Then, when the tenor had taken his hat and departed, the basso allowed himself to observe that Mr. Willoughby had a great deal of heart.
The two carriages which conveyed the oriflamme had their armorial bearings obliterated from the panels ... a tactful concession to the people whose heart was in the right place though their king, as yet, was not. The concert-room was quite as half-baked as Sophia had guessed it would be, and emptier beyond her most cynical guess. Another sign of the times, observed Père Hyacinthe. The arts could never flourish in a soil undermined by social disquiet, unwarmed, if he might say so, by the sun of majesty. The elderly lady beyond him added that no one could buy concert tickets when the country was on the verge of bankruptcy. On this followed an animated lamentation on bank failures, the ruin of those who held railway shares, the price of gold and the demented theories of Louis Blanc, Frederick adding that Louis Blanc was the illegitimate son of Pozzo di Borgo, deriving his surname from the blank space in the baptismal register. The burst of applause following this statement applied, however, to the appearance of the duettists who were to perform the Overture to La Vestale.
It was an archipelago of a concert, quantities of short items isled in long pauses. Long as the pauses were, the financial situation filled them, and Sophia, who had at first felt somewhat hypocritical in her agreement to be alarmed, knowing of the solid English gold which she had ordered to be conveyed to her agent, fell later to pondering what would happen if by some stroke of Communism that gold were laid hands on. She had an independent spirit, and had never lacked for money. The idea of finding herself penniless (even artificially and temporarily penniless) was repulsive and bewildering, and with growing exasperation she turned over such expedients as selling her diamond brooch, giving lessons in English, or journeying to Calais on foot. The knowledge that her panic was unreasonable did not make it less, and the act of thinking to music heightened her disquiet, the quartet by Habeneck dragging her thoughts at its steadily grinding chariot wheels. It was all very well for the others, she assured herself. For them this chaos which they canvassed so freely was like every other development of the Revolution: another proof of the incompetency of the late government, another argument against liberalism, another preliminary darkness on which the restoration must certainly lighten. They could have it their own way; but neither buffet to one regime nor wind to the sails of another would be of the least consolation to Sophia stranded in Paris with an empty purse. Hearing Frederick murmur confidentially, “They’re laying it on a bit thick,” she glanced at him with real gratitude for the English phrase and the English phlegm.
And he — with what sensations was he waiting for Madame Lemuel’s part in the programme? Whatever they were, he gave no indication, listening to the flute variations on Là ci darem with such gentlemanly melancholy that he did not even appear to be numbering them.
Nevertheless, thought Sophia, it is a situation. Man and wife cannot sit side by side waiting for the man’s mistress to come forward bowing and public-figured without it being a situation. I hate situations. I loathe drama, and I wish I had never come. Frantically, intently, conscience-strickenly aware how little time remained for the process, she began to freeze herself, while the remaining variations, each more hurried, squeaking, and breathless than the last, scampered to the final trill and the final arpeggio. Now there would be applause, and then another of those intervals.
She must have frozen better than she knew. When the crimson curtains parted and Minna came forward, bowing and public-figured, it was as though she had never seen the woman before. Gravely, carefully, almost as though she were telling the story on oath, Minna told the story of Puss in Boots. Like everything else in the programme, her performance fell flat, and the vigour of a few applauding hands only emphasised the inattention of the other applauders. All the way back great-aunt Léocadie spoke with delight of Madame Lemuel’s narrative. It was perfect, she said; the very spirit of old France. In her satisfaction she even forgot to mention the nocturne by Mademoiselle Bertin.
I feel, thought Sophia, as though I had visited a churchyard, and it had been the wrong churchyard. She had caught a cold, as people who visit churchyards often do. Dull with fever, she consented willingly enough to Léocadie’s diagnosis of grippe, and to the prescription of bed and tisane. She was pleased to lie in bed, and had not enough enterprise of spirit left to wish to die.
