by Ouida
She had had six children, three were living and three were dead; she thought herself a good mother, because she gave her wet-nurses ever so many silk gowns, and when she wanted the children for a fancy ball or a drive, always saw that they were faultlessly dressed, and besides she always took them to Trouville.
She had never had any grief in her life, except the loss of the Second Empire, and even that she got over when she found that flying the Red Cross flag had saved her hotel, without so much as a teacup being broken in it, that MM. Worth and Offenbach were safe from all bullets, and that society, under the Septennate, promised to be every bit as leste as under the Empire.
In a word, Madame Mila was a type of the women of her time.
The women who go semi-nude in an age which has begun to discover that the nude in sculpture is very immoral; who discuss ‘Tue-la’ in a generation which decrees Molière to be coarse, and Beaumont and Fletcher indecent; who have the Journal pour Eire on their tables in a day when no one who respects himself would name the Harlot’s Progress; who read Beaudelaire and patronise Térésa and Schneider in an era which finds ‘Don Juan’ gross, and Shakespeare far too plain; who strain all their energies to rival Mlles. Rose the and La Petite Boulotte in everything; who go shrimping or oyster-hunting on fashionable seashores, with their legs bare to the knee; who go to the mountains with confections, high heels, and gold-tipped canes, shriek over their gambling as the dawn reddens over the Alps, and know no more of the glories of earth and sky, of sunrise and sunset, than do the porcelain pots that hold — their paint, or the silver dressing-box that carries their hair-dye.
Women who are in convulsions one day, and on the top of a drag the next; who are in hysterics for their lovers at noon-day, and in ecstacies over baccarat at midnight; who laugh in little nooks together over each other’s immoralities, and have a moral code so elastic that it will pardon anything except innocence; who gossip over each other’s dresses, and each other’s passions, in the self-same, self-satisfied chirp of contentment, and who never resent anything on earth, except any eccentric suggestion that life could be anything except a perpetual fête à la Watteau in a perpetual blaze of lime-light.
Pain? — Are there not chloral and a flattering doctor? Sorrow? — Are there not a course at the Baths, play at Monte Carlo, and new cases from Worth? Shame? — Is it not a famine fever which never comes near a well laden table? Old Age?
— Is there not white and red paint, and heads of dead hair, and even false bosoms? Death? — Well, no doubt there is death, but they do not realise it; they hardly believe in it, they think about it so little.
There is something unknown somewhere to fall on them some day that they dread vaguely, for they are terrible cowards. But they worry as little about it as possible. They give the millionth part of what they possess away in its name to whatever church they belong to, and they think they have arranged quite comfortably for all possible contingencies hereafter.
If it make things safe, they will head bazaars for the poor, or wear black in holy week, turn lottery-wheels for charity, or put on fancy dresses in the name of benevolence, or do any little amiable trifle of that sort. But as for changing their lives, — pas si bête!
A bird in the hand they hold worth two in the bush; and though your birds may be winged on strong desire, and your bush the burning parterre of Moses, they will have none of them.
These women are not all bad; oh, no! they are like sheep, that is all. If it were fashionable to be virtuous, very likely they would be so. If it were chic to be devout, no doubt they would pass their life on their knees. But, as it is, they know that a flavour of vice is as necessary to their reputation as great ladies, as sorrel-leaves to soup à la bonne femme. They affect a license if they take it not.
They are like the barber, who said, with much pride, to Voltaire, “Je ne suis qu’un pauvre diable de perruquier, mais je ne crois pas en Dieu plus que les autres.”
They may be worth very little, but they are desperately afraid that you should make such a mistake as to think them worth anything at all. You are not likely, if you know them. Still, they are apprehensive.
Though one were to arise from the dead to preach to them, they would only make of him a nine days’ wonder, and then laugh a little, and yawn a little, and go on in their own paths.
Out of the eater came forth meat, and from evil there may be begotten good; but out of nullity there can only come nullity. They have wadded their ears, and though Jeremiah wailed of desolation, or Isaiah thundered the wrath of heaven, they would not hear, — they would go on looking at each other’s dresses.
