the reason i can clearly recollect the exact date of the beginning of the adventure i am about to relate, is that it was my thirty-sixth birthday. that is twenty-nine months ago. that anniversary found me more melancholy than usual. the reason of it was still the same: the feeling that my faculties were at the same time unemployed and limited, and that the boundary of my talent was continually being reached. the pretext? i smile at the pretext. but what imaginative man has not had in his youth childish and heroic determinations? what artist has not fixed beforehand the stages in his glorious career, comparing himself to some illustrious person? caesar, who was as good as most people, said: “at my age alexander had conquered the world.” that is an heroic cry when the pride of a still unknown power palpitates in it, but it is harrowing when the conviction of definitive impuissance utters this useless sigh towards triumph. i am not caesar, but all my diaries—and i have many—abound in dates which were rendezvous given by me to fame, but which she failed to keep.
on my thirty-seventh birthday i had, as my 10custom was, been looking through my papers and reflecting that i was still as little known to fame as i had been in my youth, still as lacking in glorious works, great actions, and grand passions, and my hope was gradually departing. that morning, too, an agency to which i was foolish enough to subscribe, had sent me two newspaper cuttings mentioning my name and making unfriendly comments upon my work. a fresh wave of discouragement swept over me, paralyzing the creative energy of the soul, and clearly demonstrating to me my own shortcomings. my communion with my thoughts on that darkening autumn afternoon frightened me, and i took refuge in a means of distraction which was usually successful, a visit to the school of arms in the rue boissy d’anglais. there i overcame my nerves by a series of exercises performed with all the vigour of which i was capable. a cold bath and a rub down followed by dinner in congenial company and a rubber used to pass the evening. towards eleven o’clock i could return home without much risk of insomnia. i had carried out the first part of this programme on the first evening of my thirty-seventh year and should have completed it if i had not, on entering the dining-room of my club, met perhaps the oldest of my parisian comrades, an old school-fellow too, the celebrated novelist and dramatic author, jacques molan.
“will you come and dine?” he asked me. “i have a table, do dine with me.”
11under any other circumstances, in spite of our long friendship, i should have excused myself. few personalities weary me so quickly as jacques. he has combined with faults i detest the quality most lacking in me: the power to impose himself, the audacity of mind, the productive virility, and the self-confidence without which a man is not a great artist. do the great virtues of genius of necessity bring with them an abuse of the “i,” of which this writer was an extraordinary example?
the two other men of letters i knew best, julien dorsenne and claude larcher, were most certainly not tainted with egotism. they were modest violets, holy and timid violets, small and humble in the grass by the side of jacques. “his” books, “his” plays, “his” enemies, “his” plans, “his” profits, “his” mistresses, “his” health, existed for himself alone, and he talked of no one but himself. that was the reason claude said: “how can you ever expect molan to be sad? every morning he gazes at himself in the looking-glass and thinks: 'how happy i am to dress as the first author of the day!’” but claude was slightly envious of jacques, and that was one of the latter’s superiorities; through his self-conceit he was ignorant of any feeling like envy. he did not prefer himself to others, he ignored them. the explanation of this mystery was: with his almost unhealthy vanity only equalled by his insensibility, this fellow had only to sit down with paper in front of him, and beneath his pen came and went, spoke and acted, enjoyed and suffered 12passionate and eloquent beings, creatures of flesh and blood full of love and hate—in a word, real men and women. a whole world was produced, so real, so intense, so amusing, or so moving in turn, that even i am filled with admiration every time i read his books. but i know it is only illusion, only magic, only a sleight-of-hand trick; i know that the spiritual father of these heroes and heroines is a perfect literary monster, with a flask of ink in the place of a heart. i am wrong. he still has there the passionate love of success. what marvellous tact, what fingering in the playing upon that surprising organ, public taste!
jacques is the accomplished type of what we call in studio slang a “profiteur,” the artist who excels in appropriating another’s work, and displaying it to the best advantage! for example, at the period of his rise, naturalism was in the ascendant. zola’s admirable assommoir had just appeared, and almost immediately came the extraordinary studies of peasants and girls which revealed to the world of letters the name of the unhappy maupassant. jacques realized that no great success was possible in any other form of novel, and at the same time he divined that after these two masters he must not touch trivial and popular environment. the reader was satiated with that. molan then conceived the idea, which amounted to genius, of applying to high life the results of the bitter observation and brutal realism so popular then. his four first volumes of novels and short stories were thus, the description 13being bestowed upon them on their first appearance, pomaded with zola and perfumed with maupassant. epigrams are epigrams, and success is success. molan’s success was very rapid, it may be remembered.