When she got up again it was as she expected. The negotiations in which her part had been so passive had gone on perfectly without her. Frederick had brought flowers, and the reconciliation was completed. However, her money had arrived safely, that was one comfort — now, presumably, she would need to buy another trousseau. Only the formalities remained, and those were well in hand. “I have a whim,” said great-aunt Léocadie, “an old woman’s whim, that must be indulged. Seeing you here together, hearing your English accents, has given me the idea how delightful it would be to have a high tea together, an English nursery high tea, all by ourselves. Just such a feast, my Sophie, as I learned to enjoy at Blandamer, when you were a little girl in a tippet. We will get the buns from Columbin. Shall we say, Saturday?”
Buns on Saturday, thought Sophia. Te Deum on Sunday.
Only now did the slow-witted creature realise how patently, appearing without warning and without pretext, she must have seemed to great-aunt Léocadie to be throwing herself upon those managing mercies, mutely holding out a rended matrimony as a child holds a broken toy or a torn pinafore. Her first refusal to meet Frederick, how affected and mawkish that must have appeared! — her yielding, how natural! Tying on her bonnet before the glass, contemplating her face, blankly handsome, Sophia assured herself that for the last month she had indeed been exactly like the fairy-tale goose that ran about ready-roasted with a knife and fork in its back. It was too late to do anything about it now. Casting back her mind she could not discern a moment since her coming to the Place Bellechasse when it had not been too late, so completely had she pulled the net about her. Really, if one were such a fool when left to one’s own devices, it might be as well to resume a husband as soon as possible.
Soon it would be. This was Saturday and she was going out to choose the buns. Having left matters so late, this was all she could do as a show of interest in the reconciliation so kindly arranged for her. And like every one who asserts himself too late she had asserted herself too violently, saying “I will go to Columbin’s for the buns,” as though she were volunteering to go through fire and water for them.
“Pray do, my child. Choose them yourself. Madeleine will go with you to carry them.”
Columbin, the English pastrycook, had his shop in the rue de Luxembourg; before going there Sophia went to the agent and picked up the money which awaited her. Twenty-five good golden English pounds — a reassuring weight, a comfortable gravity.
“I love money,” she told herself, walking obliviously past shop-windows. “There, perhaps, the true unexplored passion of my life awaits me.” And remembering how Byron had written,
So for a good old-gentlemanly vice
I think I must take up with avarice,
she took pleasure in imagining herself back again at Blandamer, sitting by the library fire, reading Don Juan, and letting her thoughts stray with the turning of a page to rent-roll and consolidated bonds. True, Frederick would be lounging near by: Frederick who was no buttress to the pleasures of avarice. But it was ill-advised to think of that, better to look on the other side of the penny, better to remember that the honourable estate of matrimony allowed one to read Don Juan in honour and ease, rather than by snatches in a cold bedroom.
The pleasures of avarice were emphasised by the surroundings. It was difficult to believe that this was Paris, so nipped and dingy did it look, so down-hearted and down-at-heel. A shrewish wind was blowing, and if the sun had tempted out the café tables and chairs, it had tempted out nothing else; for the few drinkers sat within the glass doors, and seemed to have wrapped newspapers round them for f
urther protection. Certainly they had no mind for the stumpy young man who had been playing his guitar to a set of tables and chairs, and had now gone in to make his collection. As she passed, idly surveying, he came out again, pausing at the door for one more bow and one more soliciting glance around. A voice, protesting against the draught, cut short the poor hope. They met face to face and Sophia supposed he was about to hold out his hat to her, when he put it on in order to take it off, bowing with stiff politeness. Only then, seeing herself recognised, did she recognise him. It was the hump-backed little Jew who had offered her a chair at the rue de la Carabine, and to whom Minna had spoken of his symphony.
