Books: The Ink Stain, v1
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Rene Bazin >> The Ink Stain, v1
I love my friend Lampron, though fully aware of his superiority. His
energy sets me up, his advice strengthens me, he peoples for me the vast
solitude of Paris.
Suppose I go to see him? A lonely watch to-night would be gloomier than
usual. The death of the year brings gloomy thoughts, the thirty-first of
December, St. Sylvester's day--St. Sylvester! Why, that is his birthday!
Ungrateful friend, to give no thought to it! Quick! my coat, my stick,
my hat, and let me run to see these two early birds before they seek
their roost.
When I entered the studio, Lampron was so deep in his work that he did
not hear me. The large room, lighted only in one corner, looked weird
enough. Around me, and among the medley of pictures and casts and the
piles of canvases stacked against the wall, the eye encountered only a
series of cinder-gray tints and undetermined outlines casting long
amorphous shadows half-way across the ceiling. A draped lay figure
leaning against a door seemed to listen to the whistling of the wind
outside; a large glass bay opened upon the night. Nothing was alive in
this part of the room, nothing alight except a few rare glints upon the
gold of the frames, and the blades of two crossed swords. Only
in a corner, at the far end, at a distance exaggerated by the shadows,
sat Lampron engraving, solitary, motionless, beneath the light of a lamp.
His back was toward me. The lamp's rays threw a strong light on his
delicate hand, on the workmanlike pose of his head, which it surrounded
with a nimbus, and on a painting--a woman's head--which he was copying.
He looked superb like that, and I thought how doubly tempted Rembrandt
would have been by the deep significance as well as by the chiaroscuro of
this interior.
I stamped my foot. Lampron started, and turned half around, narrowing
his eyes as he peered into the darkness.
"Ah, it's you," he said. He rose and came quickly toward me, as if to
prevent me from approaching the table.
"You don't wish me to look?"
He hesitated a moment.
"After all, why not?" he answered.
The copper plate was hardly marked with a few touches of the needle. He
turned the reflector so as to throw all its rays upon the painting.
"O Lampron, what a charming head!"
It was indeed a lovely head; an Italian girl, three quarter face, painted
after the manner of Leonardo, with firm but delicate touches, and lights
and shades of infinite subtlety, and possessing, like all that master's
portraits of women, a straightforward look that responds to the gazer's,
but which he seeks to interrogate in vain. The hair, brown with golden
lights, was dressed in smooth plaits above the temples. The neck, 1351
somewhat long, emerged from a dark robe broadly indicated.
"I do not know this, Sylvestre?"
"No, it's an old thing."
"A portrait, of course?"
"My first."
"You never did better; line, color, life, you have got them all."
"You need not tell me that! In one's young days, look you, there are
moments of real inspiration, when some one whispers in the ear and guides
the hand; a lightness of touch, the happy audacity of the beginner, a
wealth of daring never met with again. Would you believe that I have
tried ten times to reproduce that in etching without success?"
"Why do you try?"
"Yes, that is the question. Why? It's a bit foolish."
"You never could find such a model again; that is one reason."
"Ah, no, you are right. I never could find her again."
"An Italian of rank? a princess, eh?"
"Something like it."
"What has become of her?"
"Ah, no doubt what becomes of all princesses. Fabien, my young friend,
you who still see life through fairy-tales, doubtless you imagine her
happy in her lot--wealthy, spoiled, flattered, speaking with disdainful
lips at nightfall, on the terrace of her villa among the great pines, of
the barbarian from across the Alps who painted her portrait twenty years
since; and, in the same sentence, of her--last new frock from Paris?"
"Yes, I see her so--still beautiful."
"You are good at guessing, Fabien. She is dead, my friend, and that
ideal beauty is now a few white bones at the bottom of a grave."
"Poor girl!"
Sylvestre had used a sarcastic tone which was not usual with him.
He was contemplating his work with such genuine sadness that I was awed.
I divined that in his past, of which I knew but little, Lampron kept a
sorrow buried that I had all unwittingly revived.
"My friend," said I, "let that be; I come to wish you many happy
returns."
"Many happy returns? Ah, yes, my poor mother wished me that this
morning; then I set to work and forgot all about it. I am glad you came.
She would feel hurt, dear soul, if I forgot to pass a bit of this evening
with her. Let us go and find her."
"With all my heart, Sylvestre, but I, too, have forgotten something."
"What?"
"I have brought no flowers."