What could Paul himself say that would change them?
You cannot make saw-dust into marble; you cannot make sea-sand into gold. “Let us alone,” is all they ask; and it is all that you could do, though the force and flame of Horeb were in you.
Mila, Countess de Caviare having arrived early in the morning and remained invisible all day, had awakened at five to a cup of tea, an exquisite dressing-gown, and her choicest enamel; she now gave many bird-like kisses to her cousin, heaped innumerable endearments upon her, and hearing there was nothing to do, sent out for a box at the French Theatre.
“It is wretched acting,” said the Lady Hilda; “I went the other night but I did not stay half-an-hour.”
“That of course, ma chère,” said Madame Mila; “but we shall be sure to see people we know, — heaps of people.”
“Such as they are,” said the Lady Hilda.
“At any rate it is better than spending an evening alone. I never spent an evening alone in my life,” said Mme de Caviare, who could no more live without a crowd about her than she could sleep without chlorodyne, or put on a petticoat without two or three maids’ assistance.
The French company in Floralia is usually about the average of the weakly patchwork troops of poor actors that pass on third rate little stages in the French departments; but Floralia, feminine and fashionable, flocks to the French company because it can rely on something tant soit peu hazardé, and is quite sure not to be bored with decency, and if by any oversight or bad taste the management should put any serious sort of piece on the stage, it can always turn its back to the stage and whisper to its lovers, or chatter shrilly to its allies.
They went into their box as the second act ended of Mme de Scabreuse; a play of the period, written by a celebrated author; in which the lady married her nephew, and finding out that he was enamoured of her daughter, the offspring of a first marriage, bought poison for them both, and then suddenly changing her mind, with magnificent magnanimity drank it herself, and blessed the lovers as she died in great agonies.
It had been brought out in Paris with enormous success, and as Lady Hilda and the Countess had both seen it half-a-dozen times they could take no interest in it.
“You would come!” said the former, raising her eyebrows and seating herself so as to see nothing whatever of the stage and as little as possible of the house.
“Of course,” replied Madame Mila, whose lorgnon was ranging hither and thither, like a general’s spy-glass before a battle. “There was nothing else to do — at least you said there was nothing. Look! some of those women have actually got the œuf de Pâques corsage — good heaven! — those went out last year, utterly, utterly! Ah, there is Lucia San Luca — what big emeralds — and there is Maria Castelfidardo, how old she is looking. That is Lady Featherleigh — you remember that horrid scandal? — Yes, I hear they do visit her here. How handsome Luisa Ottoseccoli looks; powder becomes her so; her son is a pretty boy — oh, you never stoop to boys; you are wrong; nothing amuses you like a boy; how they believe in one! There is that Canadian woman who tried to get into notice in Paris two seasons ago — you remember? — they make her quite Crème in this place — the idea! She is dressed very well, I dare say if she were always dumb she might pass. She never would have been heard of even here, only Attavante pushed her right and left, bribed the best people to her parties, and induced all his ot
her tendresses to send her cards. In love! of course not! Who is in love with a face like a Mohican squaw’s, and a squeak like a goose’s? But they are immensely rich; at least they have mountains of ready money; he must have suffered dreadfully before he made her dress well. Teach her grammar, in any language, he never will. There is the old Duchess — why, she was a centenarian when we were babies — but they say she plays every atom as keenly as ever — nobody can beat her for lace either — look at that Spanish point.
There are a few decent people here this winter; not many though; I think it would have been wiser to have stopped at Nice. Ah mon cher, comment ça va? — tell me, Maurice, who is that woman in black with good diamonds, there, with Sampierdareno and San Marco?”
‘Maurice,’ pressing her pretty hand, sank down on to the hard bench behind her armchair, and insinuated gracefully that the woman in black with good diamonds was not “d’une vertu assez forte,” to be noticed by or described to such ladies as Mila, Countess de Caviare; but since identification of her was insisted on, proceeded to confess that she was no less a person than the wild Duke of Stirling’s Gloria.
