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MADELEINE

ONE OF LOVE’S JANSENISTS




    THE HISTORY OF RUHLEBEN
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    COLLINS—LONDON




                                MADELEINE
                        ONE OF LOVE’S JANSENISTS

                                   BY
                              HOPE MIRRLEES

                ‘_Aux falseurs ou falseuses de Romans,_
                _l’historie de ma vie et celle de ma mort._’

                                  Le Testament de Clyante.

                             [Illustration]

                          LONDON: 48 PALL MALL
                       W. COLLINS SONS & CO. LTD.
                       GLASGOW MELBOURNE AUCKLAND

                                Copyright

                     First Impression, October 1919
                     Second     ”      October 1919




TO MY MOTHER




PREFACE


Fiction—to adapt a famous definition of law—is the meeting-point of Life
and Art. Life is like a blind and limitless expanse of sky, for ever
dividing into tiny drops of circumstances that rain down, thick and fast,
on the just and unjust alike. Art is like the dauntless, plastic force
that builds up stubborn, amorphous substance cell by cell, into the frail
geometry of a shell. These two things are poles apart—how are they to
meet in the same work of fiction?

One way is to fling down, _pêle-mêle_, a handful of separate acts and
words, and then to turn on them the constructive force of a human
consciousness that will arrange them into the pattern of logic or of
drama.

Thus, in this book, Madeleine sees the trivial, disorderly happenings
of her life as a momentous battle waged between a kindly Power who had
written on tablets of gold before the world began that she should win
her heart’s desire, and a sterner and mightier Power who had written
on tablets of iron that all her hopes should be frustrated, so that,
finally, naked and bleeding, she might turn to Him. And having this
conception of life all her acquaintances become minor _daimones_,
friendly or hostile, according as they seem to serve one power or the
other.

The other way is to turn from time to time upon the action the fantastic
limelight of eternity, with a sudden effect of unreality and the hint
of a world within a world. My plot—that is to say, the building of the
shell—takes place in this inner world and is summed up in the words that
dog the dreams of Madeleine—_per hunc in invisibilium amorem rapiamur_.
In the outer world there is nothing but the ceaseless, meaningless drip
of circumstances, in the inner world—a silent, ineluctable march towards
a predestined climax.

I have had the epilogue printed in italics to suggest that the action has
now moved completely on to the stage of the inner world. In the outer
world Madeleine might with time have jettisoned the perilous stuff of
youth and have sailed serenely the rough, fresh sea of facts. In the
inner world, there was one thing and one thing only that could happen to
her: life is the province of free-will, art the province of fate.




CONTENTS


                            PART I

      CHAP.                                              PAGE

         I. THE DINNER AT MADAME PILOU’S                    3

        II. A PARTIAL CONFESSION                           22

       III. A SUPPLEMENT TO THE CONFESSION                 34

        IV. THE SIN OF NARCISSUS                           48

         V. AN INVITATION                                  63

        VI. THE GRECIAN PROTOTYPE                          72

       VII. THE MERCHANTS OF DAMASCUS AND DAN              77

      VIII. ‘RITE DE PASSAGE’                              84

        IX. AT THE HÔTEL DE RAMBOUILLET                    94

         X. AFTERWARDS                                    115

        XI. REBUILDING THE HOUSE OF CARDS                 122

                           PART II

       XII. THE FÊTE-DIEU                                 129

      XIII. ROBERT PILOU’S SCREEN                         133

       XIV. A DEMONSTRATION IN FAITH                      141

        XV. MOLOCH                                        148

       XVI. A VISIT TO THE ABBAYE OF PORT-ROYAL           154

      XVII. ‘HYLAS, THE MOCKING SHEPHERD’                 166

     XVIII. A DISAPPOINTMENT                              171

       XIX. THE PLEASURES OF DESPAIR                      178

        XX. FRESH HOPE                                    185

                          PART III

       XXI. ‘WHAT IS CARTESIANISM?’                       191

      XXII. BEES-WAX                                      195

     XXIII. MADEMOISELLE DE SCUDÉRY’S SATURDAY            200

      XXIV. SELF-IMPOSED SLAVERY                          216

       XXV. THE SYMMETRY OF THE COMIC MUSE                219

      XXVI. BERTHE’S STORY                                224

     XXVII. THE CHRISTIAN VENUS                           231

    XXVIII. THE ASCENT OF MOUNT CARMEL                    237

      XXIX. THE BODY OF THE DRAGON                        243

       XXX. A JAR                                         244

      XXXI. THE END OF THE ‘ROMAN’                        248

     XXXII. ‘UN CADEAU’                                   255

    XXXIII. FACE TO FACE WITH FACTS                       267

     XXXIV. OUT INTO THE VOID                             273

  EPILOGUE. THE RAPE TO THE LOVE OF INVISIBLE THINGS      275




PART I

    ‘_En effet, si on laisse aller le Christianisme sans
    l’approfondir et le régénérer de temps en temps, il s’y fait
    comme une infiltration croissants de bon sens humain, de
    tolérance philosophique, de semi-Pélagianisme à quelque degré
    que ce soit: la “folie de la Croix” s’atténue._’

                                                     SAINTE-BEUVE.




CHAPTER I

THE DINNER AT MADAME PILOU’S


In the middle of the seventeenth century a family called Troqueville came
from Lyons to settle in Paris. Many years before, Monsieur Troqueville
had been one of the four hundred _procureurs_ of the Palais de Justice.
There were malicious rumours of disgraceful and Bacchic scenes in Court
which had led to his ejection from that respectable body. Whether the
rumours were true or not, Monsieur Troqueville had long ceased to be a
Paris _procureur_, and after having wandered about from town to town, he
had at last settled in Lyons, where by ‘devilling’ for a lawyer, writing
bombastic love-letters for shop apprentices, and playing Lasquinet with
country bumpkins, he managed to earn a precarious livelihood. When, a few
months before the opening of this story, he had been suddenly seized with
a feverish craving to return to Paris ‘and once more wear the glove of
my lady Jurisprudence in the tournay of the law-courts,’ as he put it,
his wife had regarded him with a frigid and sceptical surprise, as she
had long since given up trying to kindle in him one spark of ambition.
However, Madeleine, their only child, a girl of seventeen, expressed such
violent despair and disappointment when Madame Troqueville pronounced her
husband’s scheme to be vain and impracticable, that finally to Paris they
came—for to her mother, Madeleine’s happiness was the only thing of any
moment.

They had taken rooms above a baker’s shop in the petite rue du Paon, in
the East end of the University quarter—the _Pays Latin_, where, for
many centuries, turbulent abstract youth had celebrated with Bacchic
orgies the cherub Contemplation, and strutting, ragged and debonair on
the razor’s edge of most unprofitable speculation, had demonstrated to
the gaping, well-fed burghers, that the intellect had its own heroisms
and its own virtues. At that time it was a neighbourhood of dark,
winding little streets, punctuated by the noble fabrics of colleges and
monasteries, and the open spaces of their fields and gardens—a symbol, as
it were, of contemporary learning, where crabbed scholasticism still held
its own beside the spacious theories of Descartes and Gassendi.

Madame Troqueville had inherited a small fortune from her father, which
made it possible to tide over the period until her husband found regular
employment.

She was by birth and upbringing a Parisian, her father having been a
Président de la Chambre des Comptes. As the daughter of a Judge, she
was a member of ‘la Noblesse de Robe,’ the name given to the class of
the high dignitaries of the _Parlement_, who, with their scarlet robes,
their ermine, and their lilies, their Latin periods and the portentous
solemnity of their manner, were at once ridiculous and awful.

It cannot be wondered at that on her return to Paris she shrank from
renewing relations with old friends whose husbands numbered their legal
posts by the score and who drove about in fine coaches, ruthlessly
bespattering humble pedestrians with the foul mud of Paris. But for
Madeleine’s sake she put her pride in her pocket, and though some ignored
her overtures, others welcomed her back with genial condescension.

The day that this story begins, the Troquevilles were going to dine
with the celebrated Madame Pilou, famous in ‘la Cour et la Ville’ for
her homespun wit and remarkably ill-favoured countenance—it would be
difficult to say of which of these two distinctions she was most proud
herself. Her career had been a social miracle. Though her husband had
been only a small attorney, there was not a Princess or Duchess who did
not claim her as an intimate friend, and many a word of counsel had she
given to the Regent herself.

None of her mother’s old acquaintanceships did Madeleine urge her so
eagerly to renew as the one with Madame Pilou. In vain her mother assured
her that she was just a coarse, ugly old woman.

‘So also are the Three Fates,’ said Jacques Tronchet (a nephew of Madame
Troqueville, who had come to live with them), and Madeleine had looked at
him, surprised and startled.