"Never mind, she has plenty; strong-scented flowers of the south, a whole
basketful, enough to keep a hive of bees or kill a man in his sleep,
which you will. It is a yearly attention from an unhappy creditor."
"Debtor, you mean."
"I mean what I say--a creditor."
He lifted the lamp. The shadows shifted and ran along the walls like
huge spiders, the crossed swords flashed, the Venus of Milo threw us a
lofty glance, Polyhymnia stood forth pensive and sank back into shadow.
At the door I took the draped lay figure in my arms. "Excuse me," I said
as I moved it--and we left the studio for Madame Lampron's little
sitting-room.
She was seated near a small round table, knitting socks, her feet on a
hot-water bottle. Her kind old rough and wrinkled face beamed upon us.
She thrust her needles under the black lace cap she always wore, and drew
them out again almost immediately.
"It needed your presence, Monsieur Mouillard," said she, "to drag him
from his work."
"Saint Sylvester's day, too. It is fearful! Love for his art has
changed your son's nature, Madame Lampron."
She gave him a tender look, as on entering the room he bent over the fire
and shook out his half-smoked pipe against the bars, a thing he never
failed to do the moment he entered his mother's room.
"Dear child!" said she.
Then turning to me:
"You are a good friend, Monsieur Fabien. Never have we celebrated a
Saint Sylvester without you since you came to Paris."
"Yet this evening, Madame, I have failed in my traditions, I have no
flowers. But Sylvestre tells me that you have just received flowers from
the south, from an unfortunate creditor."
My words produced an unusual effect upon her. She, who never stopped
knitting to talk or to listen, laid her work upon her knees, and fixed
her eyes upon me, filled with anxiety.
"Has he told you?"
Lampron who was poking the fire, his slippered feet stretched out toward
the hearth, turned his head.
"No, mother, I merely told him that we had received a basket of flowers.
Not much to confide. Yet why should he not know all? Surely he is our
friend enough to know all. He should have known it long since were it
not cruel to share between three a burden that two can well bear."
She made no answer, and began again to twist the wool between her
needles, but nervously and as if her thoughts were sad.
To change the conversation I told them the story of my twofold mishap at
the National Library and at M. Charnot's. I tried to be funny, and
fancied I succeeded. The old lady smiled faintly. Lampron remained
grave, and tossed his head impatiently. I summed my story thus:
"Net gain: two enemies, one of them charming."
"Oh, enemies!" said Sylvestre, "they spring up like weeds. One can not
prevent them, and great sorrows do not come from them. Still, beware of
charming enemies."
"She hates me, I swear. If you could have seen her!"
"And you?"
"Me? She is nothing to me."
"Are you sure?"
He put the question gravely, without looking in my face, as he twisted a
paper spill.
I laughed.
"What is the matter with you to-day, misanthrope? I assure you that she
is absolutely indifferent to me. But even were it otherwise, Sylvestre,
where would be the wrong?"
"Wrong? No wrong at all; but I should be anxious for you; I should be
afraid. See here, my friend. I know you well. You are a born man of
letters, a dreamer, an artist in your way. You have to help you on
entering the redoubtable lists of love neither foresight, nor a cool
head, nor determination. You are guided solely by your impressions; by
them you rise or fall. You are no more than a child."
"I quite agree. What next?"
"What next?" He had risen, and was speaking with unusual vehemence.
"I once knew some one like you, whose first passion, rash, but deep as
yours would be, broke his heart forever. The heart, my friend, is liable
to break, and can not be mended like china."
Lampron's mother interrupted him afresh, reproachfully.
"He came to wish you a happy birthday, my child."
"One day, mother, is as good as another to listen to good advice.
Besides, I am only talking of one of my friends. 'Tis but a short story,
Fabien, and instructive. I will give it you in very few words. My
friend was very young and enthusiastic. He was on his way through the
galleries of Italy, brush in hand, his heart full of the ceaseless song
of youth in holiday. The world never had played him false, nor balked
him. He made the future bend to the fancy of his dreams. He seldom
descended among common men from those loftier realms where the
contemplation of endless masterpieces kept his spirit as on wings.
He admired, copied, filled his soul with the glowing beauty of Italian
landscape and Italian art. But one day, without reflection, without
knowledge, without foresight, he was rash enough to fall in love with a
girl of noble birth whose portrait he was painting; to speak to her and
to win her love. He thought then, in the silly innocence of his youth,
that art abridges all distance and that love effaces it. Crueller
nonsense never was uttered, my poor Fabien. He soon found this; he tried
to struggle against the parent's denial, against himself, against her,
powerless in all alike, beaten at every point.... The end was-- Do you
care to learn the end? The girl was carried off, struck down by a brief
illness, soon dead; the man, hurled out of heaven, bruised, a fugitive
also, is still so weak in presence of his sorrow that even after these
long years he can not think of it without weeping."