“Ah! is that Gloria!” said Madame, with the keenest interest, bringing her lorgnon to bear instantly. “How curious! I never chanced to see her before. How quiet she looks, and how plainly she is dressed.”
“I am afraid we have left Gloria and her class no other way of being singular!” said the Lady Hilda, who had muttered her welcome somewhat coldly to Maurice.
Maurice, Vicomte des Gommeux, was a young Parisian, famous for leading cotillons and driving piebalds; he followed Mme de Caviare with the regularity of her afternoon shadow; was as much an institution with her as her anodynes; and much more useful than her courier. To avoid all appearances that might set a wicked world talking, he generally arrived in a city about twenty-four hours after her, and, as she was a woman of good-breeding who insisted on les mœurs, always went to another hotel. He had held his present post actually so long as three years, and there were as yet no signs of his being dismissed and replaced, for he was very devoted, very obedient, very weak, saw nothing that he was intended not to see, and was very adroit at rolling cigarettes.
“Il est si bon enfant!” said the Count de Caviare, to everybody; he really was grateful to the young man, some of whose predecessors had much disturbed his wife’s temper and his own personal peace.
“Bon soir, Mesdames,” said the Duc de St. Louis, entering the box. “Comtesse, charmé de vous voir — Miladi à vos pieds. What a wretched creature that is playing Julie de Scabreuse. I blush for my country. When I was a young man, the smallest theatre in France would not have endured that woman. There was a public then with proper feeling for the histrionic as for every other art; a bad gesture or a false intonation was hissed by every audience, were that audience only composed of workmen and work girls; but now—”
“May one enter, Mesdames?” asked his friend, Della Rocca.
“One may — if you will only shut the door. Thanks for the cyclamens,” said the Lady Hilda, with a little of the weariness going off her delicate, proud face.
Della Rocca took the seat behind her, as the slave Maurice surrendered his to M. de St. Louis.
“Happy flowers! I found them in my own woods this morning,” he said, as he took his seat. “You do not seem much amused, Madame.”
“Amused! The play is odious. Even poor Desclée’s genius could only give it a horrible fascination.”
“It has the worst fault of all, it is unnatural.”
“Yes; it is very curious, but the French will have so much vice in the drama, and the English must have so much virtue, that a natural or possible play is an impossibility now upon either stage.”
“You looked more interested in the Majolica this morning—”
“How, did you see me?”
“I was passing through the tower of the Podestà on business. Is it not wonderful our old pottery? It is intensely to be regretted that Ginori and Carocci imitate it so closely; it vulgarises a thing whose chief beauty after all is association and age.”
“Yes; what charm there is in a marriage plate of Maestro Giorgio’s, or a sweetmeat dish of your Orazio Fontana’s! But there is very scanty pleasure in reproductions of them, however clever these may be, such as Pietro Gay sends out to Paris and Vienna Exhibitions.”
“You mean, there can be no mind in an imitation?”
“Of course; I would rather have the crudest original thing than the mere galvanism of the corpse of a dead genius. I would give a thousand paintings by Froment, Damousse, or any of the finest living artists of Sèvres, for one piece by old Van der Meer of Delft; but I would prefer a painting on Sèvres done yesterday by Froment or Damousse, or even any much less famous worker, provided only it had originality in it, to the best reproduction of a Van der Meer that modern manufacturers could produce.”
“I think you are right; but I fear our old pottery painters were not very original. They copied from the pictures and engravings of Mantegna, Raffaelle, Marcantonio, Marco di Ravenna, Beatricius, and a score of others.”
“The application was original, and the sentiment they brought to it. Those old artists put so much heart into their work.”
“Because when they painted a stemma on the glaze they had still feudal faith in nobility, and when they painted a Madonna or Ecce Homo they had still child-like belief in divinity. What does the pottery painter of to-day care for the coat of arms or the religious subject he may be commissioned to execute for a dinner service or a chapel? It maybe admirable painting — if you give a very high price — but it will still be only manufacture.”