Madame Pilou dined at midday, so Monsieur Troqueville and Jacques were
to go to her house direct from the Palais de Justice independently
of Madame Troqueville and Madeleine. Madeleine had been ready a full
half-hour before it was time to start. She had sat in the little parlour
for a quarter of an hour absolutely motionless. She was dressed in her
best clothes, a bodice of crimson serge, and an orange petticoat of
_camelot de Hollande_, the slender purse’s substitute for silk. A gauze
neckerchief threw a transparent veil over the extreme _décolletage_ of
her bodice. On her head was one of the new-fashioned _ténèbres_, a square
of black crape that tied under her chin, and took the place of a hat. She
wore a velvet mask and patches, in spite of the Sumptuary Laws, which
would reserve them for ladies of rank, and from behind the mask her clear
gray eyes, that never smiled and seldom blinked, looked out straight in
front of her. Her hands were folded on her lap. She had a remarkable gift
for absolute stillness.

At the end of a quarter of an hour, she went to her mother, who was
preparing a cress salad in the kitchen, and said in a quiet, tense voice:—

‘Maybe you would liefer not go to Madame Pilou’s this morning. If so,
tell me, and I will abandon it,’ then, with a sudden access of fury, ‘You
will make me hate you—you are for ever sacrificing matters of moment to
trifles. An you were to weigh the matter rightly, my having some pleasure
when I was young would seem of greater moment than there being a salad
for supper!’

‘Madame Pilou dines at twelve, and it is but a bare half-hour from our
house to hers, and it is now eleven,’ Madame Troqueville answered slowly,
emphasising each word. ‘But we will start now without fail, if ’tis your
wish, and arrive like true Provincials half an hour before we are due;’
irritation now made the words come tumbling out, one on the top of the
other. Madeleine began to smile, and her mother went on with some heat,
but no longer with irritation.

‘But why in the name of Jesus do you lash yourself into so strange a
humour before going to old Madame Pilou’s? One would think you were off
to the Palais Cardinal to wait on the Regent! She is but a plain old
woman; now if she were very learned, or——’

‘Oh, mother, let her be, and go and make your toilette,’ and Madame
Troqueville went off obediently to her room.

Madeleine paced about like a restive horse until her mother was ready,
but did not dare to disturb her while she was dressing. It used
to surprise Madeleine that she should take such trouble over such
unfashionable toilettes.

It was not long before she came in quite ready. She began to put
Madeleine’s collar straight, which, for some reason, annoyed Madeleine
extremely. At last they were out of the house.

Madame Pilou lived on the other side of the river, in the rue Saint
Antoine, so there was a good walk before Madeleine and her mother, and
judging from Madeleine’s gloomy, abstracted expression, it did not
promise to be a very cheerful one.

They threaded their way into the rue des Augustins, a narrow, cloistered
street flanked on the left by the long flat walls of the Monastery, over
which were wafted the sound of bells and the scent of early Spring. It
led straight out on to the Seine and the peaceful bustle of its still
rustic banks. They crossed it by the Pont-Neuf, that perennial Carnival
of all that Paris held of most picturesque and most disreputable. The
bombastic eloquence of the quacks extolling their panaceas and rattling
their necklaces of teeth; the indescribable foulness of the topical
songs in which hungry-looking bards celebrated to sweet ghostly airs of
Couperin and Cambert the last practical joke played by the Court on the
Town, or the latest extravagance of Mazarin; the whining litany of the
beggars; the plangent shrieks of strange shrill birds caught in American
forests—all these sounds fell unheard on at least one pair of ears.

On they hurried, past the booths of the jugglers and comedians and the
stalls of the money-lenders, past the bronze equestrian statue of Henri
IV., watching with saturnine benevolence the gambols of the Gothic
vagabonds he had loved so dearly in life, cynically indifferent to the
discreet threats of his rival the water-house of the Samaritaine, which,
classical and chaste, hinted at a future little to the taste of the _Vert
Gallant_ and his vagabonds.

From time to time Madame Troqueville glanced timidly at Madeleine but did
not like to break the silence. At last, as they walked down the right
bank of the Seine, the lovely town at once substantial and aerial, taking
the Spring as blithely as a meadow, filled her with such joy that she
cried out:—

‘’Tis a delicate town, Paris! Are not you glad we came, my pretty one?’

‘Time will show if there be cause for gladness,’ Madeline answered
gloomily.

‘There goes a fine lady! I wonder what Marquise or Duchesse she may be!’
cried Madame Troqueville, wishing to distract her. Madeleine smiled
scornfully.

‘No one of any note. Did you not remark it was a _hired_ coach? “_Les
honnêtes gens_” do not sacrifice to Saint Fiacre.’

Madame Troqueville gave rather a melancholy little smile, but her own
epigram had restored Madeleine, for the time being, to good humour. They
talked amicably together for a little, and then again fell into silence,
Madeleine wearing a look of intense concentration.

Madame Pilou’s house was on the first floor above the shop of a
laundress. They were shown into her bedroom, the usual place of reception
in those days. The furniture was of walnut, in the massive style of Henri
IV., and covered with mustard-coloured serge. Heavy curtains of moquette
kept out the light and air, and enabled the room to preserve what
Madeleine called the ‘bourgeois smell.’ On the walls, however, was some
fine Belgian tapestry, on which was shown, with macabre Flemish realism,
the Seven Stations of the Cross. It had been chosen by the son Robert,
who was fanatically devout.

Madame Pilou, dressed in a black dressing-gown lined with green plush,
and wearing a chaperon (a sort of cap worn in the old days by every
bourgeoise, but by that time rarely seen), was lying on the huge
carved bed. Her face, with its thick, gray beard, looming huge and
weather-beaten from under the tasselled canopy, was certainly very ugly,
but its expression was not unpleasing. Monsieur Troqueville and Jacques
had already arrived. Monsieur Troqueville was a man of about fifty, with
a long beard in the doctor’s mode, a very long nose, and small, excited
blue eyes, like a child’s. Jacques was rather a beautiful young man;
he was tall and slight, and had a pale, pointed face and a magnificent
chevelure of chestnut curls, and his light eyes slanting slightly up at
the corners gave him a Faun-like look. He was a little like Madeleine,
but he had a mercurial quality which was absent in her. Robert Pilou
was there too, standing before the chimney-piece; he was dressed in a
very rusty black garment, made to look as much like a priest’s cassock
as possible. Jacques said that with his spindly legs and red nose and
spectacles, he was exactly like old Gaultier-Garguille, a famous actor of
farce at the theatre of the Hôtel de Bourgogne, and as the slang name for
the Hôtel de Bourgogne was, for some unknown reason, the ‘Pois-Pilés,’
Jacques, out of compliment to Robert’s appearance and Madame Pilou’s
beard, called their house the ‘Poil-Pilou.’

They were all sipping glasses of Hippocras and eating preserved fruit.
Jacques caught Madeleine’s eyes as she came in. His own slanting green
ones were dancing with pleasure, he was always in a state of suppressed
amusement at the Pilous, but there was no answering merriment in
Madeleine’s eyes. She gave one quick look round the room, and her face
fell.

‘Well, my friends, you are exceeding welcome!’ bellowed Madame Pilou in
the voice of a Musketeer. ‘I am overjoyed at seeing you, and so is Robert
Pilou.’ Robert went as red as a turkey-cock, and muttered something
about ‘any one who comes to the house.’ ‘You see I have to say his
_fleurettes_ for him, and he does my praying for me; ’tis a bargain,
isn’t it, Maître Robert?’ Robert looked as if he were going to have a fit
with embarrassment, while Monsieur Troqueville bellowed with laughter,
and exclaimed, ‘Good! good! excellent!’ then spat several times to show
his approval. (This habit of his disgusted Madeleine: ‘He doesn’t even
spit high up on the wall like a grand seigneur,’ she would say peevishly.)

‘Robert Pilou, give the ladies some Hippocras—Oh! I insist on your trying
it. My apothecary sends me a bottle every New Year; it’s all I ever
get out of him, though he gets enough out of me with his draughts and
clysters!’ This sally was also much appreciated by Monsieur Troqueville.

Robert Pilou grudgingly helped each of them to as much Hippocras as would
fill a thimble, and then sat down on the chair farthest removed from
Madame Troqueville and Madeleine.

When the Hippocras had been drunk, Madame Pilou bellowed across to him:
‘Now, Robert Pilou, it would be civil in you to show the young lady your
screen. He has covered a screen with sacred woodcuts, and the design
is most excellently conceived,’ she added in a proud aside to Madame
Troqueville. ‘No, no, young man, you sit down, I’m not going to have
the poor fellow made a fool of,’ as Jacques got up to follow the other
two into an adjoining closet. ‘But you, Troqueville, I think it might
be accordant with your humour—you can go.’ Monsieur Troqueville, always
ready to think himself flattered, threw a look of triumph at Jacques and
went into the closet.