soon after, certain indications made him realize that the reader’s taste was changing again, that it was turning in the direction of analysis and psychological study. then he abruptly changed his methods and we had the three books which have done most for his reputation: martyre intime, c?ur brisé and anciennes amours. in them he preserved the faults usual in imitators: long dissertations, the philosophic treatment of little love adventures, and particularly, the abuse of worldly adornment. he had originated naturalism in high life. he introduced analysis of the poor, humble and middle classes. afterwards, when virtue suddenly appeared to be the order of the day, we had from his pen the only novel of the period which rivalled in honest success, l’abbé constantin. it was blanche comme un lys.
when social problems became the critic’s copy, molan once more changed his methods and wrote the novel on a working-class family called une épopée de ce temps, a work of imagination in two volumes, of which 65,000 copies were sold. see the vanity of ?sthetic theories! all these books were conceived with different principles of art. through them we could follow the history of the variations of fashion. not one of them is sincere in the real sense of the word, and all of them have 14in an equal degree that colour of human truth which seems in this wayward writer an unconscious gift. the same gift he displayed, when fearing to weary his readers by an abuse of the novel, he began to write plays. he wrote adéle, a great success at the fran?ais; la vaincue, at the odéon was another, and the newspapers had informed me of his fresh success at the vaudeville, with an enigmatically entitled comedy, la duchesse blue.
now the fact that we were at school together proves that this enormous output: ten volumes of fiction, two of short stories, a collection of verses, and three plays was produced in sixteen years. jacques, too, lived while he worked like this. he had mistresses, made necessary journeys which allowed him to truthfully write in his prefaces sentences like this: “when i picked anemones in the gardens of the villa pamphili!” or like this: “i, too, offered up my prayer on the acropolis”; or again: “like the bull i saw kneel down to die in the bull ring at seville.” i have quoted these phrases from memory. besides all this, the animal looked after his relatives and his investments, and preserved his gaiety and youthful appetite. i had proof of that the evening i mechanically dined with him; in spite of my secret antipathy dominated by the suggestion of vitality emanating from every one of his gestures. we were no sooner seated than he asked me—
“what wine do you prefer, champagne or burgundy? they are both very good here.”
15“i think that eau de vals will do for me,” i replied.
“have you not a good digestion?” he asked with a laugh; “i don’t know that i have a stomach. then i will have extra dry champagne.” his egoism was of a convenient kind, as he never discussed other people’s caprices, nor allowed them to discuss his. he ordered the dinner and asked me if i had seen his play at the vaudeville, what i thought of it, and whether it was not the best thing he had done.
“you know,” i replied in some embarrassment, “i hardly ever go to the theatre.”
“what luck!” he went on good-humouredly. “i will take you this evening. i shall find out your first impression of it. will you be frank with me? you will see that it is not so bitter as adéle, nor quite so eloquent as la vaincue. but the way to succeed is to baffle expectations; never, never repeat oneself! those who reproached me with lack of brain and ignorance of my business, have had to acknowledge their mistake. you know me. i say out loud what i think. when i published tendres nuances, last year, you remember what i said to you: 'it is not worth the trouble of reading’; but la duchesse blue is different. the public is of the same opinion as myself.”
“but where do you find your titles?” i asked.
“what!” he cried; “you, a painter, ask me that question? don’t you know gainsborough’s 'blue boy’ in the gallery of grosvenor house in london? my play has for its heroine a woman 16whom one of your colleagues, better informed than yourself in english manners, has painted in a harmony of blue tints as the gainsborough boy. this woman, being a duchess, has been nicknamed in her set the little blue duchess, because of the portrait. with my dialogue and little favier!”
“who is little favier?” i asked.
“what!” he cried, “don’t you know little favier? you pretend to live in paris! not that i blame you for not frequenting the theatres. seeing the kind of plays usually put on, i think it was high time they gave us young ones a chance.”
“that does not tell me about little favier,” i insisted.
“well! camille favier is the blue duchess. she acts with talent, fantasy and grace! i discovered her. a year ago she was at the conservatoire. i saw her there and recognized her talent, and when i sent my play to the vaudeville, i told them i wanted her to take the part. they engaged her, and now she is famous. my luck is contagious. but you must do her portrait for me as she is in the play, a symphony in blue major! it will be a fine subject for you for the next salon. i repeat i am very lucky. then what a head she has for you: twenty-two years old, a complexion like a tea-rose, a mouth sad in repose and tender when smiling, blue eyes to complete the symphony, pale, pale, pale blue with a black point in the middle, which sometimes increases in size; her hair is the colour of oriental tobacco, and she is slender, supple and young. she lives with her mother in a 17third floor in the rue de la barcuellére, in your neighbourhood. that detail is good as a human document. people talk of the theatre’s corruption: nine hundred francs rent, one servant, and an outlook on a convent garden! she believes in her art, and in authors! she believes too much in them.”
