The Quest of Glory by Marjorie Bowen (epub e reader txt) 📖
- Author: Marjorie Bowen
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footsteps passing and never stopping gave him; all these people were
going to, or coming from, somewhere; all might be imagined as having
some definite occupation or pleasure or purpose; all might be considered
as knowing this city well, as having some claim on it, if only the claim
of familiarity, while he was a stranger with his place still to find.
He had been in Paris a fortnight, and it was extraordinary how like a
shut door the city still seemed to him; he felt more utterly apart from
the spirit, motion, and meaning of the capital than he had ever done
when in Aix.
Inscrutable buildings portentous with locked secrets, inscrutable river
laden with boats going with unknown cargoes to unknown destinations,
inscrutable faces of rich and poor passing to and fro, beautiful youth
in a chariot flashing across the public way to be absorbed in a narrow
turning and seen no more, old age on foot vanishing painfully in the
dusk; the crowd leaving the opera, the play, with pomp and laughter and
comment; the shopkeepers behind their counters, the idlers about the
cafés, the priests, the sudden black splendour of a funeral with candles
looking strange in the daylight and the crucifix exacting the homage of
bent knees, all inscrutable to those who held not the key of it, passing
and repassing about the river, and the Louvre and the church on the
isle.
Mingled with these actual objects were the spiritual forces of which the
city was full, and which were to Luc fully as potent as the things he
saw; the air was full of an extraordinary inspiration, as if every man
who had struggled and thought and died in Paris had left some part of
his aspirations behind to enrich the city.
A wonderful gorgeous history was held in the stones of the ancient
buildings, in the holy glooms of the churches, in the crooked lines of
the famous streets; her children bloomed and faded, but the city itself
was imperishable, a thing never to be touched with decay.
No one once loving this city could ever love another so well.
Luc found the immortal charm of Paris enwrapping him with a sad power;
she was the cradle of all the glory of the Western world, the epitome of
all that man had achieved in this his last civilization; she had seen
all his passions burn themselves out and live again. But as yet Luc was
on her threshold, unadmitted, unnoticed.
None of his three letters had been answered. The truth of M. de Biron’s
advice was being proved every day: he was neither wanted nor heeded;
there was no place ready for him nor any hand held out to welcome. Yet
Luc, leaning against the heavy parapet and listening to the steady sound
of the passing footsteps, watching the deep eddies of the water and the
grey outlines of the buildings, felt no discouragement; he measured his
soul against even the mighty city, and found it sufficient.
Last night he had walked past the hotel from which the Countess Carola
had written. There had been a festival within; all the windows were lit,
and the courtyard was blocked with carriages.
Luc had smiled to think of her dancing behind those walls—what if he
had come into her presence and asserted his claim to friendship based on
that march of horror from Prague?
He had not entered her mansion, nor did he think of waiting on her; why
he could not tell, save that all his life he had shrunk from putting his
dreams to the test of actuality: and he had dreams about the Countess
Carola, visions of her and pleasant imaginings, but no knowledge; he did
not care to alter this delicate attitude towards the only woman who had
ever interested him. No visions clouded his remembrance of Clémence de
Séguy: she stood out in his mind, clear-cut and definite; he thought he
knew her perfectly, to the bottom of her simple soul.
She was pleasant to think on; he conjured up her picture now, rosy,
enveloped in a multitude of frills and ribbons—the grey city seemed the
greyer by contrast.
Then the mighty currents of the river swept away her picture as a
rose-leaf is swept away by a torrent, and the swish of it against the
ancient bridge beat on the heart of Luc the three words:
endeavour—achievement—fame.
The dusk was gathering, blurring the lines of the city, and a fine rain
began to fall. Luc moved from his station, and walked slowly back to his
lodgings in the fashionable Rue du Bac; his father had insisted on his
living with proper magnificence, and Luc felt his only sting of failure
when he considered the so far useless expenses.
When he entered his quiet, handsome rooms he found a letter.
His servant had been to the inn that Luc had given as his Paris address,
and had found this missive, which had been left the previous day by a
lackey whose splendour had startled the host. Luc’s heart fluttered; he
thought of the King, of M. Amelot—
When he had torn the seal, he saw it was from M. de Voltaire.
The great man wrote with charm, with generous frankness: he praised his
young correspondent’s taste, yet pointed out where it went astray; he
warmly encouraged the love of literature, the thirst for knowledge—he
hoped the Marquis would write to him again.
Luc put the letter down with a thrill of pure, intense pleasure; the
blood flushed into his cheeks and his heart beat quickly; at that moment
he felt an adoration for its writer.