Madeleine was gazing at Robert with a look of rapt attention in her
large, grave eyes, while he expounded the mysteries of his design. ‘You
see,’ he said, turning solemnly to Monsieur Troqueville, ‘I have so
disposed the prints that they make an allegorical history of the Fronde
and——’

‘An excellent invention!’ cried Monsieur Troqueville, all ready to be
impressed, and at the same time to show his own cleverness. ‘Were you a
Frondeur yourself?’

Robert Pilou drew himself up stiffly. ‘No, Monsieur, _I—was—not_. I
was for the King and the Cardinal. Well, as I was saying, profane
history is countenanced if told by means of sacred prints and moreover
itself becomes sacred history.’ Monsieur Troqueville clapped his hands
delightedly.

‘In good earnest it does,’ he cried, ‘and sacred history becomes profane
in the same way—’tis but a matter of how you look at it—why, you could
turn the life of Jesus into the history of Don Quixote—a picture of the
woman who pours the ointment on his feet could pass for the grand lady
who waits on Don Quixote in her castle, and the Virgin could be his
niece——’

‘Here you have a print of Judas Iscariot,’ Robert went on, having looked
at Monsieur Troqueville suspiciously. ‘You observe he is a hunchback,
and therefore can be taken for the Prince de Conti!’ He looked round
triumphantly.

Madeleine said sympathetically, ‘’Tis a most happy comparison!’ but
Monsieur Troqueville was smiling and nodding to himself, much too pleased
with his own idea to pay any attention to Robert’s.

‘And here we have the Cardinal! By virtue of his holy office I need not
find a sacred symbol for him, I just give his own portrait. This, you
see, is St Michael fighting with the Dragon——’

‘Why, that would do most excellently for Don Quixote fighting with the
windmills!’

‘Father, I beseech you, no more!’ whispered Madeleine severely.

‘But why? My conceit is every whit as good as his!’ said Monsieur
Troqueville sulkily. Fortunately Robert Pilou was too muddle-headed and
too wrapt up in himself to understand very clearly what other people were
talking about, so he went on:—

‘It is a symbol of the King’s party fighting with the Frondeurs. Now here
is a picture of a Procession of the Confrérie de la Passion; needless to
say, it shadows forth the triumphant entry of the King and Cardinal into
Paris—you see the banners and the torches—’tis an excellent symbol. And
here you have a picture of the stonemasons busy at the new buildings of
Val de Grâce, that is a double symbol—it stands for the work of the King
and Cardinal in rebuilding the kingdom; it also stands for the gradual
re-establishment of the power of the Church. And this first series ends
up with this’—and he pointed gleefully to a horrible picture of Dives in
Hell—‘this stands for the Prince de Condé in prison. And now we come to
the second series——;’ but just then Madame Pilou called them back to the
other room.

‘It is a most sweet invention!’ said Madeleine in her low, soft voice,
meeting Jacques’s twinkle with unruffled gravity.

‘A most excellent, happy conceit! but I would fain tell you the notion it
has engendered in _my_ mind!’ cried Monsieur Troqueville, all agog for
praise.

‘Oh, I was of opinion it would accord with your humour,’ nodded Madame
Pilou, with rather a wicked twinkle.

‘But what was _your_ notion, Uncle?’ asked Jacques, his mouth twitching.

‘Well, ’tis this way——’ began Monsieur Troqueville excitedly, but
Madeleine felt that she would faint with boredom if her father were given
an innings, so turned the attention of the company to the workmanship of
a handsome clock on the chimney-piece.

‘Yes, for Robert that clock is what the “Messieurs de Port Royal”
(coxcombs all of them, _I_ say!) would call the _grace efficace_, in that
by preventing him from being late for Mass it saves his soul from Hell!’
said Madame Pilou, looking at her son, who nodded his head in solemn
confirmation. Jacques shot a malicious glance at Madeleine, who was
looking rather self-conscious.

‘Now, then, Monsieur Jacques,’ went on Madame Pilou, thoroughly enjoying
herself. ‘You are a learned young man, and sustained your thesis in
philosophy at the University, do you hold it can be so ordered that one
person can get another into Paradise—in short, that one can be pious by
proxy?’

‘Madame Pilou!’ piped Robert plaintively, flapping his arms as though
they had been wings, then he crossed himself and pulled his face back
into its usual expression of stolidity.

‘Because,’ went on Madame Pilou, paying not the slightest attention
to him, ‘it would be much to my liking if Robert could do all my
church-going for me; I was within an ace of fetching up my dinner at Mass
last Sunday, the stench was so exceeding powerful. I am at a loss to know
why people are wont to smell worse in Church than anywhere else!’

‘I suppose that is what is called the odour of sanctity,’ said Jacques,
with his engaging grin, looking at Madeleine to see if she was amused.
Both Madeleine and Madame Troqueville smiled, but Robert was so busy
seeing how long he could keep his cheeks blown out without letting out
the breath that he did not hear, and Monsieur Troqueville was so occupied
with planning how he could go one better that he had no time to smile.
Jacques’s sally, however, displeased Madame Pilou extremely. She was
really very devout in the sane fashion of the old Gallican Church, and
though she herself might make profane jokes, she was not going to allow
them in a very young man.

‘Odour of sanctity indeed!’ she cried angrily. ‘I warrant _you_ don’t
smell any better than your neighbours, young man!’ a retort which made up
in vehemence what it lacked in point. Monsieur Troqueville roared with
delight and Jacques made a face. He had a wonderful gift for making faces.

‘Impudent fellow! One would think your face was Tabarin’s hat by the
shapes you twist it into! Anyway, you have more sense in your little
finger than your uncle has in his whole body! and while we are on the
matter of his shortcomings, I would fain know the _true_ motive of
his leaving Lyons?’ and she shot a malicious look at the discomfited
Monsieur Troqueville, while Madame Troqueville went quite white with
rage. Fortunately, at this moment, the servant came to say that dinner
was ready, and they all moved into the large kitchen, where, true to the
traditions of the old bourgeoisie, Madame Pilou always had her meals.

‘Well, well, Mademoiselle Marie, I dare swear you have not found
that Paris has gained one ounce of wisdom during your sojourn in the
provinces. Although the _Prince des Sots_ no longer enters the gates in
state on Mardi Gras, as was the custom in my young days, that is not to
say that Folly has been banished the town. ‘Do you frequent many of your
old friends?’ bellowed Madame Pilou, almost drowning the noise Monsieur
Troqueville and Robert were making over their soup.

‘Oh, yes, they have proffered me a most kindly welcome,’ Madame
Troqueville answered not quite truthfully.

‘Have you seen the Coigneux and the Troguins?’

‘We have much commerce with the Troguins.’

‘And has not the _désir de parroistre_ been flourishing finely since your
day? All the Parliamentary families have got coats of arms from the
herald Hozier since then, and have them tattooed all over their bodies
like Chinamen.’

Monsieur Troqueville cocked an intelligent eye, he was always on the
outlook for interesting bits of information.

‘And you must know that there are no _families_ nowadays, there are only
“houses”! And they roll their silver up and down the stairs, hoping by
such usage to give it the air of old family plate, instead of eating
off decent pewter as their fathers did before them! And every year the
judges grow vainer and more extravagant—great heavy puffed-out sacks
of nonsense! There is _la cour_ and _la ville_—and _la basse-cour_,
and that’s where the _gens de robe_ live, and the judges are the
turkey-cocks!’ Every one laughed except Robert Pilou. ‘And the sons with
their plumes and swords like young nobles, and the daughters who would
rather wear a velvet gown in Hell than a serge one in Paradise put me in
a strong desire to box their ears!’

‘’Tis your turn now!’ Jacques whispered to Madeleine, who was feeling
terribly conscious of her mask and six patches. However, Madame Pilou
abruptly changed the subject by turning to Madeleine and asking her what
she thought of Paris.

‘I think it is furiously beautiful,’ she answered, at which Madame Pilou
went off into a bellow of laughter.

‘_Jésus!_ Hark to the little Précieuse with her “furiously”! So
“furiously” has reached the provinces, has it? Little Madeleine will be
starting her “_ruelle_” next! Ha! Ha!’ Madeleine blushed crimson, Jacques
looked distressed, Robert Pilou gave a sudden wild whoop of laughter,
then stopped dead, looked anxiously round, and pulled a long face again.

‘That is news to me,’ Monsieur Troqueville began intelligently; ‘is
“furiously” much in use with the Précieuses?’ but Madame Troqueville,
who was very indignant that Madeleine should be made fun of, broke in
hurriedly with, ‘I think my daughter learned it in Mademoiselle de
Scudéry’s _Grand Cyrus_; she liked it rarely; we read it through together
from beginning to end.’

‘Well, I fear me, I cannot confess to the same assiduity, and that though
Mademoiselle de Scudéry brought me the volumes herself,’ said Madame
Pilou. ‘I promised her I would read it if she gave me her word that
that swashbuckler of a brother of hers should not come to the house for
six months, but there he was that very evening, come to find out what I
thought of the description of the battle of Rocroy! Are you a lover of
reading, my child?’ suddenly turning to Madeleine.