Poor child! — she thought. How cold he looks, what agony to press wire strings with such chilblained hands! Pity softened her blank good looks into beauty. Encouraged and romantic, he stood beside her, with his hat in one hand and his instrument in the other, asking if she were alone, if he might have the honour of escorting her. The Revolution, he said, had made Paris less agreeable than of old.
“You can go home, Madeleine,” she said, beckoning to the lady’s-maid, who had withdrawn herself from the spectacle of Mrs. Willoughby conversing with a street-musician — and on the very eve, too, of her reconciliation with Mr. Willoughby. “I will bring the buns.”
“I have been staying,” she said, “with an elderly relation in the Faubourg St. Germain. We play picquet and lament for Charles X. This revolution seems hardly real to me. I wish you would tell me about it, I am as ignorant as the carp at Chantilly.”
If I can get you to Columbin’s, her thoughts added, I will feed you. A good square meal is what you need, hopping beside me like a famished sparrow.
“It is magnificent. It is not like any other revolution. It is purer, more noble, more idealistic.”
She managed to convert an English humph into a more sympathetic noise of assent.
“It is a marvellous experience,” he continued, “to live under a republic. One breathes a different air. Freedom of thought, freedom of speech, no more suspicion or hypocrisy, no more ... ”
A violent fit of coughing interrupted him.
“I fear that the air of a republic has not been very good for your chest.”
Protests and coughs brought them to Columbin’s door. Would he jib, recollecting his guitar, his shabbiness? Not at all. Hunger, that brings the wolf out of the wood, carried him into the pastrycook’s. The hunger, though, was not for the hot chocolate and sandwiches she ordered. Loneliness was the famine which had tamed him; and in the release of having some one to talk to he forgot the where and the when, forgot the unintimacy between them, forgot even the lack of credence which she could not conceal as she listened to his rhodomontades. But by degrees his sincerity gained on her, and she began to listen and question in earnest.
“But surely no state can afford to be completely altruistic. Even granting that France has become a good example to the rest of Europe, that is not a national industry. Revenues must be collected, wages earned and paid. I must seem to you very grovelling — but I fear that Europe, instead of looking on France as an example, will be quite as likely to look on her as a warning.”
“They should change their spectacles, then, if they are so old that they cannot see beyond their noses. The spirit of a people is more than material prosperity. Besides, the republic is prosperous. It is only a few luxuries that have been lopped off. That is nothing.”
“It has been my experience,” she answered, “that soon after people pawn the clock and the tea-set they pawn their tools and their bedding. A nation does not lop off luxuries unless it feels a threat to essentials.”
“Even if we have pawned the clock, even if our house seems bare, I would rather live in it so. Never before has there been so much room for hope.”
At this moment a waiter walked past, ostentatiously skirting the guitar and then returning for another look at it. In a cold angry voice Sophia began to give him her order for buns.
“Poor guitar! I should not have brought it. It offends a waiter and I am afraid it has done worse. Tell me, has not that unfortunate instrument prejudiced you a little against the republic?”
“Tell me, when did you exchange composing symphonies for playing the guitar?”
“I compose still. Better than before.”
“I beg your pardon,” she said abashed.
“But I admit it,” he continued. “You are quite right. I am one of the luxuries that have been lopped off. And sometimes I tremble for the threat to the essentials ... to the greatest of essentials, to art.”
Candour gave a quality almost like blitheness to the story, as he told how surely and swiftly the prophecy of the man in the shawl had been fulfilled. His allowance had ceased, for his father, a jeweller, did no more business. The orchestras were disbanded, no one wished for music-lessons, there was no copying to be had. Revolutions had no need for symphonies, and it was hard enough to pick up a living by playing his guitar. And there were a hundred others, he added, the blitheness falling from his tune, in the same case — others better than he.
“But your friends,” said Sophia slowly. “Surely there must be some people who can help you. Madame Lemuel ... .”
“Minna!” For the first time his face, so pinched and pale, lost its bird’s look of confidence. And yet, she thought, I have always heard that Jews help Jews. However meanly she had come to think of Minna, it had not occurred to her that Minna would practise the good old-gentlemanly vice.
