"_Per Bacco!_" cried the fellow; "it is my old pupil. Tall andstraight as a young poplar, here stands Monsieur Jean Servien!"It was no other than the Marquis Tudesco. His red waistcoat wasgone; instead he wore a sort of sleeved vest of coarse ticking,but his shining face, with the little round eyes and hooked nose,still wore the same look of merry, mischievous alertness thatwas so like an old parrot's.
Jean was surprised to see him, and not ill-pleased after all.
He greeted him affectionately and asked what he was doing now.
"Behold!" replied the Marquis, "my business is to distributein the streets these advertisements of a local poisoner, andthereby to earn a place at the assassin's table to spread thefame of which I labour. Camoens held out his hand for charityin the streets of Lisbon. Tudesco stretches forth his in thebyways of the modern Babylon, but it is to give and not toreceive--lunches at 1 fr. 25, dinners at 1 fr. 75," and he offeredone of his bills to a passer-by, who strode on, hands in pockets,without taking it.
Thereupon the Marquis Tudesco heaved a sigh and exclaimed:
"And yet I have translated the _Gerusalemme Liberata_, themasterpiece of the immortal Torquato Tasso! But the brutal-mindedbooksellers scorn the fruit of my vigils, and in the empyreanthe Muse veils her face so as not to witness the humiliationinflicted on her nursling.""And what has become of you all the time since we last saw you?"asked the young man frankly.
"God only knows, and 'pon my word! I think He has forgotten."Such was the Marquis Tudesco's oracular answer.
He tied up his bundle of papers in a cloth, and taking his pupil bythe arm, urged him in the direction of the _Rue Saint-Jacques_.
"See, my young friend," he said, "the dome of the Panthéon ishalf hidden by the fog. The School of Salerno teaches that thedamp air of evening is inimical to the human stomach. There isnear by a decent establishment where we can converse as twophilosophers should, and I feel sure your unavowed desire is toconduct your old instructor thither, the master who initiatedyou in the Latin rudiments."They entered a drinking-shop perfumed with so strong a reek ofkirsch and absinthe as took Servien's breath away. The room waslong and narrow, while against the walls varnished barrels withcopper taps were ranged in a long-drawn perspective that waslost in the thick haze of tobacco-smoke hanging in the air underthe gas-jets. At little tables of painted deal a number of menwere drinking; dressed in black and wearing tall silk hats,broken-brimmed and shiny from exposure to the rain, they sat andsmoked in silence. Before the door of the stove several pairsof thin legs were extended to catch the heat, and a thread ofsteam curled up from the toes of the owners' boots. A heavy torporseemed to weigh upon all this assemblage of pallid, impassivefaces.
While Monsieur Tudesco was distributing hand-shakes to sundry oldacquaintances, Jean caught scraps of the conversation of those abouthim that filled him with a despairing melancholy--school ushersrailing at the cookery of cheap eating-houses, tipplers maunderingcontentedly to one another, enchanted at the profundity of theirown wisdom, schemers planning to make a fortune, politiciansarguing, amateurs of the fair sex telling highly-spiced anecdotesof love and women--and amongst it all this sentence:
"The harmony of the spheres fills the spaces of infinity, andif we hear it not, it is because, as Plato says, our ears arestopped with earth."Monsieur Tudesco consumed brandy-cherries in a very elegant way.
Then the waiter served two dantzigs in little glass cups. Jeanadmired the translucent liquor dotted with golden sparkles, andMonsieur Tudesco demanded two more. Then, raising his cup onhigh:
"I drink to the health of Monsieur Servien, your venerable father,"he cried. "He enjoys a green and flourishing old age, at leastI hope so; he is a man superior to his mechanic and mercantilecondition by the benevolence of his behaviour to needy men ofletters. And your respected aunt? She still knits stockings withthe same zeal as of yore? At least I hope so. A lady of an austerevirtue. I conjecture you are wishing to order another dantzig,my young friend."Jean looked about him. The dram-shop was transfigured; the caskslooked enormous with their taps splendidly glittering, and seemedto stretch into infinity in a quivering, golden mist. But oneobject was more monstrously magnified than all the rest, andthat was the Marquis Tudesco; the old man positively toweredas huge as the giant of a fairy-tale, and Jean looked for himto do wonders.
Tudesco was smiling.
