Books: The Ink Stain, v2

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This etext was produced by David Widger

[NOTE: There is a short list of bookmarks, or pointers, at the end of the
file for those who may wish to sample the author's ideas before making an
entire meal of them. D.W.]

THE INK STAIN BY RENE BAZIN
(Tache d'Encre)

By RENE BAZIN

BOOK 2.

CHAPTER VIII

JOY AND MADNESS

May 1st.

These four days have seemed as if they never would end--especially the
last. But now it wants only two minutes of noon. In two minutes, if
Lampron is not late--

Rat-a-tat-tat!

"Come in."

"It is twelve o'clock, my friend; are you coming?"

It was Lampron.

For the last hour I had had my hat on my head, my stick between my legs,
and had been turning over my essay with gloved hands. He laughed at me.
I don't care. We walked, for the day was clear and warm. All the world
was out and about. Who can stay indoors on May Day? As we neared the
Chamber of Deputies, perambulators full of babies in white capes came
pouring from all the neighboring streets, and made their resplendent way
toward the Tuileries. Lampron was in a talkative mood. He was pleased
with the hanging of his pictures, and his plan of compaign against
Mademoiselle Jeanne.

"She is sure to have heard of it, Fabien, and perhaps is there already.
Who can tell?"

"Oh, cease your humbug! Yes, very possibly she is there before us. I
have had a feeling that she would be for these last four days."

"You don't say so!"

"I have pictured her a score of times ascending the staircase on her
father's arm. We are at the foot, lost in the crowd. Her noble, clear-
cut profile stands out against the Gobelin tapestries which frame it with
their embroidered flowers; one would say some maiden of bygone days had
come to life, and stepped down from her tapestried panel."

"Gentlemen!" said Lampron, with a sweep of his arm which took in the
whole of the Place de la Concorde, "allow me to present to you the
intending successor of Counsellor Mouillard, lawyer, of Bourges. Every
inch of him a man of business!"

We were getting near. Crowds were on their way to the exhibition from
all sides, women in spring frocks, many of the men in white waistcoats,
one hand in pocket, gayly flourishing their canes with the other, as much
as to say, "Look at me-well-to-do, jaunty, and out in fine weather." The
turnstiles were crowded, but at last we got through. We made but one
step across the gravel court, the realm of sculpture where antique gods
in every posture formed a mythological circle round the modern busts in
the central walk. There was no loitering here, for my heart was
elsewhere. We cast a look at an old wounded Gaul, an ancestor unhonored
by the crowd, and started up the staircase--no Jeanne to lead the way.
We came to the first room of paintings. Sylvestre beamed like a man who
feels at home.

"Quick, Sylvestre, where is the sketch? Let's hurry to it."

But he dragged me with him around several rooms.

Have you ever experienced the intoxication of color which seizes the
uninitiated at the door of a picture-gallery? So many staring hues
impinge upon the eyes, so many ideas take confused shape and struggle
together in the brain, that the eyes grow weary and the brain harassed.
It hovers undecided like an insect in a meadow full of flowers. The
buzzing remarks of the crowd add to the feeling of intoxication. They
distract one's attention before it can settle anywhere, and carry it off
to where some group is gathered before a great name, a costly frame, an
enormous canvas, or an outrage on taste; twenty men on a gallows against
a yellow sky, with twenty crows hovering over them, or an aged
antediluvian, some mighty hunter, completely nude and with no property
beyond a loaded club. One turns away, and the struggle begins again
between the eye, attracted by a hundred subjects, and the brain, which
would prefer to study one.

With Lampron this danger has no existence; he takes in a room at a
glance. He has the sportsman's eye which, in a covey of partridges,
marks its bird at a glance. He never hesitates. "That is the thing to
make for," he says, "come along"--and we make for it. He plants himself
right in front of the picture, with both hands in his overcoat pockets,
and his chin sunk in his collar; says nothing, but is quite happy
developing an idea which has occurred to him on his way to it; comparing
the picture before him with some former work by the same artist which he
remembers. His whole soul is concentrated on the picture. And when he
considers that I have understood and penetrated the meaning of the work,
he gives his opinion in few words, but always the right ones, summing up
a long sequence of ideas which I must have shared with him, since I see
exactly as he does.

In this way we halted before the "Martyrdom of Saint Denis," by Bonnat,
the two "Adorations," by Bouguereau, a landscape of Bernier's, some other
landscapes, sea pieces, and portraits.