“Minna!” he repeated. “You have hit on the only thing that can make me doubt of the Revolution. Minna should not be left to starve.”
“To starve?” she said, unbelieving.
“To starve twice over. To be so poor that she cannot help others — that is a double starvation to a heart like hers. I would give my right hand,” he said, striking the table, “if I could save her from that.”
“But — things cannot be so bad with her. How long is it since we met at her apartment? Five weeks?”
“She could beggar herself in a day,” he said with pride.
“But what has happened?”
“She is an artist, and there is no time now for art. And because she had a position her plight is the worse, since the younger, the poorer, have gone to her for help. I did myself, more blame to me. She was not in, but five people were waiting to see her. Two of them were duns, three of them beggars like myself. The concierge told me this, licking his vile lips with malice.”
“Did you see her?”
“Yes. She came back at last. Back from a charity concert, unpaid, of course. She had done abominably, she said so. And no wonder, for how can one hold an audience like that, an audience of well-fed idlers, on a little salad?”
“I met people who were at that very concert. They were enthusiastic about her. Her talent is so much admired, she is so well known ... .Would it not be possible ... ” She paused, thinking it must be delicately phrased, and some mocker in her mind repeating the rhyme about the big fleas and the little fleas.
“Not they!” said he.
While she was staring at the pattern of the table-cloth he broke out again.
“But that is not the worst of it, she is starving for more than food and drink. The worst of it is, that as a revolutionary she is out of fashion. Before, she was an inspiration. But inspiration is not wanted now, it seems. One must be practical, one must be administrative, one must understand economics and systems. She pines. She said to me, that very evening, ‘Our Moses was luckier than he knew, to die before he went into the promised land.’”
He stopped. It seemed to him she was no longer listening. And after a moment’s silence he saw her making ready to go.
Aware that he had outstayed his welcome, more aware of it than she, he picked up the guitar and followed her to the door. Frowning abstractedly she listened to his thanks, availing herself of a tact which smoothed the finish of their meeting. Not till the river was crossed did she think, fleetingly, that she should have offered — since h
e could not be tipped — to take singing-lessons.
She was even later than she had expected, but for all that she spent some time arranging herself for the peace-treaty tea, smoothing her hair and polishing her nails. It was as though she must not allow herself to be hurried, as though some heavenly mamma had admonished, “My dear, in your condition it is imperative to avoid the slightest flurry. Above all, do not trip on the stairs.”
Obediently tranquil, she entered the salon, and saw without the least emotion of apology great-aunt Léocadie and Frederick sitting poised above their boiled eggs, and the table spread with cakes and bread-and-butter, and the bouquet of camellias beside her plate. She seated herself in silence. To Léocadie’s polite fears that the buns had given her a great deal of trouble she replied politely that they had given her no trouble whatever; and like a good child, seen and not heard, she crumbled bread-and-butter, and listened to the other two conversing. At intervals, as kind elders do, they made an opening for her in the conversation, pausing, casting encouraging glances; but they got nothing beyond Yes or No for their pains.
Meanwhile their talk became increasingly animated, increasingly a performance in which great-aunt Léocadie was the ballerina and Frederick the suave athletic partner, respectfully leading her round by one leg as she quivered on the tip-toe of the other.
Now Frederick was doing a little pas de fascination on his own, recounting how he had become involved in the planting of a Tree of Liberty. With humour he described the dejected sapling, tied up in the tricolour, the band of squalling schoolchildren, the mayor of the arrondissement who blew his nose continually, the two gentlemen with their rival speeches on fraternity. When the speeches were concluded, and the tree set toppling in its little pit it was discovered that the gardener had gone away, taking his spade with him; but undeterred by this, said Frederick, they began to pass round a hat for contributions. Abstractedly he had put his hand into his pocket, drawn out his case, and dropped a cigar into the hat.
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