‘No, ’tis most distasteful to me,’ she answered emphatically, to her
mother’s complete stupefaction.

‘But Madeleine——’ she began. Madame Pilou, however, cut her short with
‘Quite right, quite right, my child. You’ll never learn anything worth
the knowing out of books. I have lived nearly eighty years, and my Missal
and Æsop his fables are near the only two books I have ever read. What
you can’t learn from life itself is not worth the learning——’

‘But Madeleine has grown into such an excessive humour for books,
that she wholly addicts herself to them!’ cried Madame Troqueville
indignantly. She was determined that an old barbarian like Madame Pilou
should not flatter herself she had anything in common with her Madeleine.
But Madame Pilou was too busy talking herself to hear her.

‘Mademoiselle de Scudéry is writing a new romance, she tells me (it’s all
her, you know; Conrart tells me that all the writing in it that tedious,
prolix, bombastic fop of a brother does is to put his name to the title
page!) and she says that I am to be portrayed in it. Poor Robert is in
a sad taking; he thinks you cannot be both in a romance and the Book of
Life!’ Robert Pilou looked at his mother with the eyes of an anxious dog,
and she smiled at him encouragingly, and assured him that there were many
devotees described in romances.

‘I dare swear she will limn me as a beautiful princess, with Robert Pilou
as my knight, or else I’ll be—what d’ye call her—that heathen goddess,
and Robert Pilou will be my owl!’

Madeleine had been strangely embarrassed for the last few minutes.
When she was nervous the sound of her father’s voice tortured her, and
feeling the imminence of a favourite story of his about an old lady of
Lyons, called Madame Hibou, who had found her gardener drunk in her bed,
she felt she would go mad if she had to listen to it again, so to stop
him, she said hurriedly, ‘Could you tell us, Madame, whom some of the
characters in the _Grand Cyrus_ are meant to depict?’

‘Oh! every one is there, every one of the Court and the Town. I should
be loath to have you think I wasted my time in reading all the dozen
volumes, but I cast my eye through some of them, and I don’t hold with
dressing up living men and women in all these outlandish clothes and
giving them Grecian names. It’s like the quacks on the Pont-Neuf, who
call themselves “Il Signor Hieronymo Ferranti d’Orvieto,” and such like,
though they are only decent French burghers like the rest of us!’

‘Or might it not be more in the nature of duchesses masquerading at the
Carnival as Turkish ladies and shepherdesses?’ suggested Madeleine in a
very nervous voice, her face quite white, as though she were a young
Quakeress, bearing testimony for the first time.

‘Oh, well, I dare swear that conceit would better please the demoiselle,’
said Madame Pilou good-humouredly. ‘But it isn’t only in romances that we
aren’t called by our good calendar names—oh, no, you are baptized Louise,
or Marie, or Marguerite, but if you want to be in the mode, you must
call yourself Amaryllis, or Daphne, or Phillis,’ and Madame Pilou minced
out the names, her huge mouth pursed up. ‘I tell them that it is only
actors and soldiers—the scum of the earth—who take fancy names. No, no,
I am quite out of patience with the present fashion of beribboning and
beflowering the good wood of life, as if it were a great maypole.’

‘And I am clearly on the other side!’ cried Madame Troqueville hotly, ‘I
would have every inch of the hard wood bedecked with flowers!’

‘Well, well, Marie, life has dealt hardly with you,’ said Madame Pilou,
throwing a menacing look at Monsieur Troqueville, ‘but life and I have
ever been good friends; and the cause may be that we are not unlike one
to the other, both strong and tough, and with little tomfoolery about
us.’ Madame Troqueville gazed straight in front of her, her eyes for the
moment as chill as Madeleine’s. This was more than she could stand, she,
the daughter of an eminent judge, to be pitied by this coarse old widow
of an attorney.

‘Maybe the reason you have found life not unkind is because you are not
like the dog in the fable,’ said Madeleine shyly, ‘who lost the substance
out of greediness to possess the shadow.’

Madame Pilou was delighted. Any reference to Æsop’s fables was sure to
please her, for it brought her the rare satisfaction of recognising a
literary allusion.

‘That is very prettily said, my child,’ and she chuckled with glee. Then
she looked at Madeleine meditatively. ‘But see here, as you are so
enamoured of the _Grand Cyrus_, you had better come some day and make the
acquaintance of Mademoiselle de Scudéry.’

‘Oh, Madeleine, you would like that rarely, would you not?’ cried Madame
Troqueville, flushing with pleasure.

But Madeleine had gone deadly white, and stammered out, ‘Oh—er—I am
vastly obliged, Madame, but in truth I shouldn’t ... the honour would put
me out of countenance.’

‘Out of countenance? Pish! Pish! my child,’ laughed Madame Pilou,
‘Mademoiselle de Scudéry is but a human being like the rest of us, she
eats and drinks and is bled and takes her purges like any one else. Yes,
you come and see her, and convey yourself towards her as if she were a
_grande dame_ who had never seen a goose’s quill in her life, and you
will gain her friendship on the spot.’

‘The lady I would fainest in the world meet,’ said Madeleine, and there
was suppressed eagerness in her voice, ‘is Madame de Rambouillet, she——’

‘My child, your wish has something in’t like rare wit and sense,’
interrupted Madame Pilou warmly, ‘she is better worth seeing than
anything else in the world, than the Grand Turk or Prester John himself.’

‘Was it not the late Monsieur Voiture that said of her, “I revere her as
the most noble, the most beautiful, and the most perfect thing I have
ever seen”?’ said Madeleine, the ordeal of quoting making her burn with
self-consciousness.

‘I dare say it was. Poor Voiture, he was an impudent fellow, but his
wit was as nimble as a hare. He always put me in mind of a performer
there used to be on the Pont-Neuf—we called him the “Buveur d’Eau”—he
would fill his mouth with ordinary cold water and then spout it out in
cascades of different coloured scents. Some trick, doubtless, but it was
wonderful. And in the same way Voiture would take some plain homespun
sentiment and twist it and paint it and madrigalise it into something so
fantastical that you would never recognise it as the same.’

‘I remember me to have seen that “Buveur d’Eau” when I came to Paris as
a young man, and——’ began Monsieur Troqueville, in whom for some time
the pleasures of the table had triumphed over the desire to shine. But
Madeleine was not going to let the conversation wander to quacks and
mountebanks. In a clear, though gentle voice, she asked if it were true
that the Marquise de Rambouillet was in very delicate health.

‘Yes, very frail but rarely in Paris nowadays. The last time I went to
see her she said, smiling as is always her way, “I feel like a ghost in
Paris these days, a ghost that died hundreds of years ago,” and I much
apprehend that she will in sober earnest be a ghost before long,’ and
Madame Pilou, who was deeply moved, blew her nose violently on a napkin.

‘She must be a lady of great and rare parts,’ said Madame Troqueville
sympathetically. The remark about ‘feeling like a ghost’ had touched her
imagination.

‘Yes, indeed. She is the only virtuous woman I have ever known who is a
little ashamed of her virtue—and that is perfection. There is but little
to choose between a prude and a whore, _I_ think ... yes, I do, Robert
Pilou. Ay! in good earnest, she is of a most absolute behaviour. The
Marquis has no need to wear _his_ hair long. You know when this fashion
for men wearing love-locks came in, I said it was to hide the horns!’

‘Do the horns grow on one’s neck, then?’ Jacques asked innocently.
Monsieur Troqueville was much tickled, and Madame Troqueville wondered
wearily how many jokes she had heard in her life about ‘horns’ and
‘cuckolds.’

‘Grow on one’s neck, indeed! You’ll find _that_ out soon enough, young
man!’ snorted Madame Pilou.

The substantial meal was now over, and Monsieur Troqueville had licked
from his fingers the last crumbs of the last _Pasté à la mazarinade_,
when Robert Pilou, who had been silent nearly all dinner-time, now said
slowly and miserably, ‘To appear in a romance! In a romance with Pagans
and Libertins! Oh! Madame Pilou!’ His mother looked round proudly.

‘Hark to him! He has been pondering the matter; he always gets there if
you but give him time!’ and she beamed with maternal pride. Then Madame
Troqueville rose and made her adieux, though Madeleine looked at her
imploringly, as if her fate hung upon her staying a little longer. Madame
Pilou was particularly affectionate in her good-bye to Madeleine. ‘Well,
we’ll see if we can’t contrive it that you meet Madame de Rambouillet.’

Madeleine’s face suddenly became radiantly happy.




CHAPTER II

A PARTIAL CONFESSION


At supper that evening Madeleine seemed intoxicated with happiness. She
laughed wildly at nothing and squeezed Jacques’s hand under the table,
which made him look pleased but embarrassed. Monsieur Troqueville was
also excited about something, for he kept smiling and muttering to
himself, gesticulating now and then, his nostrils expanding, his eyes
flashing as if in concert with his own unspoken words. Jacques burst into
extravagant praise of Madame Pilou, couched, as was his way, in abrupt
adjectives, ‘She is _crotesque_ ... she is _gauloise_ ... she is superb!’