At last we left the oil paintings.

In the open gallery, which runs around the inside of the huge oblong and
looks on the court, the watercolors, engravings, and drawings slumbered,
neglected. Lampron went straight to his works. I should have awarded
them the medaille d'honneur; an etching of a man's head, a large
engraving of the Virgin and Infant Jesus from the Salon Carre at the
Louvre, and the drawing which represents--

"Great Heavens! Sylvestre, she's perfectly lovely; she will make a great
mistake if she does not come and see herself!"

"She will come, my dear sir; but I shall not be there to see her."

"Are you going?"

"I leave you to stalk your game; be patient, and do not forget to come
and tell me the news this evening."

"I promise."

And Lampron vanished.

The drawing was hung about midway between two doorways draped with
curtains, that opened into the big galleries. I leaned against the
woodwork of one of them, and waited. On my left stretched a solitude
seldom troubled by the few visitors who risk themselves in the realms of
pen and pencil. These, too, only came to get fresh air, or to look down
on the many-colored crowd moving among the white statues below.

At my right, on the contrary, the battling currents of the crowd kept
passing and repassing, the provincial element easily distinguished by its
jaded demeanor. Stout, exhausted matrons, breathless fathers of
families, crowded the sofas, raising discouraged glances to the walls,
while around them turned and tripped, untiring as at a dance, legions of
Parisiennes, at ease, on their high heels, equally attentive to the
pictures, their own carriage, and their neighbors' gowns.

O peaceful functionaries, you whose business it is to keep an eye upon
this ferment! unless the ceaseless flux of these human phenomena lull
you to a trance, what a quantity of silly speeches you must hear! I
picked up twenty in as many minutes.

Suddenly there came a sound of little footsteps in the gallery. Two
little girls had just come in, two sisters, doubtless, for both had the
same black eyes, pink dresses, and white feathers in their hats.
Hesitating, with outstretched necks, like fawns on the border of a glade,
they seemed disappointed at the unexpected length of the gallery. They
looked at each other and whispered. Then both smiled, and turning their
backs on each other, they set off, one to the right, the other to the
left, to examine the drawings which covered the walls. They made a rapid
examination, with which art had obviously little to do; they were looking
for something, and I thought it might be for Jeanne's portrait. And so
it turned out; the one on my side soon came to a stop, pointed a finger
to the wall, and gave a little cry. The other ran up; they clapped their
hands.

Bravo, bravo!"

Then off they went again through the farther door.

I guessed what they were about to do.

I trembled from head to foot, and hid myself farther behind the curtains.

Not a minute elapsed before they were back, not two this time, but three,
and the third was Jeanne, whom they were pulling along between them.

They brought her up to Lampron's sketch, and curtsied neatly to her.

Jeanne bent down, smiled, and seemed pleased. Then, a doubt seizing her,
she turned her head and saw me. The smile died away; she blushed, a tear
seemed ready to start to her eyes. Oh, rapture! Jeanne, you are
touched; Jeanne, you understand!

A deep joy surged across my soul, so deep that I never have felt its
like.

Alas! at that instant some one called, "Jeanne!"

She stood up, took the two little girls by the hand, and was gone.

Far better had it been had I too fled, carrying with me that dream of
delight!

But no, I leaned forward to look after them. In the doorway beyond I saw
M. Charnot. A young man was with him, who spoke to Jeanne. She answered
him. Three words reached me:

"It's nothing, George."

The devil! She loves another!

May 2d.

In what a state of mind did I set out this morning to face my examiners!
Downhearted, worn out by a night of misery, indifferent to all that might
befall me, whether for good or for evil.

I considered myself, and indeed I was, very wretched, but I never thought
that I should return more wretched than I went.

It was lovely weather when at half past eleven I started for the Law
School with an annotated copy of my essay under my arm, thinking more of
the regrets for the past and plans for the future with which I had
wrestled all night, than of the ordeal I was about to undergo. I met in
the Luxembourg the little girl whom I had kissed the week before. She
stopped her hoop and stood in my way, staring with wideopen eyes and a
coaxing, cunning look, which meant, "I know you, I do!" I passed by
without noticing. She pouted her lip, and I saw that she was thinking,
"What's the matter with him?"

