice Roger's name when a voice like a cannon bellowed out,
"Now then! the yellow parlor!" and he was conducted into a room where a
dazzling table was laid by a young man, with a Yankee goatee and
whiskers, and the agility of a prestidigitateur. This frisky person
relieved Amedee at once of his hat and coat, and left him alone in the
room, radiant with lighted candles.
Evidently it was to be a banquet. Piled up in the centre of the table
was a large dish of crayfish, and at each plate--there were five--were
groups of large and small glasses.
Maurice came in almost immediately, accompanied by his other guests,
three young men dressed in the latest fashion, whom Amedee did not at
first recognize as his former comrades, who once wore wrinkled stockings
and seedy coats, and wore out with him the seats of their trousers on the
benches of the Lycee Henri IV.
After the greetings, "What! is it you?" "Do you remember me?" and a
shaking of hands, they all seated themselves around the table.
What! is that little dumpy fellow with the turned-up nose, straight as an
arrow and with such a satisfied air, Gorju, who wanted to be an actor?
He is one now, or nearly so, since he studies with Regnier at the
Conservatoire. A make-believe actor, he puts on airs, and in the three
minutes that he has been in the room he has looked at his retrousse nose
and his coarse face, made to be seen from a distance, ten times in the
mirror. His first care is to inform Amedee that he has renounced his
name Gorju, which was an impossible one for the theatre, and has taken
that of Jocquelet. Then, without losing a moment, he refers to his
"talents," "charms," and "physique."
Who is this handsome fellow with such neat side-whiskers, whose finely
cut features suggest an intaglio head, and who has just placed a lawyer's
heavy portfolio upon the sofa? It is Arthur Papillon, the distinguished
Latin scholar who wished to organize a debating society at the Lycee,
and to divide the rhetoric class into groups and sub-groups like a
parliament. "What have you been doing, Papillon?" Papillon had studied
law, and was secretary of the Patru Conference, of course.
Amedee immediately recognized the third guest.
"What! Gustave!" exclaimed he, joyously.
Yes! Gustave, the former "dunce," the one they had called "Good-luck"
because his father had made an immense fortune in guano. Not one bit
changed was Gustave! The same deep-set eyes and greenish complexion.
But what style! English from the tips of his pointed shoes to the
horseshoe scarfpin in his necktie. One would say that he was a horse-
jockey dressed in his Sunday best. What was this comical Gustave doing
now? Nothing. His father has made two hundred thousand pounds' income
dabbling in certain things, and Gustave is getting acquainted with that
is all--which means to wake up every morning toward noon, with a bitter
mouth caused from the last night's supper, and to be surprised every
morning at dawn at the baccarat table, after spending five hours saying
"Bac!" in a stifled, hollow voice. Gustave understands life, and, taking
into consideration his countenance like a death's-head, it may lead him
to make the acquaintance of something entirely different. But who thinks
of death at his age? Gustave wishes to know life, and when a fit of
coughing interrupts him in one of his idiotic bursts of laughter, his
comrades at the Gateux Club tell him that he has swallowed the wrong way.
Wretched Gustave, so be it!
Meanwhile the boy with the juggler's motions appeared with the soup,
and made exactly the same gestures when he uncovered the tureen as Robert
Houdin would have made, and one was surprised not to see a bunch of
flowers or a live rabbit fly out. But no! it was simply soup, and the
guests attacked it vigorously and in silence. After the Rhine wine all
tongues were unloosened, and as soon as they had eaten the Normandy sole-
oh! what glorious appetites at twenty years of age!--the five young men
all talked at once. What a racket! Exclamations crossed one another
like rockets. Gustave, forcing his weak voice, boasted of the
performances of a "stepper" that he had tried that morning in the Allee
des Cavaliers. He would have been much better off had he stayed in his
bed and taken cod-liver oil. Maurice called out to the boy to uncork the
Chateau-Leoville. Amedee, having spoken of his drama to the comedian
Gorju, called Jocquelet, that person, speaking in his bugle-like voice
that came through his bugle-shaped nose, set himself up at once as a man
of experience, giving his advice, and quoting, with admiration, Talma's
famous speech to a dramatic poet: "Above all, no fine verses!" Arthur
Papillon, who was destined for the courts, thought it an excellent time
to lord it over the tumult of the assembly himself, and bleated out a
speech of Jules Favre that he had heard the night before in the
legislative assembly.
The timid Amedee was defeated at the start in this melee of conversation.
Maurice also kept silent, with a slightly disdainful smile under his
golden moustache, and an attack of coughing soon disabled Gustave.
Alone, like two ships in line who let out, turn by turn, their volleys,
the lawyer and the actor continued their cannonading. Arthur Papillon,
who belonged to the Liberal opposition and wished that the Imperial
government should come around to "a pacific and regular movement of
parliamentary institutions," was listened to for a time, and explained,
in a clear, full voice the last article in the 'Courrier du Dimanche'.