“Then what pleasant lives those pottery painters of the early days must have led! They were never long stationary. They wandered about decorating at their fancy, now here and now there; now a vase for a pharmacy, and now a stove for a king. You find German names on Italian ware, and Italian names on Flemish grès; the Nuremberger would work in Venice, the Dutchman would work in Rouen.”
“Sometimes however they were accused of sorcery; the great potter, Hans Kraut, you remember, was feared by his townsmen as possessed by the devil, and was buried ignominiously outside the gates, in his nook of the Black Forest. But on the whole they were happy, no doubt: men of simple habits and of worthy lives.”
“You care for art yourself, M. Della Rocca?” There came a gleam of interest in her handsome, languid hazel eyes, as she turned them upon him.
“Every Italian does,” he answered her. “I do not think we are ever, or I think, if ever, very seldom connoisseurs in the way that your Englishman and Frenchman is so. We are never very learned as to styles and dates; we cannot boast the huckster’s eye of the northern bric-à-brac hunter; it is quite another thing with us; we love art as children their nurses’ tales and cradle songs; it is a familiar affection with us, and affection is never very analytical; the Robbia over the chapel-door, the apostle-pot that the men in the stables drink out of; the Sodoma or the Beato Angelico that hangs before our eyes daily as we dine; the old bronze secchia that we wash our hands in as boys in the Loggia — these are all so homely and dear to us that we grow up with a love for them all as natural as our love for our mothers. You will say the children of all rich people see beautiful and ancient things from their birth; so they do, but not as we see them — here they are too often degraded to the basest household uses, and made no more account of than the dust which gathers on them; but that very neglect of them makes them the more kindred to us. Art elsewhere is the guest of the salon — with us she is the play-mate of the infant and the serving-maid of the peasant: the mules may drink from an Etruscan sarcophagus, and the pigeons be fed from a patina of the twelfth century.”
Lady Hilda listened with the look of awakened interest still in her large eyes; he spoke in his own tongue, and with feeling and grace; it was new to her to find a man with whom art was an emotion instead of an opinion.
The art world she had met with was one that was very positive, ve
ry eclectic, very hypercritical, very highly cultured; it had many theories and elegant phrases; it laid down endless doctrines, and found pleasure in endless disputations. Whenever she had tired of the world of fashion, this was the world she had turned to; it had imbued her with knowledge of art, and immeasurable contempt for those to whom art was a dead letter; but art had remained with her rather an intellectual dissipation than a tenderness of sentiment.
“As you care for these things, Madame,” continued Della Rocca, with hesitation, “might I one day hope that you would honour my poor villa? It has little else left in it; but there are still a few rare pieces of Gubbio and Urbino and Faenza, and I have a Calvary which, if not by Lucca himself, is certainly by Andrea della Robbia.’
“I shall be glad to see them. Your villa is near?”
“About ten miles’ distance, up in the hills. It was once a great stronghold as well as palace. Now it can boast no interest save such as may go with fallen fortunes. For more than a century we have been too poor to be able to do any more than keep wind and water out of it; and it had been cleared before my time of almost everything of value. Happily, however, the chestnut woods outside it have not been touched. They shroud its nakedness.”
“Your villa, Della Rocca?” cried Madame de Caviare, who had known him for several years. “I have never seen it; we will drive out there some day when the cold winds are gone—”
“Vous me comblez de bontés,” he answered, with a low bow. “Alas, Madame, there is very little that will repay you: it is hardly more than a ruin. But if you and Miladi will indeed honour it—”
“It is a very fine place still,” said the Duc de St. Louis, a little impatiently. “It has suffered in sieges; and is by so much the more interesting. For myself, I endure very much pain from having a whole house, and one built no later than 1780. My great grandfather pulled down the noble old castle, built at the same time as Château Gaillard — imagine the barbarism! — and employed the ponderous rocaille of Oppenord to replace it. It is very curious, but loss of taste in the nobles has always been followed by a revolution of the mob. The décadence always ushers in the democracy.”