‘My dear Jacques,’ said Madame Troqueville, smiling, ‘You would find
dozens of women every whit as _crotesque_ and _gauloise_ in the Halles.
I’ll take you with me when I go marketing some day.’

‘Very well, and I’ll settle down and build my harem there and fill it
with Madame Pilous,’ said he, grinning. ‘If I had lived in the days of
Amadis de Gaul she should have been my lady and I’d have worn ... a hair
shirt made of her beard!’

Madeleine, who did not, as a rule, much appreciate Jacques’s wit, laughed
long and excitedly. Her mother looked at her, not sure whether to rejoice
at or to fear this sudden change from languid gloom. Jacques went on with
his jerky panegyric. ‘She is like some one in Rabelais. She might have
been the mother of Gargantua, she——’

‘Gargamelle! Gargamelle was the mother of Gargantua!’ cried Madeleine
eagerly and excitedly.

‘As you will, Gargamelle, then. Why doesn’t she please you, Aunt? It is
you that are _really_ the Précieuse, and Madeleine is at heart a _franque
gauloise_,’ and he looked at Madeleine wickedly.

‘That I’m not ... you know nothing of my humour, Jacques.... I know best
about myself, I am abhorrent of aught that is coarse and ungallant....
I am to seek why you should make other people share your faults, you——’
Madeleine had tears of rage in her eyes.

‘You are a sprouting Madame Pilou, beard and all!’ teased Jacques. ‘No,
you’re not,’ and he stopped abruptly. It was his way suddenly to get
bored with a subject he had started himself.

‘But Madeleine,’ began Madame Troqueville, ‘what, in Heaven’s name,
prompted you to refuse to meet Mademoiselle de Scutary?’

‘De S-c-u-d-é-r-y,’ corrected Madeleine, enunciating each letter with
weary irritation.

‘De Scudéry, then. You are such a goose, my child; in the name of Our
Lady, how _can_ you expect——’ and Madame Troqueville began to work
herself up into a frenzy, such as only Madeleine was able to arouse in
her.

But Madeleine said with such earnestness, ‘Pray mother, let the matter
be,’ that Madame Troqueville said no more.

Supper being over, Monsieur Troqueville, wearing an abstracted, important
air, took his hat and cloak and went out, and Madame Troqueville went to
her spinning-wheel.

Jacques and Madeleine went up to her bedroom, to which they retired
nearly every evening, nominally to play Spelequins or Tric-trac. Madame
Troqueville had her suspicions that little of the evening was spent in
these games, but what of that? Jacques’s mother had left him a small
fortune, not large enough to buy a post in the _Parlement_, but still a
competency, and if Madeleine liked him they would probably be able to get
a dispensation, and Madame Troqueville would be spared the distasteful
task of negotiating for a husband for her daughter. Her passion for
Madeleine was not as strong as a tendency to shudder away from action,
to sit spellbound and motionless before the spectacle of the automatic
movement of life.

Jacques was now learning to be an attorney, for although his father had
been an advocate, his friends considered that he would have more chance
on the other side. Jacques docilely took their advice, for it was all one
to him whether he eventually became an advocate or an attorney, seeing
that from the clerks of both professions were recruited ‘_les Clercs de
la Bazoche_’—a merry, lewd corporation with many a quaint gothic custom
that appealed to Jacques’s imagination.

They had a Chancellor—called King in the old days—whom they elected
annually from among themselves, and who had complete authority over them.
That year Jacques reached the summit of his ambition, for they chose him
for the post.

He had never seen Madeleine till her arrival in Paris two months before.
At that time he was fanning the dying embers of a passion for a little
lady of the Pays-Latin of but doubtful reputation.

Then the Troquevilles had arrived, and, to his horror, he began to
fall in love with Madeleine. Although remarkably cynical for his age,
he was nevertheless, like all of his contemporaries, influenced by the
high-flown chivalry of Spain, elaborated by the Précieuses into a code
where the capital crime was to love more than once. In consequence, he
was extremely surly with Madeleine at first and laid it on himself as
a sacred duty to find out one fault in her every day. Her solemnity
was unleavened by one drop of the mocking gaiety of France; in an age
of plump beauties she seemed scraggy; unlike his previous love, she
was slow and rather clumsy in her movements. But it was in vain, and
he had finally to acknowledge that she was like one of the grave-eyed,
thin-mouthed beauties Catherine de Médici had brought with her from
Italy, that her very clumsiness had something beautiful and virginal
about it, and, in fact, that he was deeply in love with her.

When he had told her of his new feelings towards herself she had replied
with a scorn so withering as to be worthy of the most prudish Précieuse
of the Marais. This being so, his surprise was as great as his joy
when, about a week before the dinner described in the last chapter, she
announced that he ‘might take his fill of kissing her, and that she loved
him very much.’

So a queer little relationship sprang up between them, consisting of
a certain amount of kissing, a great deal of affectionate teasing
on Jacques’s side, endless discussions of Madeleine’s character and
idiosyncrasies—a pastime which never failed to delight and interest
her—and a tacit assumption that they were betrothed.

But Jacques was not the gallant that Madeleine would have chosen.
In those days, the first rung of the social ladder was _le désir de
parroistre_—the wish to make a splash and to appear grander than you
really were—and this noble aspiration of ‘_une âme bien née_’ was
entirely lacking in Jacques. Then his scorn of the subtleties of
Dandyism was incompatible with being _un honnête homme_, for though
his long ringlets were certainly in the mode, they had originally been
a concession to his mother, and all Madeleine’s entreaties failed to
make him discard his woollen hose and his jerkin of Holland cloth, or
substitute top boots for his short square shoes. Nor did he conform in
his wooing to the code of the modish Cupid and hire the Four Fiddles to
serenade her, or get up little impromptu balls in her honour, or surprise
collations coming as a graceful climax to a country walk. Madeleine had
too fine a scorn for facts to allow the knowledge of his lack of means to
extenuate this negligence.

In short, the fact could not be blinked that Jacques was ignoble enough
to be quite content with being a bourgeois.

Then again, in Metaphysics, Jacques held very different views from
Madeleine, for he was an Atheistic follower of Descartes and a scoffer
at Jansenism, while in other matters he was much in sympathy with the
‘Libertins’—the sworn foes of the Précieuses. The name of ‘Libertin’ was
applied—in those days with no pornographic connotation—to the disciples
of Gassendi, Nandé, and La Motte le Vayer. These had evolved a new
Epicurean philosophy, to some of their followers merely an excuse for
witty gluttony, to others, a potent ethical incentive. The Précieuses,
they held, had insulted by the diluted emotions and bombastic language
their good goddess Sens Commun, who had caught for them some of the
radiance of the Greek Σωφροσύνη. One taste, however, they shared with the
Précieusues, and that was the love of the _crotesque_—of quaint, cracked
brains and deformed, dwarfish bodies, and of colouring. It was the same
tendency probably that produced a little earlier the architecture known
as _baroque_, the very word _crotesque_ suggesting the mock stalactitic
grottoes with which these artists had filled the gardens of Italy. But
this very thing was being turned by the Libertins, with unconscious
irony, _via_ the _genre burlesque_ of the Abbé Scarron, into a sturdy
Gallic realism—for first studying real life in quest of the _crotesque_,
they fell in love with its other aspects too.

Madeleine resented that Jacques continued just as interested in his own
life as before he had met her—in his bright-eyed vagabondage in Bohemia,
his quest after absurdities on the Pont-Neuf and in low taverns. She
hated to be reminded that there could be anything else in the world but
herself. But in spite of her evident disapproval, he continued to spend
just as much of his time in devising pranks with his subjects of La
Bazoche, and in haunting the Pont-Neuf in quest of the _crotesque_.

Another thing which greatly displeased Madeleine was that Jacques and her
father had struck up a boon-companionship, and this also she was not able
to stop.

That same evening, when they got into her room, they were silent for a
little. Jacques always left it to her to give the note of the evening’s
intimacy.

‘What are you pondering?’ he said at last.

‘’Twould be hard to say, Jacques.... I’m exceeding happy.’

‘Are you? I’m glad of it! you have been of so melancholy and strange a
humour ever since I’ve known you. There were times when you had the look
of a hunted thing.’

‘Yes, at times my heart was like to break with melancholy.’

Jacques was silent, then he said suddenly, ‘Has it aught to do with that
Scudéry woman?’

Madeleine gave a start and blushed all over. ‘What ... what ... how d’you
mean?’

‘Oh! I don’t know. I had the fancy it might in some manner refer to her
... you act so whimsically when mention is made of her.’