he said these words with a smile, the meaning of which was unmistakable. his remarks had been accompanied by an insolent and sensual look, gleaming and self-satisfied. i had no doubt as to the feeling the pretty actress inspired in him. he told me about these private matters in a very loud voice, with that apparent indiscretion which implies thoughtlessness and so well conceals design. but this sort of gossip always has a prudent limit. besides, the diners at the next table were three retired generals, to interrupt whose conversation then gun-shot would have been required. the noises made by the thirty or forty persons dining were sufficient to drown even jacques’ most distinct phrases. so there was really no reason for my companion to speak in low tones, as i did in questioning him. but what a symbol of our two destinies! i instinctively experienced, before even knowing mademoiselle favier, the shameful timidity of the sentiment of which jacques experienced the joy.
“you are paying court to her, that is what you mean?” i asked him.
“no, she is courting me,” he said with a laugh, “or rather has been doing so. but why should i 18not tell you, for if i introduce you to her, she will tell you everything in five minutes? in fact, she is my mistress. with my reputation, my investments, my books, i can marry whom i please; and there is plenty of time. the pear is ripe. but if we were always reasonable, we should be only common people, should not we? she began it. if you had seen, at rehearsal, how she stealthily devoured me with her eyes! i took good care not to notice her. she is a coquette and a half. an author who has a mistress at the theatre when he does not act himself, is responsible for a serious orthographical error. you know the proverb: the architect does not hobnob with the mason. but after the first performance, after the battle was won, i let myself go. here is another human document: little favier had gone through the conservatoire, had been on the stage, and my dear fellow she was still virtuous, perfectly virtuous. do you understand me?”
“poor girl!” i cried involuntarily.
“no, no!” jacques replied shrugging his shoulders. “some lover must be first, and it is better to have a jacques molan than a pupil of the conservatoire, or, as is usually the case, one of the professors there, is it not? but i am her poesy, her real romance to tell her friends. i have been kind to her. she desired our love concealed from her mother and we did so. she desired meetings in cemeteries at the graves of great men and i have gone there. can you imagine me, at my age, with a bunch of violets in my hand, waiting for a friend 19with my elbows sentimentally resting upon the tomb of alfred de musset, a poet whom i detest? quite a student’s idyll, is it not? i repeat it is very foolish, but i found her so amiable and so fresh the first time. she 'rested me’ from this paris in which everything is vanity.”
“and now?” i asked.
“now?” he repeated, and the insolent and sensual expression came into his eyes once more. “you want me to confess? that is two months ago, and a two months’ idyll is a little less fresh, amiable and restful.” then in a lower and more confidential tone he asked: “do you know pretty madam pierre de bonnivet?”
“you still seem to forget that i am not a fashionable painter,” i replied, “that i have not a little house on the monceau plain, that i do not ride in the bois, and frequent the noble faubourg though i live there.”
“don’t let us mix up our localities,” he replied with his usual assurance. “the monceau plain and the bois have nothing in common with the faubourg and the nobility, nor has the charming person to whom i am referring, anything in common, except her name, with the real bonnivet descended from the constable or admiral, the friend of francis i.”
“there is one less imbecile among her ancestors then,” i interrupted. “that is one of the advantages the false nobility sometimes has over the true nobility.”
“good,” jacques said, shrugging his shoulders 20at the sally with which i had satisfied my ill-humour against her pretensions. “you remind me of giboyer. you are a pedant, sir. but i shall not defend what you call the noble faubourg against your attacks. i have seen enough of it to never wish to set foot in it again. there is too much fashion about it for me. grand drawing-rooms are not in my line. i have nothing to do with aristocratic ladies. one-twentieth of the women in paris, some young, some not, some titled, some not, have pretensions to be literary, political, or ?sthetic, but they are all brainy and intellectual, and they are not courtesans. my pleasure is to turn them into courtesans when it is worth the trouble. if i ever show you bonnivet, you will agree that she is worth the trouble. besides there is at her house lively conversation and good food. don’t look so disgusted. after ten years in paris even with my stomach, dinner in town becomes a terrible bore. at her house dinner is a feast, the table exquisite and the cellar marvellous. father bonnivet has made ten or twelve million francs out of flour. it is not sufficient for his wife for the celebrated men about whom she is curious to honour her drawing-room with their presence. they have to fall in love with her as well, and i believe they have all done so, till now.”
