In the Days of My Youth Part 59

In another, after telling me that he had been reading some books of travel in Egypt and Central America, he said:--

"Next to a military life I think that of a traveller--a genuine traveller, who turns his back upon railroads and guides--must be the most exciting and the most enviable under heaven. Since reading these books, I dream of the jungle and the desert, and fancy that a buffalo-hunt must be almost as fine sport as a charge of cavalry. Oh, what a weary exile this is! I feel as if the very air were stagnant around me, and I, like the accursed vessel that carried the ancient mariner,--

As idle as a painted ship, Upon a painted ocean.'"

Sometimes, though rarely, he mentioned Madame de Courcelles, and then very guardedly: always as "Madame de Courcelles," and never as his wife.

"That morning," he wrote, "comes back to me with all the vagueness of a dream--you will know what morning I mean, and why it fills so shadowy a page in the book of my memory. And it might as well have been a dream, for aught of present peace or future hope that it has brought me. I often think that I was selfish when I exacted that pledge from her. I do not see of what good it can be to either her or me, or in what sense I can be said to have gained even the power to protect and serve her.

Would that I were rich; or that she and I were poor together, and dwelling far away in some American wild, under the shade of primeval trees, the world forgetting; by the world forgot! I should enjoy the life of a Canadian settler--so free, so rational, so manly. How happy we might be--she with her children, her garden, her books; I with my dogs, my gun, my lands! What a curse it is, this spider's web of civilization, that hems and cramps us in on every side, and from which not all the armor of common-sense is sufficient to preserve us!"

Sometimes he broke into a strain of forced gayety, more sad, to my thinking, than the bitterest lamentations could have been.

"I wish to Heaven," he said, in one of his later letters--"I wish to Heaven I had no heart, and no brain! I wish I was, like some worthy people I know, a mere human zoophyte, consisting of nothing but a mouth and a stomach. Only conceive how it must simplify life when once one has succeeded in making a clean sweep of all those finer emotions which hara.s.s more complicated organisms! Enviable zoophytes, that live only to digest!--who would not be of the brotherhood?"

In another he wrote:--

"I seem to have lived years in the last five or six weeks, and to have grown suddenly old and cynical. Some French writer (I think it is Alphonse Karr) says, 'Nothing in life is really great and good, except what is not true. Man's greatest treasures are his illusions.' Alas! my illusions have been dropping from me in showers of late, like withered leaves in Autumn. The tree will be bare as a gallows ere long, if these rough winds keep on blowing. If only things would amuse me as of old! If there was still excitement in play, and forgetfulness in wine, and novelty in travel! But there is none--and all things alike are 'flat, stale, and unprofitable,' The truth is, Damon, I want but one thing--and wanting that, lack all."

Here is one more extract, and it shall be the last:--

"You ask me how I pa.s.s my days--in truth, wearily enough. I rise with the dawn, but that is not very early in September; and I ride for a couple of hours before breakfast. After breakfast I play billiards in some public room, consume endless pipes, read the papers, and so on.

Later in the day I scowl through a picture-gallery, or a string of studios; or take a pull up the river; or start off upon a long, solitary objectless walk through miles and miles of forest. Then comes dinner--the inevitable, insufferable, interminable German table-d'hote dinner--and then there is the evening to be got through somehow! Now and then I drop in at a theatre, but generally take refuge in some plebeian l.u.s.t Garten or Beer Hall, where amid clouds of tobacco-smoke, one may listen to the best part-singing and zitter-playing in Europe. And so my days drag by--who but myself knows how slowly? Truly, Damon, there comes to every one of us, sooner or later, a time when we say of life as Christopher Sly said of the comedy--''Tis an excellent piece of work.

Would 'twere done!'"

CHAPTER x.x.xVI.

THE VICOMTE DE CAYLUS.