Madeleine laughed nervously, and examined her nails with unnecessary
concentration, and then with eyes still averted from Jacques, she began
in a jerky, embarrassed voice, ‘I’m at a loss to know how you discovered
it ... ’tis so foolish, at least, I mean rather ’tis so hard to make my
meaning clear ... but to say truth, it _is_ about her ... the humour to
know her has come so furiously upon me _that I shall go mad if it cannot
be compassed_!’ and her voice became suddenly hard and passionate.

‘There is no reason in nature why it should not. Old Pilou said she would
contrive it for you, but you acted so fantastically and begged her not
to, funny one!’

Madeleine once more became self-conscious. ‘I know ... it’s so hard to
make clear my meaning.... ’Tis an odd, foolish fancy, I confess, but I
am always having the feeling that things won’t fall out as I would wish,
except something else happens first. As soon as the desire for a thing
begins to work on me, all manner of little fantastical things crop up
around me, and I am sensible that except I compound with them I shall not
compass the big thing. For example ... for example, if I was going to a
ball and was eager it should prove a pleasant junketing, well, I might
feel it was going to yield but little pleasure unless—unless—I were able
to keep that comb there balanced on my hand while I counted three.’

‘Don’t!’ cried Jacques, clasping his head despairingly. ‘I shall get the
contagion.... I _know_ I shall!’

‘Well, anyway,’ she went on wearily, ‘I was seized by the notion that
... that ... that it wouldn’t ... that I wouldn’t do so well with
Mademoiselle de Scudéry unless I met her for the first time at the Hôtel
de Rambouillet, and it _must_ be there, and if the Marquise be of so
difficult access, perchance it can’t be compassed.... Oh! I would I were
dead,’ the last words came tumbling out all in one breath.

‘Poor little Chop!’ said Jacques sympathetically. (It was the fashion,
brought to Paris by the exiled King of England, to call pets by English
names, and Jacques had heard a bulldog called ‘Chop,’ and was so tickled
by the name, that he insisted on giving it to Madeleine that he might
have the pleasure of often saying it).

‘’Tis a grievous thing to want anything sorely. But I am confident the
issue will be successful.’

‘Are you? Are you?’ she cried, her face lighting up. ‘When do you think
the meeting will take place? Madame de Rambouillet is always falling ill.’

‘Oh! Old Pilou can do what she will with all those great folk, and she
has conceived a liking for you.’

‘Has she? Has she? How do you know? What makes you think so?’

‘Oh, I don’t know ... however, she has,’ he answered, suddenly getting
distrait. ‘Is it truly but as an exercise against the spleen that you
pass whole hours in leaping up and down the room?’ he asked after a
pause, watching her curiously.

Madeleine blushed, and answered nervously:—

‘Yes, ’tis good for the spleen—the doctor told me so—also, if you will,
’tis a caprice——’

‘How ravishing to be a woman!’ sighed Jacques. ‘One can be as great a
_visionnaire_ as one will and be thought to have rare parts withal,
whereas, if a man were to pass his time in cutting capers up and down the
room, he’d be shut up in _les petites maisons_.[1] How comes it that you
want to know Mademoiselle Scudéry more than any one else?’

‘I cannot say, ’tis just that I do, and the wish has worked so powerfully
on my fancy that ’tis become my only thought. It has grown from a little
fancy into a huge desire. ’Tis like to a certain nightmare I sometimes
have when things swell and swell.’

‘When things swell and swell?’

‘Yes, ’tis what I call my Dutch dream, for it ever begins by my being
surrounded by divers objects, such as cheeses and jugs and strings of
onions and lutes and spoons, as in a Dutch picture, and I am sensible
that one of them presently, I never know which ’twill be, will start
to swell. And then on a sudden one of them begins, and it is wont to
continue until I feel that if it get any bigger I shall go mad. And in
like manner, I hold it to be but chance that it was Mademoiselle de
Scudéry that took to swelling, it might quite well have been any one
else.’

Jacques smiled a little. ‘It might always quite well have been any one
else,’ he said.

Madeleine looked puzzled for a minute and then went on unhappily, ‘I feel
’tis all so unreal, just a “vision.” Oh! How I wish it was something
in accordance with other people’s experiences ... something they could
understand, such as falling in love, for example, but this——’

‘It isn’t the cause that is of moment, you know, it’s the strength of the
“passion” resulting from the cause. And in truth I don’t believe any one
_could_ have been subject to a stronger “passion” than you since you have
come to Paris.’

‘So it doesn’t seem to you extravagant then?’ she asked eagerly.

‘Only as all outside one’s own desires do seem extravagant.’ He sat down
beside her and drew her rather timidly to him. ‘I’m confident ’twill
right itself in the end, Chop,’ he whispered. She sprang up eagerly, her
eyes shining.

‘Do you think so, Jacques ... in sober earnest?’

‘Come back, Chop!’ In Jacques’s eyes there was what Madeleine called the
‘foolish expression,’ which sooner or later always appeared when he was
alone with her. It bored her extremely; why could he not be content with
spending the whole time in rational talk? However, she went back with a
sigh of resignation.

After a few minutes she said with a little excited giggle, ‘What do you
think ... er ... Mademoiselle de Scudéry will think of me?’

Jacques only grunted, the ‘foolish expression’ still in his eyes.

‘Jacques!’ she cried sharply, ‘tell me!’ and she got up.

‘What will she think of you? Oh! that you’re an ill-favoured, tedious
little imp.’

‘No, Jacques!’

‘A scurvy, lousy, bombastic——’

‘Oh! Jacques, forbear, for God’s sake!’

‘Provincial——’

‘Oh! Jacques, no more, I’ll _scream_ till you hold your tongue ... _what_
will she think of me, in sober earnest?’

‘She’ll think——’ and he stopped, and looked at her mischievously. Her
lips were moving, as if repeating some formulary. ‘That you are ... that
there is a “I know not what about you of gallant and witty.”’ Madeleine
began to leap up and down the room, then she rushed to Jacques and flung
her arms round his neck.

‘I am furiously grateful to you!’ she cried. ‘I felt that had you not
said something of good omen ere I had repeated “she’ll think” twenty
times, I would never compass my desires, and you said it when I had got
to eighteen times!’ Jacques smiled indulgently.

‘So you know the language she affects, do you?’ said Madeleine, with a
sort of self-conscious pride.

‘Alas! that I do! I read a few volumes of the _Grand Cyrus_, and think it
the saddest fustian——’

‘Madame Pilou said she had begun another ... do you think ... er ... do
you think ... that ... maybe I’ll figure in it?’

‘’Tis most probable. Let’s see. “Chopine is one of the most beautiful
persons in the whole of Greece, as, Madame, you will readily believe when
I tell you that she was awarded at the Cyprian Games the second prize
for beauty.”’ Madeleine blushed prettily, and gave a little gracious
conventional smile. She was imagining that Mademoiselle de Scudéry
herself was reading it to her. ‘“The _first_ prize went, of course, to
that fair person who, having learnt the art of thieving from Mercury
himself, proceeded to rob the Graces of all their charms, the Muses of
all their secrets. Like that of the goddess Minerva, hers is, if I may
use the expression, a virile beauty, for on her chin is the thickest,
curliest, most Jove-like beard that has ever been seen in Greece——”’

‘Jacques! it’s not——’

‘“Madame, your own knowledge of the world will tell you that I speak of
Madame Pilou!”’ Madeleine stamped her foot, and her eyes filled with
angry tears, but just then there was a discreet knock at the door,
and Berthe, the Troqueville’s one servant, came in with a cup and a
jug of Palissy _faience_. She was fat and fair, with a wall-eye and a
crooked mouth. Her home was in Lorraine, and she was a mine of curious
country-lore, but a little vein of irony ran through all her renderings
of local legends, and there was nothing she held in veneration—not even
‘_la bonne Lorraine_’ herself. Her tongue wagged incessantly, and Jacques
said she was like the servant girl, Iambe—‘the prattling daughter of
Pan.’ She had been with the Troquevilles only since they had come to
Paris, but she belonged to the class of servants that become at once
old family retainers. She took a cynically benevolent interest in the
relationship between Jacques and Madeleine, and although there was no
need whatever for the rôle, she had instituted herself the confidante
and adviser of the ‘lovers,’ and from the secrecy and despatch with
which she would keep the two posted in each other’s movements, Monsieur
and Madame Troqueville might have been the parental tyrants of a Spanish
comedy. This attitude irritated Madeleine extremely, but Jacques it
tickled and rather pleased.

‘Some Rossoli for Mademoiselle, very calming to the stomach, in youth one
needs such drafts, for the blood is hot, he! he!’ and she nodded her head
several times, and smiled a smile which shut the wall-eye and hitched up
the crooked mouth. Then she came up to them and whispered, ‘The master is
not in yet, and the mistress is busy with her spinning!’ and the strange
creature with many nods and becks set the jug and cup on the table, and
continuing to mutter encouragement, marched out with soft, heavy steps.

Madeleine dismissed Jacques, saying she was tired and wanted to go to
bed.