But, bursting out in his terrible voice, which seemed like all of
Gideon's trumpets blowing at once, the comedian took up the offensive,
and victoriously declared a hundred foolish things--saying, for example,
that the part of Alceste should be made a comic one; making fun of
Shakespeare and Hugo, exalting Scribe, and in spite of his profile and
hooked nose, which should have opened the doors of the Theatre-Francais
and given him an equal share for life in its benefits, he affirmed that
he intended to play lovers' parts, and that he meant to assume the
responsibility of making "sympathetic" the role of Nero, in Britannicus.
This would have become terribly tiresome, but for the entrance upon the
scene of some truffled partridges, which the juggler carved and
distributed in less time than it would take to shuffle a pack of cards.
He even served the very worst part of the bird to the simple Amedee, as
he would force him to choose the nine of spades. Then he poured out the
chambertin, and once more all heads became excited, and the conversation
fell, as was inevitable, upon the subject of women.
Jocquelet began it, by speaking the name of one of the prettiest
actresses in Paris. He knew them all and described them exactly,
detailing their beauties like a slave-dealer.
"So little Lucille Prunelle is a friend of the great Moncontour--"
"Pardon me," interrupted Gustave, who was looking badly, "she has already
left him for Cerfbeer the banker."
"I say she has not."
"I say that she has."
They would have quarrelled if Maurice, with his affable, bantering air,
had not attacked Arthur Papillon on the subject of his love-affairs; for
the young advocate drank many cups of Orleanist tea, going even into the
same drawing-rooms as Beule and Prevost-Paradol, and accompanying
political ladies to the receptions at the Academie Francaise.
"That is where you must make havoc, you rascal!"
But Papillon defends himself with conceited smiles and meaning looks.
According to him--and he puts his two thumbs into the armholes of his
vest--the ambitious must be chaste.
"Abstineo venere," said he, lowering his eyes in a comical manner, for he
did not fear Latin quotations. However, he declared himself very hard to
please in that matter; he dreamed of an Egeria, a superior mind. What he
did not tell them was, that a dressmaker's little errand-girl, with whom
he had tried to converse as he left the law-school, had surveyed him from
head to foot and threatened him with the police.
Upon some new joke of Maurice's, the lawyer gave his amorous programme in
the following terms:
"Understand me, a woman must be as intelligent as Hypatia, and have the
sensibility of Heloise; the smile of a Joconde, and the limbs of an
Antiope; and, even then, if she had not the throat of a Venus de Medicis,
I should not love her."
Without going quite so far, the actor showed himself none the less
exacting. According to his ideas, Deborah, the tragedienne at the Odeon
--a Greek statue!--had too large hands, and the fascinating Blanche
Pompon at the Varietes was a mere wax doll.
Gustave, after all, was the one who is most intractable; excited by the
Bordeaux wine--a glass of mineral water would be best for him--he
proclaimed that the most beautiful creature was agreeable to him only for
one day; that it was a matter of principle, and that he had never made
but one exception, in favor of the illustrious dancer at the Casino
Cadet, Nina l'Auvergnate, because she was so comical! "Oh! my friends,
she is so droll, she is enough to kill one!"
"To kill one!" Yes! my dear Monsieur Gustave, that is what will happen
to you one of these fine mornings, if you do not decide to lead a more
reasonable life--and on the condition that you pass your winters in the
South, also!
Poor Amedee was in torture; all his illusions--desires and sentiments
blended--were cruelly wounded. Then, he had just discovered a deplorable
faculty; a new cause for being unhappy. The sight of this foolishness
made him suffer. How these coarse young men lied! Gustave seemed to him
a genuine idiot, Arthur Papillon a pedant, and as to Jocquelet, he was as
unbearable as a large fly buzzing between the glass and the curtain of a
nervous man's room. Fortunately, Maurice made a little diversion by
bursting into a laugh.
"Well, my friends, you are all simpletons," he exclaimed. "I am not like
you, thank fortune! I do not sputter over my soup. Long life to women!
Yes, all of them, pretty and otherwise! For, upon my word, there are no
ugly ones. I do not notice that Miss Keepsake has feet like the English,
and I forget the barmaid's ruddy complexion, if she is attractive
otherwise. Now do not talk in this stupid fashion, but do as I do;
nibble all the apples while you have teeth. Do you know the reason why,
at the moment that I am talking to the lady of the house, I notice the
nose of the pretty waitress who brings in a letter on a salver? Do you
know the reason why, just as I am leaving Cydalize's house, who has put
a rose in my buttonhole, that I turn my head at the passing of Margoton,
who is returning from the market with a basket upon her arm? It is
because it is one other of my children. One other! that is a great
word! Yes, one thousand and three. Don Juan was right. I feel his
blood coursing in my veins. And now the boy shall uncork some champagne,
shall he not? to drink to the health of love!"