What was the matter? My poor little golden-locks, when you are grown a
fair woman I trust you may know as little of it as you do to-day.

I went up the Rue Soufliot, and entered the stuffy courtyard on the
stroke of noon.

The morning lectures were over. Beneath the arcades a few scattered
students were walking up and down. I avoided them for fear of meeting a
friend and having to talk. Several professors came running from their
lunch, rather red in the face, at the summons of the secretary. These
were my examiners.

It was time to get into costume, for the candidate, like the criminal,
has his costume. The old usher, who has dressed me up I don't know how
many times in his hired gowns, saw that I was downcast, and thought I
must be suffering from examination fever, a peculiar malady, which is
like what a young soldier feels the first time he is under fire.

We were alone in the dark robing-room; he walked round me, brushing and
encouraging me; doctors of law have a moral right to this touch of the
brush.

"It will be all right, Monsieur Mouillard, never fear. No one has been
refused a degree this morning."

"I am not afraid, Michu."

"When I say 'no one,' there was one refused--you never heard the like.
Just imagine--a little to the right, please, Monsieur Mouillard--imagine,
I say, a candidate who knew absolutely nothing. That is nothing
extraordinary. But this fellow, after the examination was over,
recommended himself to mercy. 'Have compassion on me, gentlemen,' he
said, 'I only wish to be a magistrate!' Capital, isn't it?"

"Yes, yes."

"You don't seem to think so. You don't look like laughing this morning."

"No, Michu, every one has his bothers, you know."

"I said to myself as I looked at you just now, Monsieur Mouillard has
some bother. Button up all the way, if you please, for a doctor's essay;
if-you-please. It's a heartache, then?"

"Something of the kind."

He shrugged his shoulders and went before me, struggling with an
asthmatic chuckle, until we came to the room set apart for the
examination.

It was the smallest and darkest of all, and borrowed its light from a
street which had little enough to spare, and spared as little as it
could. On the left against the wall is a raised desk for the candidate.
At the end, on a platform before a bookcase, sit the six examiners in red
robes, capes with three bands of ermine, and gold-laced caps. Between
the candidate's desk and the door is a little enclosure for spectators,
of whom there were about thirty when I entered.

My performance, which had a chance of being brilliant, was only fair.

The three first examiners had read my essay, especially M. Flamaran, who
knew it well and had enjoyed its novel and audacious propositions. He
pursed up his mouth preparatory to putting the first question, like an
epicure sucking a ripe fruit. And when at length he opened it, amid the
general silence, it was to carry the discussion at once up to such
heights of abstraction that a good number of the audience, not
understanding a word of it, stealthily made for the door.

Each successive answer put fresh spirit into him.

"Very good," he murmured, "very good; let us carry it a step farther.
Now supposing "

And, the demon of logic at his heels, we both went off like inspired
lunatics into a world of hypotheses where never man had set foot. He was
examining no longer, he was inventing and intoxicating himself with
deductions. No one was right or wrong. We were reasoning about
chimeras, he radiant, I cool, before his gently tickled colleagues. I
never realized till then what imagination a jurist's head could contain.

Perspiring freely, he set down a white mark, having exceeded by ten
minutes the recognized time for examination.

The second examiner was less enthusiastic. He made very few
suppositions, and devoted all his art to convicting me of a contradiction
between page seventeen and page seventy-nine. He kept repeating, "It's a
serious matter, sir, very serious." But, nevertheless, he bestowed a
second white mark on me. I only got half white from the third. The rest
of the examination was taken up in matters extraneous to the subject of
my essay, a commonplace trial of strength, in which I replied with
threadbare arguments to outworn objections.

And then it ended. Two hours had passed.

I left the room while the examiners made up their minds.

A few friends came up to me.

"Congratulations, old man, I bet on six whites."

"Hallo, Larive! I never noticed you."

"I quite believe you; you didn't notice anybody, you still look
bewildered. Is it the emotion inseparable from--"

"I dare say."

"The candidate is requested to return to the examination room!" said the
usher.

And old Michu added, in a whisper, "You have passed. I told you so. You
won't forget old Michu, sir."

M. Flamaran conferred my degree with a paternal smile, and a few kind
words for "this conscientious study, full of fresh ideas on a difficult
subject."

I bowed to the examiners. Larive was waiting for me in the courtyard,
and seized me by the arm.

"Uncle Mouillard will be pleased."

"I suppose so."

