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

lyrical when he seeks to go out of his own existence into that of others with whom he has no sympathy, no rapport. This tale was vivid with genius as yet untutored,—genius in its morning freshness, full of beauties, full of faults. Isaura distinguished not the faults from the beauties. She felt only a vague persuasion that there was a something higher and brighter—a something more true to her own idiosyncrasy—than could be achieved by the art that “sings other people’s words to other people’s music.” From the work thus commenced she had now paused; and it seemed to her fancies that between her inner self and the scene without, whether in the skies and air and sunset, or in the abodes of men stretching far and near till lost amid the roofs and domes of the great city, she had fixed and riveted the link of a sympathy hitherto fluctuating, unsubstantial, evanescent, undefined. Absorbed in her revery, she did not notice the deepening of the short twilight, till the servant entering drew the curtains between her and the world without, and placed the lamp on the table beside her. Then she turned away with a restless sigh; her eyes fell on the manuscript, but the charm of it was gone. A sentiment of distrust in its worth had crept into her thoughts, unconsciously to herself, and the page open before her at an uncompleted sentence seemed unwelcome and wearisome as a copy-book is to a child condemned to relinquish a fairy tale half told, and apply himself to a task half done. She fell again into a revery, when, starting as from a dream, she heard herself addressed by name, and turning round saw Savarin and Gustave Rameau in the room.

“We are come, Signorina,” said Savarin, “to announce to you a piece of news, and to hazard a petition. The news is this: my young friend here has found a Maecenas who has the good taste so to admire his lucubrations under the nom de plume of Alphonse de Valcour as to volunteer the expenses for starting a new journal, of which Gustave Rameau is to be editor-in-chief; and I have promised to assist him as contributor for the first two months. I have given him notes of introduction to certain other feuilletonistes and critics whom he has on his list. But all put together would not serve to float the journal like a short roman from Madame de Grantmesnil. Knowing your intimacy with that eminent artist, I venture to back Rameau’s supplication that you would exert your influence on his, behalf. As to the honoraires, she has but to name them.”

“Carte blanche,” cried Rameau, eagerly.

“You know Eulalie too well, Monsieur Savarin,” answered Isaura, with a smile half reproachful, “to suppose that she is a mercenary in letters, and sells her services to the best bidder.”

“Bah, belle enfant!” said Savarin, with his gay light laugh. “Business is business, and books as well as razors are made to sell. But, of course, a proper prospectus of the journal must accompany your request to write in it. Meanwhile Rameau will explain to you, as he has done to me, that the journal in question is designed for circulation among readers of haute classe it is to be pleasant and airy, full of bons mots and anecdote; witty, but not ill-natured. Politics to be Liberal, of course, but of elegant admixture,—champagne and seltzer-water. In fact, however, I suspect that the politics will be a very inconsiderable feature in this organ of fine arts and manners; some amateur scribbler in the beau monde will supply them. For the rest, if my introductory letters are successful, Madame de Grantmesnil will not be in bad company.”

“You will write to Madame de Grantmesnil?” asked Rameau, pleadingly.

“Certainly I will, as soon—”

“As soon as you have the prospectus, and the names of the collaborateurs,” interrupted Rameau. “I hope to send you these in a very few days.”

While Rameau was thus speaking, Savarin had seated himself by the table, and his eye mechanically resting on the open manuscript lighted by chance upon a sentence—an aphorism—embodying a very delicate sentiment in very felicitous diction,—one of those choice condensations of thought, suggesting so much more than is said, which are never found in mediocre writers, and, rare even in the best, come upon us like truths seized by surprise.

“Parbleu!” exclaimed Savarin, in the impulse of genuine admiration, “but this is beautiful; what is more, it is original,”—and he read the words aloud. Blushing with shame and resentment, Isaura turned and hastily placed her hand on the manuscript.

“Pardon,” said Savarin, humbly; “I confess my sin, but it was so unpremeditated that it does not merit a severe penance. Do not look at me so reproachfully. We all know that young ladies keep commonplace books in which they enter passages that strike them in the works they read; and you have but shown an exquisite taste in selecting this gem. Do tell me where you found it. Is it somewhere in Lamartine?”

“No,” answered Isaura, half inaudibly, and with an effort to withdraw the paper. Savarin gently detained her hand, and looking earnestly into her tell-tale face, divined her secret.

“It is your own, Signorina! Accept the congratulations of a very practised and somewhat fastidious critic. If the rest of what you write resembles this sentence, contribute to Rameau’s journal, and I answer for its success.”

Rameau approached, half incredulous, half envious.

“My dear child,” resumed Savarin, drawing away the manuscript from Isaura’s coy, reluctant clasp, “do permit me to cast a glance over these papers. For what I yet know, there may be here more promise of fame than even you could gain as a singer.”

The electric chord in Isaura’s heart was touched. Who cannot conceive what the young writer feels, especially the young woman-writer, when hearing the first cheery note of praise from the lips of a writer of established fame?

“Nay, this cannot be worth your reading,” said Isaura, falteringly; “I have never written anything of the kind before, and this is a riddle to me. I know not,” she added, with a sweet low laugh, “why I began, nor how I should end it.”

“So much the better,” said Savarin; and he took the manuscript, withdrew to a recess by the farther window, and seated himself there, reading silently and quickly, but now and then with a brief pause of reflection.

Rameau placed himself beside Isaura on the divan, and began talking with her earnestly,—earnestly, for it was about himself and his aspiring hopes. Isaura, on the other hand, more woman-like than author-like, ashamed even to seem absorbed in herself and her hopes, and with her back turned, in the instinct of that shame, against the reader of her manuscript,—Isaura listened and sought to interest herself solely in the young fellow-author. Seeking to do so she succeeded genuinely, for ready sympathy was a prevalent characteristic of her nature.

“Oh,” said Rameau, “I am at the turning-point of my life. Ever since boyhood I have been haunted with the words of Andre Chenier on the morning he was led to the scaffold ‘And yet there was something here,’ striking his forehead. Yes, I, poor, low-born, launching myself headlong in the chase of a name; I, underrated, uncomprehended, indebted even for a hearing to the patronage of an amiable trifler like Savarin, ranked by petty rivals in a grade below themselves,—I now see before me, suddenly, abruptly presented, the expanding gates into fame and fortune. Assist me, you!”