He did not notice the darkening room, the rain that was falling steadily
without; he sat motionless on the stiff striped sofa forming picture
after picture of endless glory, for all his winged fancies had been
stirred into life by this encouragement.
Presently, before the room was quite dark, he wrote the following letter
to M. Amelot:—
“MONSEIGNEUR,—I am sufficiently disappointed that the letter I have had
the honour to write to you, and that which I sent under cover to you for
the King, have not attracted your attention.
“It is not surprising, perhaps, that a Minister so occupied should not
find time to examine such letters; but, Monseigneur, permit me to tell
you that it is this discouragement, given to those gentlemen who have
nothing to offer but their loyalty, that causes the coldness so often
remarked in the provincial nobility and extinguishes in them all
emulation for court favour.
“I have passed, Monseigneur, all my youth far from the distractions of
the world, in tasks that render me fit for the position towards which my
character impels me, and I dare to think that a training so laborious
puts me, at least, on a level with those who have spent all their
fortune on their intrigues and their pleasures. I am well aware,
Monseigneur, that the hopes that I have founded on my own ardour are
likely to be deceived; my health will not permit me to continue my
services at the war. I have written to M. le Duc de Biron asking him to
accept my resignation, and there remains nothing to me in my present
situation but to again put my case before you, Monseigneur, and to await
the grace of your reply. Pardon me, Monseigneur, if this letter is not
sufficiently measured in expression.—I am, Monseigneur, your devoted
servant,
“VAUVENARGUES”
This letter was written in a breath and on the instant sealed and
dispatched; the inspiration to write it had come from the few lines of
M. de Voltaire’s note. It was not a letter many would have sent to a
Minister. Luc was not versed in the method of addressing the great; he
wrote from his heart, urged on by the burning desire for action, for
achievement, for fame.
When the letter had gone he went to the window and looked out on the
steady rain and straight-fronted houses, lit with the glimmer of oil
lamps, that hid Paris from his vision.
What was the cloud, the confusion, the barrier that came between him and
the attainment of his desires? There was some key somewhere that
unlocked the door of Paris, of life—of that life which meant the scope
to exercise, to strain the energies, to put the utmost into endeavour.
Where was such a life?
For ten years Luc had been waiting—always round the corner was the
promised goal—everything had been beautiful with the glamour of
romance. But, looked at coldly, what had these ten years been but
wasted? Luc was starting fresh on another road, and seemed as far as
ever from the summit of his ambitions. Yet it could not be possible that
he was going to remain for ever obscure; he could not believe that.
There was a little narrow balcony with a fine railing before his window.
Luc drew the curtains, opened the wet glass, and stepped out. The air
was pure and clear, the rain fresh and delicate. The long twisted length
of the Rue du Bac glistened with the reflected light of the pools
between the cobbles.
Luc thrilled to the mystery and inspiration of the silent city with its
hidden activities, to the subtle pleasure of the rain and the lamplight.
He thought—he knew not why—of the King, young, ardent, brave, with the
riches of the world rolled to his feet—the King—of France!
Luc shivered even to imagine the glorious pride of that position. He
leant on the railing, regardless of the rain that was falling, and
looked up and down the street that was all he could see of Paris.
A sedan-chair came from the direction of the river, carried by two
bearers in plain livery; it was—though Luc did not recognize it as
such—a hired chair. It stopped at the house nearly opposite Luc. A
gentleman put his head out and said something in a low voice; the chair
moved a few doors higher up. Meanwhile from the opposite end of the
street came two other men carrying, not a sedan-chair, but a large black
coffin, on the lid of which was a shield-shaped plate that threw off the
hesitating rays of the lamplight.
Luc watched with interest; his mood was too exalted to feel any horror
at the sudden appearance of this sombre object. These little pictures
shown him by the great city attracted him strangely. The sedan-chair had
stopped; a tall gentleman had alighted and paid the bearers, who turned
back the way they had come. None of them noticed what was being borne,
shoulder high, towards them.
The sedan passed round a turn of the street out of sight, the late
occupant hesitated a second, then came back to the house exactly
opposite Luc, who stood only a few feet above him, and could observe him
perfectly in the strong beams of the powerful lamp which at this point
was swung across the street by a rope from house to house.
The gentleman was unusually tall and of an unusual grace and perfect
balance in his walk. He was wrapped in the close, elegant folds of a
fine fawn cloth cloak, and wore a black hat pulled well over his eyes.
He approached the door and, putting out a hand gloved in white doeskin,
knocked four times in succession.
At this moment the coffin-bearers, with a slow, steady, silent step, had
reached the point where he stood, and he, all unconscious, stepped
backwards and looked up at the windows of the house where he sought
admission (which were all in darkness), and in so doing ran against the
foremost man and the foot of the
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