"You do not drink, my young friend," he resumed. "I conjectureyou are in love. Ah! love! love is at once the sweetest and thebitterest thing on earth. I too have felt my heart beat for awoman. But it is long years ago since I outlived that passion. Iam now an old man crushed under adverse fortune; but in happierdays there was at Rome a _diva_ of a beauty so magnificent anda genius so enthralling that cardinals fought to the death atthe door of her box; well, sir, that sublime creature I havepressed to my bosom, and I have been informed since that with herlast sigh she breathed my name. I am like an old ruined temple,degraded by the passage of time and the violence of men's hands,yet sanctified for ever by the goddess."This tale, whether it recalled in exaggerated terms some commonplaceintrigue of his young days in Italy, or more likely was a purefiction based on romantic episodes he had read in novels, wasaccepted by Jean as authentic and vastly impressive. The effectwas startling, amazing. In an instant he beheld, with all themiraculous clearness of a vision, there, standing between thetables, the queen of tragedy he adored; he saw the locks braidedin antique fashion, the long gold pendants drooping from eitherear, the bare arms and the white face with scarlet lips. Andhe cried aloud:
"I too love an actress."He was drinking, never heeding what the liquor was; but lo! itwas a philtre he swallowed that revivified his passion. Then atorrent of words rose flooding to his lips. The plays he hadseen, _Cinna, Bajazet_, the stern beauty of émilie, thesweet ferocity of Roxana, the sight of the actress cloaked invelvet, her face shining so pale and clear in the darkness, hislongings, his hopes, his undying love, he recounted everythingwith cries and tears.
Monsieur Tudesco heard him out, lapping up a glass of Chartreusedrop by drop the while, and taking snuff from a screw of paper.
At times he would nod his head in approval and go on listeningwith the air of a man watching and waiting his opportunity. Whenhe judged that at last, after tedious repetitions and numberlessfresh starts, the other's confidences were exhausted, he assumeda look of gravity, and laying his fine hand with a gesture asof priestly benediction on the young man's shoulder:
"Ah! my young friend," he said, "if I thought that what you feelwere true love... but I do not," and he shook his head and lethis hand drop.
Jean protested. To suffer so, and not to be really in love?
Monsieur Tudesco repeated:
"If I thought that this were true love... but I do not, so far."Jean answered with great vehemence; he talked of death and plunginga dagger in his heart.
Monsieur Tudesco reiterated for the third time:
"I do not believe it is true love."Then Jean fell into a fury and began to rumple and tear at hiswaistcoat as if he would bare his heart for inspection. MonsieurTudesco took his hands and addressed him soothingly:
"Well, well, my young friend, since it _is_ true love you feel,I will help you. I am a great tactician, and if King Carlo Albertohad read a certain memorial I sent him on military matters hewould have won the battle of Novara. He did not read my memorial,and the battle was lost, but it was a glorious defeat. How happythe sons of Italy who died for their mother in that thrice holybattle! The hymns of poets and the tears of women made enviabletheir obsequies. I say it: what a noble, what a heroic thingis youth! What flames divine escape from young bosoms to riseto the Creator! I admire above everything young folk who throwthemselves into ventures of war and sentiment with the impetuositynatural to their age."Tasso, Novara, and the _diva_ so beloved of cardinals mingledconfusedly in Jean Servien's heated brain, and in a burst ofsublime if fuddled enthusiasm he wrung the old villain's hand.
Everything had grown indistinct; he seemed to be swimming inan element of molten metal.
Monsieur Tudesco, who at the moment was imbibing a glass of kümmel,pointed to his waistcoat of ticking.
"The misfortune is," he observed, "that I am garbed like aphilosopher. How show myself in such a costume among elegantfemales? 'Tis a sad pity! for it would be an easy matter forme to pay my respects to an actress at an important theatre. Ihave translated the _Gerusalemme Liberata_, that masterpieceof Torquato Tasso's. I could propose to the great actress whomyou love and who is worthy of your love, at least I hope so, aFrench adaptation of the _Myrrha_ of the celebrated Alfieri.
What eloquence, what fire in that tragedy! The part of Myrrhais sublime and terrible; she will be eager to play it. Meantime,you translate _Myrrha_ into French verse; then I introduce youwith your manuscript into the sanctuary of Melpomene, when youbring with you a double gift--fame and love! What a dream, oh!
fortunate young man!... But alas! 'tis but a dream, for how shouldI enter a lady's boudoir in this rude and sordid guise?"But the tavern was closing and they had to leave. Jean felt sogiddy in the open air he could not tell how he had come to loseMonsieur Tudesco, after emptying the contents of his purse intothe latter's hand.
He wandered about all night in the rain, stumbling through thepuddles which splashed up the mud in his face. His brains buzzedwith the maddest schemes, that took shape, jostled one another,and tumbled to pieces in his head. Sometimes he would stop towipe the sweat from his forehead, then start off again on hiswild way. Fatigue calmed his nerves, and a clear purpose emerged.
He went straight to the house where the actress lived, and fromthe street gazed up at her dark, shuttered windows; then, steppingup to the _porte-cochère_, he kissed the great doors.