"Better pleased than you."

"That's very likely."

"He might easily be that. Upon my word I can't understand you. These
two years you have been working like a gang of niggers for your degree,
and now you have got it you don't seem to care a bit. You have won a
smile from Flamaran and do not consider yourself a spoiled child of
Fortune! What more did you want? Did you expect that Mademoiselle
Charnot would come in person--"

"Look here, Larive--"

"To look on at your examination, and applaud your answers with her neatly
gloved hands? Surely you know, my dear fellow, that that is no longer
possible, and that she is going to be married."

"Going to be married?"

"Don't pretend you didn't know it."

"I have suspected as much since yesterday; I met her at the Salon, and
saw a young man with her."

"Fair?"

"Yes."

"Tall?"

"Rather."

"Good-looking?"

"H'm--well"

"Dufilleul, old chap, friend Dufilleul. Don't you know Dufilleul?"

"No."

"Oh, yes you do--a bit of a stockjobber, great at ecarte, studied law in
our year, and is always to be seen at the Opera with little Tigra of the
Bouffes."

"Poor girl!"

"You pity her?"

"It's too awful."

"What is?"

"To see an unhappy child married to a rake who--"

"She will not be the first."

"A gambler!"

"Yes, there is that, to be sure."

"A fool, as it seems, who, in exchange for her beauty, grace, and youth,
can offer only an assortment of damaged goods! Yes, I do pity girls
duped thus, deceived and sacrificed by the very purity that makes them
believe in that of others."

"You've some queer notions! It's the way of the world. If the innocent
victims were only to marry males of equal innocence, under the
guardianship of virtuous parents, the days of this world would be
numbered, my boy. I assure you that Dufilleul is a good match, handsome
for one thing--"

"That's worth a deal!"

"Rich."

"The deuce he is!"

"And then a name which can be divided."

"Divided?"

"With all the ease in the world. A very rare quality. At his marriage
he describes himself as Monsieur du Filleul. A year later he is Baron du
Filleul. At the death of his father, an old cad, he becomes Comte du
Filleul. If the young wife is pretty and knows how to cajole her
husband, she may even become a marquise."

"Ugh!"

"You are out of spirits, my poor fellow; I will stand you an absinthe,
the only beverage that will suit the bitterness of your heart."

"No, I shall go home."

"Good-by, then. You don't take your degree cheerfully."

"Good-by."

He spun round on his heels and went down the Boulevard St. Michel.

So all is over forever between her and me, and, saddest of all, she is
even more to be pitied than I. Poor girl! I loved her deeply, but I did
it awkwardly, as I do everything, and missed my chance of speaking. The
mute declaration which I risked, or rather which a friend risked for me,
found her already engaged to this beast who has brought more skill to the
task, who has made no blots at the National Library, who has dared all
when he had everything to fear--

I have allowed myself to be taken by her maiden witchery. All the fault,
all the folly is mine. She has given me no encouragement, no sign of
liking me. If she smiled at St. Germain it was because she was surprised
and flattered. If she came near to tears at the Salon it was because she
pitied me. I have not the shadow of a reproach to make her.

That is all I shall ever get from her--a tear, a smile. That's all;
never mind, I shall contrive to live on it. She has been my first love,
and I shall keep her a place in my heart from which no other shall drive
her. I shall now set to work to shut this poor heart which did so wrong
to open.... I thought to be happy to-night, and I am full of sorrow.
Henceforward I think I shall understand Sylvestre better. Our sorrows
will bring us nearer. I will go to see him at once, and will tell him
so.

But first I must write to my uncle to tell him that his nephew is a
Doctor of Law. All the rest, my plans, my whole future can be put off
till to-morrow, or the day after, unless I get disgusted at the very
thought of a future and decide to conjugate my life in the present
indicative only. That is what I feel inclined to do.

May 4th.

Lampron has gone to the country to pass a fortnight in an out-of-the-way
place with an old relative, where he goes into hiding when he wishes to
finish an engraving.