It was after receiving the last of these letters that I hazarded a third visit to Madame de Courcelles. This time, I ventured to present myself at her door about midday, and was at once ushered upstairs into a drawing-room looking out on the Rue Castellane.

Seeing her open work-table, with the empty chair and footstool beside it, I thought at the first glance that I was alone in the room, when a muttered "Sacr-r-r-re! Down, Bijou!" made me aware of a gentleman extended at full length upon a sofa near the fireplace, and of a vicious-looking Spitz crouched beneath it.

The gentleman lifted his head from the sofa-cusion; stared at me; bowed carelessly; got upon his feet; and seizing the poker, lunged savagely at the fire, as if he had a spite against it, and would have put it out, if he could. This done, he yawned aloud, flung himself into the nearest easy-chair, and rang the bell.

"More coals, Henri," he said, imperiously; "and--stop! a bottle of Seltzer-water."

The servant hesitated.

"I don't think, Monsieur le Vicomte," he said, "that Madame has any Seltzer-water in the house; but ..."

"Confound you!--you never have anything in the house at the moment one wants it," interrupted the gentleman, irritably.

"I can send for some, if Monsieur le Vicomte desires it."

"Send for it, then; and remember, when I next ask for it, let there be some at hand."

"Yes, Monsieur le Vicomte."

"And--Henri!"

"Yes, Monsieur le Vicomte."

"Bid them be quick. I hate to be kept waiting!"

The servant murmured his usual "Yes, Monsieur le Vicomte," and disappeared; but with a look of such subdued dislike and impatience in his face, as would scarcely have flattered Monsieur le Vicomte had he chanced to surprise it.

In the meantime the dog had never ceased growling; whilst I, in default of something better to do, turned over the leaves of an alb.u.m, and took advantage of a neighboring mirror to scrutinize the outward appearance of this authoritative occupant of Madame de Courcelles' drawing-room.

He was a small, pallid, slender man of about thirty-five or seven years of age, with delicate, effeminate features, and hair thickly sprinkled with gray. His fingers, white and taper as a woman's, were covered with rings. His dress was careless, but that of a gentleman. Glancing at him even thus furtively, I could not help observing the worn lines about his temples, the mingled languor and irritability of his every gesture; the restless suspicion of his eye; the hard curves about his handsome mouth.

"_Mille tonnerres_!" said he, between his teeth "come out, Bijou--come out, I say!"

The dog came out unwillingly, and changed the growl to a little whine of apprehension. His master immediately dealt him a smart kick that sent him crouching to the farther corner of the room, where he hid himself under a chair.

"I'll teach you to make that noise," muttered he, as he drew his chair closer to the fire, and bent over it, shiveringly. "A yelping brute, that would be all the better for hanging."

Having sat thus for a few moments, he seemed to grow restless again, and, pushing back his chair, rose, looked out of the window, took a turn or two across the room, and paused at length to take a book from one of the side-tables. As he did this, our eyes met in the looking-gla.s.s; whereupon he turned hastily back to the window, and stood there whistling till it occurred to him to ring the bell again.

"Monsieur rang?" said the footman, once more making his appearance at the door.

"_Mort de ma vie_! yes. The Seltzer-water."

"I have sent for it, Monsieur le Vicomte."

"And it is not yet come?"

"Not yet, Monsieur le Vicomte."

He muttered something to himself, and dropped back into the chair before the fire.

"Does Madame de Courcelles know that I am here?" he asked, as the servant, after lingering a moment, was about to leave the room.

"I delivered Monsieur le Vicomte's message, and brought back Madame's reply," said the man, "half an hour ago."

"True--I had forgotten it. You may go."

The footman closed the door noiselessly, and had no sooner done so than he was recalled by another impatient peal.

"Here, Henri--have you told Madame de Courcelles that this gentleman is also waiting to see her?"

"Yes, Monsieur le Vicomte."

"_Eh bien_?"

"And Madame said she should be down in a few moments."

"_Sacredie_! go back, then, and inquire if...."