Lampron actually was weeping, he who was so seldom moved. Down his brown
beard, tinged already with gray, a tear was trickling. I noticed that
Madame Lampron was stooping lower and lower over her needles. He went
on:
"I have kept the portrait, the one you saw, Fabien. They would like to
have it over yonder. They are old folk by now. Every year they ask me
for this relic of our common sorrow; every year they send me, about this
time a basket of white flowers, chiefly lilacs, the dead girl's flower,
and their meaning is, 'Give up to us what is left of her, the masterpiece
built up of your youth and hers.' But I am selfish, Fabien. I, like
them, am jealous of all the sorrows this portrait recalls to me, and I
deny them. Come, mother, where are the flowers? I have promised Fabien
to show them to him."
But his old mother could not answer. Having no doubt bewept this sorrow
too often to find fresh tears, her eyes followed her son with restless
compassion. He, beside the window, was hunting among the chairs and
lounges crowded in this corner of the little sitting-room.
He brought us a box of white wood. "See," said he, "'tis my wedding
bouquet."
And he emptied it on the table. Parma violets, lilacs, white camellias
and moss rolled out in slightly faded bunches, spreading a sweet smell in
which there breathed already a vague scent of death and corruption. A
violet fell on my knees. I picked it up.
He looked for a moment at the heap on the table.
"I keep none," said he: "I have too many reminders without them. Cursed
flowers!"
With one motion of his arm he swept them all up and cast them upon the
coals in the hearth. They shrivelled, crackled, grew limp and
discolored, and vanished in smoke.
"Now I am going back to my etching. Good-by, Fabien. Good-night,
mother."
Without turning his head, he left the room and went back to his studio.
I made a movement to follow him and bring him back.
Madame Lampron stopped me. "I will go myself," said she, "later--much
later."
We sat awhile in silence. When she saw me somewhat recovered from the
shock of my feelings she went on:
"You never have seen him like this, but I have seen it often. It is so
hard! I knew her whom he loved almost as soon as he, for he never hid
anything from me. You can judge from her portrait whether hers was not
the face to attract an artist like Sylvestre. I saw at once that it was
a trial, in which I could do nothing. They were very great people;
different from us, you know."
"They refused to let them marry?"
"Oh, no! Sylvestre did not ask; they never had the opportunity of
refusing. No, no; it was I. I said to him: 'Sylvestre, this can never
be-never!' He was convinced against his will. Then she spoke to her
parents on her own account. They carried her off, and there was an end
of it."
"He never saw her again."
"Never; he would not have wished it; and then she lived a very little
time. I went back there two years later, when they wanted to buy the
picture. We were still living in Italy. That was one of the hardest
hours of my life. I was afraid of their reproaches, and I did not feel
sure of myself. But no, they suffered for their daughter as I for my
son, and that brought us together. Still, I did not give up the
portrait; Sylvestre set too great store by it. He insists on keeping it,
feeding his eyes on it, reopening his wound day by day. Poor child!
Forget all this, Monsieur Fabien; you can do nothing to help. Be true to
your youth, and tell us next time of Monsieur Charnot and Mademoiselle
Jeanne."
Dear Madame Lampron! I tried to console her; but as I never knew my
mother, I could find but little to say. All the same, she thanked me and
assured me I had done her good.
CHAPTER V
A FRUITLESS SEARCH
January 1, 1885.
The first of January! When one is not yet an uncle and no longer a
godson, if one is in no government employ and goes out very little, the
number of one's calls on New Year's Day is limited. I shall make five or
six this afternoon. It will be "Not at home" in each case; and that will
be all my compliments of the season.
No, I am wrong. I have received the compliments of the season.
My porter's wife came up just now, wreathed in smiles.
"Monsieur Mouillard, I wish you a Happy New Year, good health, and Heaven
to end your days." She had just said the same to the tenants on the
first, second, and third floors. My answer was the same as theirs.
I slipped into her palm (with a "Many thanks!" of which she took no
notice) a piece of gold, which brought another smile, a curtsey, and she
is gone.
