The Parisians — Complete by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton (beautiful books to read TXT) 📖

I became convalescent, well enough to leave my father’s house, there were circumstances which compelled me to do so. A young man accustomed to the life of a garcon can’t be always tied to his mother’s apron-strings.”

“Especially if the apron-pocket does not contain a bottle of absinthe,” said Savarin, drily. “You may well colour and try to look angry; but I know that the doctor strictly forbade the use of that deadly liqueur, and enjoined your mother to keep strict watch on your liability to its temptations. And hence one cause of your ennui under the paternal roof. But if there you could not imbibe absinthe, you were privileged to enjoy a much diviner intoxication. There you could have the foretaste of domestic bliss,—the society of the girl you loved, and who was pledged to become your wife. Speak frankly. Did not that society itself begin to be wearisome?”

“No,” cried Gustave, eagerly, “it was not wearisome—”

“Yes, but—”

“But it could not be all-sufficing to a soul of fire like mine.”

“Hem,” murmured Savarin—“a soul of fire! This is very interesting; pray go on.”

“The calm, cold, sister-like affection of a childish undeveloped nature, which knew no passion except for art, and was really so little emancipated from the nursery as to take for serious truth all the old myths of religion—such companionship may be very soothing and pleasant when one is lying on one’s sofa, and must live by rule, but when one regains the vigour of youth and health—”

“Do not pause,” said Savarin, gazing with more compassion than envy on that melancholy impersonation of youth and health. “When one regains that vigour of which I myself have no recollection, what happens?”

“The thirst for excitement, the goads of ambition, the irresistible claims which the world urges upon genius, return.”

“And that genius, finding itself at the North Pole amid Cimmerian darkness in the atmosphere of a childish intellect—in other words, the society of a pure-minded virgin, who, though a good romance-writer, writes nothing but what a virgin may read, and, though a bel esprit, says her prayers and goes to church—then genius—well, pardon my ignorance, what does genius do?”

“Oh, M. Savarin, M. Savarin! don’t let us talk any more. There is no sympathy between us. I cannot bear that bloodless, mocking, cynical mode of dealing with grand emotions, which belongs to the generation of the Doctrinaires. I am not a Thiers or a Guizot.”

“Good heavens! who ever accused you of being either? I did not mean to be cynical. Mademoiselle Cicogna has often said I am, but I did not think you would. Pardon me. I quite agree with the philosopher who asserted that the wisdom of the past was an imposture, that the meanest intellect now living is wiser than the greatest intellect which is buried in Pere la Chaise; because the dwarf who follows the giant, when perched on the shoulders of the giant, sees farther than the giant ever could. Allez. I go in for your generation. I abandon Guizot and Thiers. Do condescend and explain to my dull understanding, as the inferior mortal of a former age, what are the grand emotions which impel a soul of fire in your wiser generation. The thirst of excitement—what excitement? The goads of ambition—what ambition?”

“A new social system is struggling from the dissolving elements of the old one, as, in the fables of priestcraft, the soul frees itself from the body which has become ripe for the grave. Of that new system I aspire to be a champion—a leader. Behold the excitement that allures me, the ambition that goads.”

“Thank you,” said Savarin, meekly; “I am answered. I recognise the dwarf perched on the back of the giant. Quitting these lofty themes, I venture to address to you now one simple matter-of-fact question: How about Mademoiselle Cicogna? Do you think you can induce her to transplant herself to the new social system, which I presume will abolish, among other obsolete myths, the institution of marriage?”

“M. Savarin, your question offends me. Theoretically I am opposed to the existing superstitions that encumber the very simple principle by which may be united two persons so long as they desire the union, and separated so soon as the union becomes distasteful to either. But I am perfectly aware that such theories would revolt a young lady like Mademoiselle Cicogna. I have never even named them to her, and our engagement holds good.”

“Engagement of marriage? No period for the ceremony fixed?”

“That is not my fault. I urged it on Isaura with all earnestness before I left my father’s house.”

“That was long after the siege had begun. Listen to me, Gustave. No persuasion of mine or my wife’s, nor Mrs. Morley’s, could induce Isaura to quit Paris while it was yet time. She said very simply that, having pledged her truth and hand to you, it would be treason to honour and duty if she should allow any considerations for herself to be even discussed so long as you needed her presence. You were then still suffering, and, though convalescent, not without danger of a relapse. And your mother said to her—I heard the words: ‘‘Tis not for his bodily health I could dare to ask you to stay, when every man who can afford it is sending away his wife, sisters, daughters. As for that, I should suffice to tend him; but if you go, I resign all hope for the health of his mind and his soul.’ I think at Paris there may be female poets and artists whom that sort of argument would not have much influenced. But it so happens that Isaura is not a Parisienne. She believes in those old myths which you think fatal to sympathies with yourself; and those old myths also lead her to believe that where a woman has promised she will devote her life to a man, she cannot forsake him when told by his mother that she is necessary to the health of his mind and his soul. Stay. Before you interrupt me, let me finish what I have to say. It appears that, so soon as your bodily health was improved, you felt that your mind and your soul could take care of themselves; and certainly it seems to me that Isaura Cicogna is no longer of the smallest use to either.”

Rameau was evidently much disconcerted by this speech. He saw what Savarin was driving at—the renunciation of all bond between Isaura and himself. He was not prepared for such renunciation. He still felt for the Italian as much of love as he could feel for any woman who did not kneel at his feet, as at those of Apollo condescending to the homage of Arcadian maids. But on the one hand, he felt that many circumstances had occurred since the disaster at Sedan to render Isaura a very much less desirable partie than she had been when he had first wrung from her the pledge of betrothal. In the palmy times of a Government in which literature and art commanded station and insured fortune, Isaura, whether as authoress or singer, was a brilliant marriage for Gustave Rameau. She had also then an assured and competent, if modest, income. But when times change, people change with them. As the income for the moment (and Heaven only can say how long that moment might last), Isaura’s income had disappeared. It will be recollected that Louvier had invested her whole fortune in the houses to be built in the street called after his name. No houses, even when built, paid any rent now. Louvier had quitted Paris; and Isaura