CHAPTER III

A SUPPLEMENT TO THE CONFESSION

    ‘On a oublié le temps où elle vivait et combien dans cette vie
    de luxe et de désœuvrement les passions peuvent ressembler à
    des fantaisies, de même que les manies y deviennent souvent des
    passions.’

                                   SAINTE-BEUVE.—_Madame de Sévigné._


It is wellnigh impossible for any one to be very explicit about their own
nerves, for there is something almost indecently intimate in a nervous
fear or obsession. Thus, although Madeleine’s explanation to Jacques
had given her great relief, it had been but partial. She would sooner
have died than have told him the real impulse, for instance, that sent
her dancing madly up and down the room, or have analysed minutely her
feelings towards Mademoiselle de Scudéry.

The seeds of the whole affair were, I think, to be found in the fact that
an ancestor of Madame Troqueville’s had been an Italian lady of high
family, who had left a strain, fine, fastidious, civilised—in the morbid
way of Italy—to lie hidden in obscurity in the bourgeois stock, and to
crop up from time to time with pathetic persistence, in a tragically
aristocratic outlook, thin features, and the high, narrow forehead that
had given to the pallid beauties of the sixteenth century a look of
_maladif_ intellect.

To Madeleine it had also brought a yearning from earliest childhood for a
radiant, transfigured world, the inhabitants of which seemed first of all
to be the rich merchant families of Lyons.

One of her most vivid memories was an occasion on which a strolling
company of players had acted a comedy in the house of a leader among
these merchants, a certain Maître Jean Prunier. Although the Troquevilles
personally did not know the Pruniers, they had a common friend, and he
had taken Madeleine and her parents to the performance. They went into
an enormous room filled with benches, with a raised platform at one end.
The walls and the ceiling were frescoed with various scenes symbolical
of Maître Prunier’s commercial prowess. He was shown riding on woolly
waves on the back of a dolphin, presenting a casket of gloves to Marie
de Médici, marching in crimson robes at the head of the six guilds of
merchants. On the ceiling was his apotheosis. It showed him sitting, his
lap full of gloves, on a Lyons shawl, which winged Cherubs were drawing
through the air to a naked goddess on a cloud, who was holding out to him
a wreath made of Dutch tulips. When Madame Troqueville saw it she shook
with laughter, much to Madeleine’s surprise.

Maître Prunier and his family sat on the stage during the performance,
that they might be seen as well as see. He was a large stout man, and his
nose was covered with warts, but his youngest daughter held Madeleine’s
eyes spellbound. She had lovely golden hair for one thing, and then,
although she looked no older than Madeleine herself, who was about seven
at the time, she was dressed in a velvet bodice covered with Genoese
point, and—infinitely grander—she was actually wearing what to Madeline
had always seemed one of the attributes of magnificent eld, to wit, a
real stomacher, all stiff with busks and embroidered in brightly coloured
silks with flowers and enchanting beasts—a thing as lovely and magical as
the armour of Achilles in the woodcut that hung in the parlour at home.

Some years later Madeleine was sent to school at a Convent about a mile
out of Lyons. One of the scholars was this very Jeanne Prunier. Madeleine
would watch her stumbling through the Creed, her fat white face puckered
with effort, her stumpy fingers fiddling nervously with her gold chain,
and would wonder what great incomprehensible thoughts were passing behind
that greasy forehead and as what strange phantasmagoria did she see the
world. And that chain—it actually hung round her neck all day long, and
when she went home, was taken through the great wooden door of Maître
Prunier’s house—the door carved with flowers and grinning faces—and
perhaps in a drawer in her bedroom had a little box of its own. And
Maître Prunier probably knew of its existence, as doubtless it had been
his gift, and thus it had a place in the consciousness of that great man,
while she, Madeleine ... he had never heard of her.

Lyons, like most rich provincial towns, was very purse-proud, and this
characteristic was already quite apparent in its young daughters at the
Convent. Their conversation consisted, to a great extent, in boastings
about their fathers’ incomes, and surmises as to those of the fathers of
their companions. They could tell you the exact number of gold pieces
carried on each girl’s back, and when some one appeared in a new dress
they would come up and finger the material to ascertain its texture and
richness. Every one knew exactly how many pairs of Spanish gloves, how
many yards of Venetian lace, how many pure silk petticoats were possessed
by every one else, and how many Turkey carpets and Rouen tapestries and
tables of marble and porphyry, how much gold and silver plate, and how
many beds covered with gold brocade were to be found in each other’s
homes.

As Madeleine’s dresses were made of mere serge, and contemptible
_guese_ was their only trimming, and as it was known that her father
was nothing but a disreputable attorney, they coldly ignored her, and
this made her life in the Convent agonising. Although subconsciously
she was registering every ridiculous or vulgar detail about her passive
tormentors, yet her boundless admiration for them remained quite intact,
and to be accepted as one of their select little coterie, to share their
giggling secrets, to walk arm in arm with one of them in the Convent
garden would be, she felt, the summit of earthly glory.

One hot summer’s day, it happened that both she and a member of the
Sacred Circle—a girl called Julie Duval—felt faint in Chapel. A nun
had taken them into the Refectory—the coolest place in the Convent—and
left them to recover. Madeleine never quite knew how it happened,
but she suddenly found herself telling Julie that her mother was the
daughter of a Duke, and her father the son of an enormously wealthy
merchant of Amsterdam; that he had been sent as quite a young man on a
political mission to the Court of France, where he had met her mother;
that they had fallen passionately in love with one another, and had
been secretly married; when the marriage was announced the parents of
both were furious, owing to her father’s family being Protestant, her
mother’s Catholic, and had refused to have anything more to do with their
respective offspring; that her father had taken the name of Troqueville
and settled in Lyons; that some months ago a letter had come from her
paternal grandfather, in which he told them that he was growing old and
that, although a solemn vow prevented him from ever looking again on the
face of his son, he would like to see his grandchild before he died,
would she come to Amsterdam?; that she had refused, saying that she did
not care to meet any one who had treated her father as badly as he; that
the old man had written back to say that he admired her spirit and had
made her his sole heir, ‘which was really but a cunning device to take,
without tendering his formal forgiveness, the sting from the act whereby
he had disinherited my father, because he must have been well aware that
I would share it all with him!’ (Unconsciously she had turned her father
into a romantic figure, to whom she was attached with the pious passion
of an Antigone. In reality she gave all her love to her mother; but the
unwritten laws of rhetoric commanded that the protagonists in this story
should be _father_ and daughter.)

Julie’s eyes grew rounder and rounder at each word.

‘_Jésus_, Madeleine Troqueville! what a fine lady you will be!’ she said
in an awed voice. Madeleine had not a doubt that by the next morning she
would have repeated every word of it to her friends.

In the course of the day she half came to believing the whole story
herself, and sailed about with measured, stately gait; on her lips a
haughty, faintly contemptuous smile. She felt certain that she was the
centre of attention. She was wearing her usual little serge dress and
plain muslin fichu, but if suddenly asked to describe her toilette,
she would have said it was of the richest velvet foaming with Italian
lace. She seemed to herself four inches taller than she had been the day
before, while her eyes had turned from gray to flashing black, her hair
also was black instead of chestnut.

Mythology was one of the subjects in the Convent curriculum—a concession
to fashion made most unwillingly by the nuns. But as each story was
carefully expurgated, made as anterotic as possible, and given a neat
little moral, Ovid would scarce have recognised his own fables. The
subject for that day happened to be Paris’s sojourn as a shepherd on
Mount Ida. When the nun told them he was really the son of the King of
Troy, Madeleine was certain that all the girls were thinking of her.

Several days, however, went by, and no overtures were made by the Sacred
Circle. Madeleine’s stature was beginning to dwindle, and her hair and
eyes to regain their ordinary colour, when one morning Jeanne Prunier
came up to her, took hold of the little medallion that hung round her
neck on a fine gold chain, and said: ‘Tiens! c’est joli, ça.’

This exclamation so often interchanged among the _élite_, but which
Madeleine had never dreamed that any object belonging to her could
elicit, was the prelude to a period of almost unearthly bliss. She was
told the gallant that each of them was in love with, was given some of
Jeanne’s sweet biscuits and quince jam, and was made a member of their
_Dévises_ Society. The _dévise_ designed for her was a plant springing
out of a _tabouret_ (the symbol of a Duchess); one of its stems bore a
violet, the other a Dutch tulip, and over them both hovered the flowery
coronet of a Duke—wherein was shown a disregard for botany but an
imaginative grasp of Madeleine’s circumstances.

At times she felt rather condescending to her new friends, for the old
man could not live much longer, and when he died she would not only
be richer than any of them, but her mother’s people would probably
invite her to stay with them in Paris, and in time she might be made a
lady-in-waiting to the Regent ... and then, suddenly, the sun would be
drowned and she would feel sick, for a Saint’s day was drawing near, and
they would all go home, and the girls would tell their parents her story,
and their parents would tell them that it was not true.