But Madame Lampron was at home. After a little hesitation I told her
all, and I am glad I did so. She found in her simple, womanly heart just
the counsel that I needed. One feels that she is used to giving
consolation. She possesses the secret of that feminine deftness which is
the great set-off to feminine weakness. Weak? Yes, women perhaps are
weak, yet less weak than we, the strong sex, for they can raise us to our
feet. She called me, "My dear Monsieur Fabien," and there was balm in
the very way she said the words. I used to think she wanted refinement;
she does not, she only lacks reading, and lack of reading may go with the
most delicate and lofty feelings. No one ever taught her certain turns
of expression which she used. "If your mother was alive," said she,
"this is what she would say." And then she spoke to me of God, who alone
can determinate man's trials, either by the end He ordains, or the
resignation He inspires. I felt myself carried with her into the regions
where our sorrows shrink into insignificance as the horizon broadens
around them. And I remember she uttered this fine thought, "See how my
son has suffered! It makes one believe, Monsieur Fabien, that the elect
of the earth are the hardest tried, just as the stones that crown the
building are more deeply cut than their fellows."

I returned from Madame Lampron's, softened, calmer, wiser.

CHAPTER IX

A VISIT FROM MY UNCLE

May 5th.

A letter from M. Mouillard breathing fire and fury. Were I not so low
spirited I could laugh at it.

He would have liked me, after taking my degree at two in the afternoon,
to take the train for Bourges the same evening, where my uncle, his
practice, and provincial bliss awaited me. M. Mouillard's friends had
had due notice, and would have come to meet me at the station. In short,
I am an ungrateful wretch. At least I might have fixed the hour of my
imminent arrival, for I can not want to stop in Paris with nothing there
to detain me. But no, not a sign, not a word of returning; simply the
announcement that I have passed. This goes beyond the bounds of mere
folly and carelessness. M. Mouillard, his most elementary notions of
life shaken to their foundations, concludes in these words:

"Fabien, I have long suspected it; some creature has you in bondage.
I am coming to break the bonds!
"BRUTUS MOUILLARD."

I know him well; he will be here tomorrow.

May 6th.
No uncle as yet.

May 7th.
No more uncle than yesterday.

May 8th.
Total eclipse continues. No news of M. Mouillard. This is very strange.

May 9th.
This evening at seven o'clock, just as I was going out to dine, I saw, a
few yards away, a tall, broad-brimmed hat surmounting a head of lank
white hair, a long neck throttled in a white neckcloth, a frock-coat
flapping about a pair of attenuated legs. I lifted up my voice:

"Uncle!"

He opened his arms to me and I fell into them. His first remark was:

"I trust at least that you have not yet dined."

"No, uncle."

"To Foyot's, then!"

When you expect to meet a man in his wrath and get an invitation to
dinner, you feel almost as if you had been taken in. You are heated,
your arguments are at your fingers' ends, your stock of petulance is
ready for immediate use; and all have to be stored in bond.

When I had recovered from my surprise, I said:

"I expected you sooner, from your letter."

"Your suppositions were correct. I have been two days here, at the Grand
Hotel. I went there on account of the dining-room, for my friend
Hublette (you remember Hublette at Bourges) told me: 'Mouillard, you must
see that room before you retire from business.'"

"I should have gone to see you there, uncle, if I had known it."

"You would not have found me. Business before pleasure, Fabien. I had
to see three barristers and five solicitors. You know that business of
that kind can not wait. I saw them. Business over, I can indulge my
feelings. Here I am. Does Foyot suit you?"

"Certainly, uncle."

"Come on, then nephew, quick, march! Paris, makes one feel quite young
again!"

And really Uncle Mouillard did look quite young, almost as young as he
looked provincial. His tall figure, and the countrified cut of his coat,
made all who passed him turn to stare, accustomed as Parisians are to
curiosities. He tapped the wood pavement with his stick, admired the
effects of Wallace's philanthropy, stopped before the enamelled street-
signs, and grew enthusiastic over the traffic in the Rue de Vaugirard.

The dinner was capital--just the kind a generous uncle will give to a
blameless nephew. M. Mouillard, who has a long standing affection for
chambertin, ordered two bottles to begin with. He drank the whole of one
and half of the other, eating in proportion, and talked unceasingly and
positively at the top of his voice, as his wont was. He told me the
story of two of his best actions this year, a judicial separation--my
uncle is very strong in judicial separations--and the abduction of a
minor. At first I looked out for personal allusions. But no, he told
the story from pure love of his art, without omitting an interlocutory
judgment, or a judgment reserved, just as he would have told the story of
Helen and Paris, if he had been employed in that well-known case. Not a
word about myself. I waited, yet nothing came but the successive steps
in the action.

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