This smile comes only once a year; it is not reproduced at any other
period, but is a dividend payable in one instalment. This, and a tear on
All Souls' Day, when she has been to place a bunch of chrysanthemums on
her baby's grave, are the only manifestations of sensibility that I have
discovered in her. From the second of January to the second of November
she is a human creature tied to a bell-rope, with an immovably stolid
face and a monosyllabic vocabulary in which politer terms occur but
sparsely.
This morning, contrary to her habits, she has brought up by post two
letters; one from my Uncle Mouillard (an answer), and the other--I don't
recognize the other. Let's open it first: big envelope, ill-written
address, Paris postmark. Hallo! a smaller envelope inside, and on it:
ANTOINE AND MARIE PLUMET.
Poor souls! they have no visiting-cards. But kind hearts are more than
pasteboard.
Ten months ago little Madame Plumet, then still unmarried, was in a
terrible bother. I remember our first meeting, on a March day, at the
corner of the Rue du Quatre-Septembre and the Rue Richelieu. I was
walking along quickly, with a bundle of papers under my arm, on my way
back to the office where I was head clerk. Suddenly a dressmaker's
errand-girl set down her great oilcloth-covered box in my way. I nearly
went head first over it, and was preparing to walk around it, when the
little woman, red with haste and blushes, addressed me. "Excuse me, sir,
are you a lawyer?"
"No, Mademoiselle, not yet."
"Perhaps, sir, you know some lawyers?"
"To be sure I do; my master, to begin with, Counsellor Boule. He is
quite close, if you care to follow me."
"I am in a terrible hurry, but I can spare a minute or two. Thank you
very much, Monsieur."
And thus I found myself escorted by a small dressmaker and a box of
fashions. I remember that I walked a little ahead for fear of being seen
in such company by a fellow-clerk, which would have damaged my
reputation.
We got to the office. Down went the box again. The little dressmaker
told me that she was engaged to M. Plumet, frame-maker. She told her
tale very clearly; a little money put by, you see, out of ten years'
wages; one may be careful and yet be taken in; and, alas! all has been
lent to a cousin in the cabinetmaking trade, who wanted to set up shop;
and now he refuses to pay up. The dowry is in danger, and the marriage
in suspense.
"Do not be alarmed, Mademoiselle; we will summons this atrocious cabinet-
maker, and get a judgment against him. We shall not let him go until he
has disgorged, and you shall be Madame Plumet."
We kept our word. Less than two months later--thanks to my efforts--the
dowry was recovered; the banns were put up; and the little dressmaker
paid a second visit to the office, this time with M. Plumet, who was even
more embarrassed than she.
"See, Antoine! this is Monsieur Mouillard, who undertook our case!
Thank you again and again, Monsieur Mouillard, you really have been too
kind! What do I owe you for your trouble?"
"You must ask my master what his fees come to, Mademoiselle."
"Yes, but you? What can I do for you?"
The whole office, from the messenger to the clerk who came next to me,
had their eyes upon me. I rose to the occasion, and in my uncle's best
manner I replied:
"Be happy, Mademoiselle, and remember me."
We laughed over it for a week.
She has done better, she has remembered it after eight months. But she
has not given her address. That is a pity. I should have liked to see
them both again. These young married folk are like the birds; you hear
their song, but that does not tell you the whereabouts of their nest.
Now, uncle, it's your turn.
Here it is again, your unfailing letter anticipated, like the return of
the comets, but less difficult to analyze than the weird substance of
which comets are composed. Every year I write to you on December 28th,
and you answer me on the 31st in time for your letter to reach me on New
Year's morning. You are punctual, dear uncle; you are even attentive;
there is something affectionate in this precision. But I do not know why
your letters leave me unmoved. The eighteen to twenty-five lines of
which each is composed are from your head, rather than your heart. Why
do you not tell me of my parents, whom you knew; of your daily life; of
your old servant Madeleine, who nursed me as a baby; of the Angora cat
almost as old as she; of the big garden, so green, so enticing, which you
trim with so much care, and which rewards your attention with such
luxuriance. It would be so nice, dear uncle, to be a shade more
intimate.
Ah, well! let us see what he writes:
"BOURGES, December 31, 1884.
"MY DEAR NEPHEW:
"The approach of the New Year does not find me with the same
sentiments with which it leaves you. I make up my yearly accounts
from July 31st, so the advent of the 31st of December finds me as
indifferent as that of any other day of the said month. Your
repinings appear to me the expressions of a dreamer.
"It would, however, not be amiss if you made a start in practical
life. You come of a family not addicted to dreaming. Three
Mouillards have, if I may say so, adorned the legal profession at
Bourges. You will be the fourth.