i urged him to continue his story, though his cynicism made me shudder, his loquacity exasperated me, and i was horrified at his sentiments, which were so brutally plebeian in their dilettante disguise, for i was greatly interested in his confidences. 21he gladly opened his heart to me as i listened to him, though he actually liked me no more than i did him. he instinctively felt the fascination he exercised over me and it pleased him. we were at college together, and that strange bond would unite us till death in spite of everything. he went on—
“there is nothing to tell you except that for some time queen anne, as her intimate friends call her, absolutely refused to be introduced to me. in parenthesis, i wonder if this name anne has been selected as coquettishly heraldic? i sometimes dine at the house of madam éthorel, her cousin, whom she detests. i met her there, and i also pretended to avoid her. she told any one who would listen to her that i had no talent, and that my books either bored or repelled her, that being the classic method of a fashionable woman who wishes to pique a famous man by not appearing to join the throng of his admirers. kind friends always let one know of this amiability. la duchesse blue was produced with some success, as i have told you, and then, i don’t know how or why, there came an entire change of front. one of her beaters—she has beaters, just like a sportsman, whom she recruits from her most ardent admirers—senneterre, whom you know well; the old blond who sometimes takes the bank here, and is a great admirer of mine. generally we merely exchanged greetings, but instead of that he showered compliments upon me and finished up by inviting me to dine at the club in the room 22reserved for fashionable ladies. that is five weeks ago. 'how are they going to make use of me?’ i thought as i went up the stairs. the first person i met in the anteroom, one of the prettiest, most elegant corners in paris, was madam pierre de bonnivet.”
“she was just like little favier,” i interposed, “a coquette and a half. ever since i have known you your stories have always been the same: they consist of playing with the women who have the least heart, and you always win.”
“it is not quite as simple as all that,” he replied without getting angry; “i amused myself with queen anne, but not in the way you think. the beater placed us side by side at the table. i should like you to have been there in hiding listening to us. the conversation was sweet, simple, friendly and melting, the meeting of two beautiful souls. she spoke well of all the women we knew, and i spoke well of all my colleagues. we declared in agreement that the great awkward madam de sauve has never had a lover, and that dorsenne’s novels are his masterpieces, that the demon madam moraines is an angel of disinterestedness, and that the noodle, rené vincy is a great poet. judge of our sincerity. it was as if neither she nor i had ever suspected that one writer could slander another, that a woman of the world could commit adultery. we have taken our revenge since, and we are at this moment in that state of bitter warfare which is disguised by the pretty name of flirtation. i spare you the details. it is sufficient to know that she 23is aware that little favier is my mistress; she thinks i am madly in love with her, and her sole aim is to steal me from her. accustomed as she is to masculine ruses, she has laid the snare which has always been successful since the earth has revolved around the sun: there is no virtue like the sensation of stealing a love from another woman. the most curious thing is that queen anne might easily have been virtuous. oh, she is very fast. but i should not be surprised to hear that she has never had a real lover. besides, if she had had twenty-five lovers her scheme would still have succeeded. i would wager that in the earthly paradise the serpent only told our mother eve that he was about to pluck the apple for the female of his own species.”
“but what of camille favier?” i asked.
“naturally she guessed or else i told her—i don’t know how to lie—so she is no less jealous of bonnivet than bonnivet is of her. i have not been bored for the last week or two i can assure you. things have moved quickly, and the rapid are just as successful in gallantry as in everything else.”
we were having dessert, and he was balancing a piece of pear on the end of his dessert fork as he concluded his confidence with this brutal cruelty which made me say—
“you are between two women again? you are playing a dangerous game.”
“dangerous?” he interrupted with his confident joviality. “to whom? to me? happily 24or unhappily, i am insured against these fires. to madam de bonnivet? if she does not love me, what risk does she run? if she loves me, she will be grateful. suffering requires feeling, and to women of this kind that is everything. but i think she is as hard as i am. as for camille, it will develop her talent.”
“suppose one of the lady admirers of the novels of your second period, anciennes amours or martyre intime, were to hear you now?” i said to him. “for this is quite the reverse of what you put in those two books.”
“ah!” he said. “if one lived one’s books, there would be no trouble in writing them. come. let us go down quickly and have coffee. i want you to see the beginning of the first act. i have only one quality, but that is a strong one. i can compose. a play or novel of mine is compact, there is nothing useless in it. the first and third acts are the best in the play. madam de bonnivet prefers the second and camille the fourth. all tastes are suited. waiter, bring two cups of coffee and two fine cigars at once. give me just time to cast my eye down the closing prices on the stock exchange and i am at your service. good. my gold mine shares are going up. i am about three thousand francs to the good. how is your money invested?”
“i have not invested it,” i said sadly, “it stays where it is and brings in from two and a half to three per cent.”
“that is absurd!” jacques said as he lit a cigar. 25“i will advise you. i have good friends, one of the mosé among others, who keep me well informed. i know as much as they do, and if i were not a literary man, i should like to be a financier. but we must hurry. queen anne may be at the theatre this evening, though she has already seen the play four times. if she is there, you will see two comedies instead of one. but i am very glad to have met you this evening.”