"As soon as you have taken your doctor's degree-which I presume
should not be long--I shall expect you the very next day, or the day
after that at the furthest; and I shall place you under my
supervision.
"The practice is not falling off, I can assure you. In spite of
age, I still possess good eyes and good teeth, the chief
qualifications for a lawyer. You will find everything ready and in
good order here.
"I am obliged to you for your good wishes, which I entirely
reciprocate.
"Your affectionate uncle,
"BRUTUS MOUILLARD."
"P. S.--The Lorinet family have been to see me. Mademoiselle Berthe
is really quite pretty. They have just inherited 751,351 francs.
"I was employed by them in an action relating thereto."
Yes, my dear uncle, you were employed, according to the formula, "in
virtue of these and subsequent engagements," and among the "subsequent
engagements" you are kind enough to reckon one between Mademoiselle
Berthe Lorinet, spinster, of no occupation, and M. Fabien Mouillard,
lawyer. "Fabien Mouillard, lawyer"--that I may perhaps endure, but
"Fabien Mouillard, son-in-law of Lorinet," never! One pays too dear for
these rich wives. Mademoiselle Berthe is half a foot taller than I, who
am moderately tall, and she has breadth in proportion. Moreover, I have
heard that her wit is got in proportion. I saw her when she was
seventeen, in a short frock of staring blue; she was very thin then, and
was escorted by a brother, squeezed inside a schoolboy's suit; they were
out for their first walk alone, both red-faced, flurried, shuffling along
the sidewalks of Bourges. That was enough. For me she will always wear
that look, that frock, that clumsy gait. Recollections, my good uncle,
are not unlike instantaneous photographs; and this one is a distinct
negative to your designs.
March 3d.
The year is getting on. My essay is growing. The Junian Latin emerges
from the fogs of Tiber.
I have had to return to the National Library. My first visits were not
made without trepidation. I fancied that the beadle was colder, and that
the keepers were shadowing me like a political suspect. I thought it
wise to change my side, so now I make out my list of books at the left-
hand desk and occupy a seat on the left side of the room.
M. Charnot remains faithful to his post beneath the right-hand inkstand.
I have been watching him. He is usually one of the first to arrive, with
nimble, almost springy, step. His hair, which he wears rather long, is
always carefully parted in the middle, and he is always freshly shaven.
His habit of filling the pockets of his frock-coat with bundles of notes
has made that garment swell out at the top into the shape of a basket.
He puts on a pair of spectacles mounted in very thin gold, and reads
determinedly, very few books it is true, but they are all bound in
vellum, and that fixes their date. In his way of turning the leaves
there is something sacerdotal. He seems popular with the servants. Some
of the keepers worship him. He has very good manners toward every one.
Me he avoids. Still I meet him, sometimes in the cloakroom, oftener in
the Rue Richelieu on his way to the Seine. He stops, and so do I, near
the Fontaine Moliere, to buy chestnuts. We have this taste in common.
He buys two sous' worth, I buy one; thus the distinctions of rank are
preserved. If he arrives after me, I allow him the first turn to be
served; if he is before me, I await my turn with a patience which
betokens respect. Yet he never seems to notice it. Once or twice,
certainly, I fancied I caught a smile at the corners of his mouth, and a
sly twinkle in the corners of his eyes; but these old scholars smile so
austerely.
He must have guessed that I wish to meet him. For I can not deny it. I
am looking out for an opportunity to repair my clumsy mistake and show
myself in a less unfavorable light than I did at that ill-starred visit.
And she is the reason why I haunt his path!
Ever since M. Mouillard threatened me with Mademoiselle Berthe Lorinet,
the graceful outlines of Mademoiselle Jeanne have haunted me with a
persistence to which I have no objection.
It is not because I love her. It does not go as far as that. I am
leaving her and leaving Paris forever in a few months. No; the height of
my desire is to see her again--in the street, at the theatre, no matter
where--to show her by my behavior and, if possible, by my words that I am
sorry for the past, and implore her forgiveness. Then there will no
longer be a gulf betwixt her and me, I shall be able to meet her without
confusion, to invoke her image to put to flight that of Mademoiselle
Lorinet without the vision of those disdainful lips to dash me. She will
be for me at once the type of Parisian grace and of filial affection.
I will carry off her image to the country like the remembered perfume of
some rare flower; and if ever I sing 'Hymen Hymnaee'! it shall be with
one who recalls her face to me.