The Saint’s day came in due course, and after it, the awful return to
the Convent. Had they been undeceived about her or had they not? It
was difficult to tell, for during the morning’s work there were few
opportunities for social intercourse. It was true that in the embroidery
class, when Madeleine absent-mindedly gave the Virgin a red wool nose
instead of a white one, and the presiding nun scolded her, the girls
looked coldly at her instead of sympathetically; then in the dancing
lesson as a rule the sacred ones gave her an intimate grin from time
to time, or whispered a pleasantry on the clumsy performance of some
companion outside the Sacred Circle, but this morning they merely stared
at her coldly. Still their indifference might mean nothing. Did it, or
did it not?

    ’Un, deux, trois,
    Marquez les pas,
    Faites la ré-vé-ren-ce,’

chanted the little master.

How Madeleine wished she were he, a light, artificial little creature,
with no great claims on life.

But her fears became a certainty, when going into the closet where they
kept their pattens and brushes, Jeanne commanded her in icy tones to
take her ‘dirty brush’ out of her, Jeanne’s, bag. And that was all. If
they had been boys, uproariously contemptuous, they would have twitted
Madeleine with her lie, but being girls, they merely sneered and ignored
her. She felt like a spirit that, suspended in mid-air, watches the body
it has left being torn to pieces by a pack of wolves. Days of dull agony
followed, but she felt strangely resigned, as if she could go on bearing
it for ever and a day.

It was during the Fronde, and Jeanne and her friends had a cult for Condé
and Madame de Longueville, the royal rebels. They taught their parrots
at home to repeat lines of Mazarinades, they kept a print of Condé at
the battle of Rocroy in their book of Hours, and had pocket mirrors with
his arms emblazoned on the back, while Madame de Longueville simpered
at them from miniatures painted on the top of their powder boxes or the
backs of their tablets. As the nuns, influenced by the clergy, were
strong Royalists, and looked upon Condé as a sort of Anti-Christ, the
girls had to hide their enthusiasm.

Some weeks after Madeleine’s fall, it was announced that on the following
Wednesday there was to be a public demonstration in favour of Condé and
the Frondeurs, and that there would be fireworks in their honour, and
that some of the streets would be decorated with paper lanterns.

On Wednesday Jeanne and Julie came to Madeleine and ordered her to slip
out of her window at about eight o’clock in the evening, go down to the
gate at the end of the avenue, and when they called her from the other
side, to unbolt it for them. They then went to one of the nuns and,
pleading a headache, said they would like to go to bed, and did not want
any supper.

During the last weeks Madeleine had lost all spirit, all personality
almost, so she followed their instructions with mechanical submission,
and was at the gate at the appointed time, opened it, let them in, and
all three got back to bed in safety.

About a week later, all the girls were bidden to assemble in the
Refectory, where the Reverend Mother was awaiting them with a look of
Rhadamanthine severity.

‘Most grievous news had been given her concerning a matter that must be
dealt with without delay. She would ask all the demoiselles in turn if
they had left their bedrooms on Wednesday evening.’

‘No, Madame.’

‘No, Madame,’ in voices of conscious rectitude, as one girl after another
was asked by name. It was also the answer of Jeanne and Julie. Then:
‘Mademoiselle Troqueville, did you leave your bedroom on Wednesday
evening?’

There was a pause, and then came the answer: ‘Yes, Madame.’

All eyes were turned on her, and Julie, covertly, put out her tongue.

‘Mesdemoiselles, you may all go, excepting Mademoiselle Troqueville.’

Madeleine noticed that the Reverend Mother had a small mole on her cheek,
she had not seen it before.

Then came such a scolding as she had never before experienced. Much
mention was made of ‘obedience,’ ‘chastity,’ ‘Anti-Christ,’ ‘the enemies
of the King and the Church.’ What had they to do with walking across the
garden and opening a gate? Perhaps she had shown too much leg in climbing
out of the window—that would, at least, account for the mention of
chastity.

The Reverend Mother had asked _if any one had left their bedroom_—that
was all—and Madeleine had. And to her mind, dulled, and, as is often
the case, made stupidly literal by sheer terror, this fact had lost all
connection with Jeanne’s and Julie’s escapade, and seemed, by itself, the
cause of this mysterious tirade. It certainly was wrong to have left her
bedroom—but why did it make her ‘an enemy of the King’?

She found herself seizing on a word here and there in the torrent and
spelling it backwards.

‘Example’ ... elpmaxe ... rather a pretty word! _la chastité_ ...
étitsahc al ... it sounded like Spanish ... who invented the different
languages? Perhaps a prize had once been offered at a College for the
invention of the best language, and one student invented French and got
the prize, and another nearly got the second, but it was discovered in
time that he had only turned his own language backwards, and that was
cheating.... _Jésus!_ there was a little bit of wood chipped out of
the Reverend Mother’s crucifix! But these thoughts were just a slight
trembling on the surface of fathoms of inarticulate terror and despair.

Then she heard the Reverend Mother telling her that it would be a sign of
grace if she were to disclose the names of her companions.

In a flash she realised that she was supposed to have done whatever it
was that Jeanne and Julie had done on Wednesday evening.

‘But, Madame, I didn’t ... ’twas only——’

‘Mademoiselle, excuses and denials will avail you nothing. Who was the
other lady with you?’

‘Oh, it isn’t that ... there were no others, at least ... ah! I am
at a loss how I can best make it clear, but we are, methinks, at
cross-purposes.’

But her case was hopeless. She could not betray Jeanne and Julie, and
even if she had wished to, she was incapable just then of doing so,
feeling too light-headed and rudderless to make explanations. Finally she
was dismissed, and walked out of the room as if in a trance.

She was greeted by a clamour of questions and reproaches from the girls.
Jeanne and Julie were in hysterics. When they discovered that she had not
betrayed them, they muttered some sheepish expressions of gratitude, and
to save their faces they started badgering her in a half-kindly way for
having got herself into trouble so unnecessarily; why could she not have
said ‘No’ like the rest of them? Madeleine had no satisfactory answer to
give, because she did not know why herself. In sudden crises it seemed
as if something stepped out from behind her personality and took matters
into its own hands, and spite of all her good-will it would not allow her
to give a false answer to a direct question. And this although, as we
have seen, she could suddenly find herself telling gratuitous falsehoods
by the gross.

Of course Madeleine was in terrible disgrace, and penance was piled on
penance. The Sacred Circle was friendly to her again, but this brought
no comfort now, and the severe looks of the nuns put her in a perpetual
agony of terror.

About a week went by, and then one day, when she was sitting in the
little room of penance, the door was thrown open and in rushed Julie
turned into a gurgling, sniffing whirlwind of tears.

‘The Reverend Mother’ ... sob ... ‘says I must’ ... sob ... ‘ask your
forgiveness’ ... scream, and then she flopped down on the floor, overcome
by the violence of her emotion. It was clear to Madeleine that in some
miraculous way all had been discovered, but she did not feel particularly
relieved. The ‘movement of the passions’ seemed to have been arrested
in her. She sat watching Julie with her clear, wide-open eyes, and her
expression was such as one might imagine on the face of an Eastern god
whose function is to gaze eternally on a spectacle that never for an
instant interests or moves him. She did not even feel scorn for Julie,
just infinite remoteness.

Julie began nervously to shut and open one of her hands; Madeleine looked
at it. It was small and plump and rather dirty, and on one of its fingers
there was a little enamelled ring, too tight for it, and pressing into
the flesh. It looked like a small distracted animal; Madeleine remembered
a beetle she had once seen struggling on its back. Its smallness and
dirtiness, and the little tight ring and its suggestion of the beetle,
for some reason touched Madeleine. A sudden wave of affection and pity
for Julie swept over her. In a second she was down beside her, with her
arms around her, telling her not to cry, and that it didn’t matter. And
there she was found some minutes later by the Reverend Mother, from whom
she received a panegyric of praise for her forgiving spirit and a kiss,
which she could well have dispensed with.

Then the whole thing was explained; an anonymous letter had been sent
to the Reverend Mother saying that the writer had seen, on the evening
of the demonstration in favour of Condé, two girls masked and hooded,
evidently of position, as they had attendants with them, and that they
were laughing together about their escape from the Convent. The Reverend
Mother had never thought of connecting with the affair Jeanne’s and
Julie’s early retirement that evening. Now she had just got a letter
from Maître Prunier informing her that it had come to his knowledge that
his daughter and her great friend had been walking in the town that same
evening. He had learned this distressing news from one of his servants
whom Jeanne had got to accompany her on her escapade. He bade the
Reverend Mother keep a stricter watch on his daughter. She had sent for
Jeanne and Julie and they had told her that it was only through coercion
that Madeleine had played any part in the escapade.

Then the Reverend Mother and Julie went away, and Jeanne came in to
offer her apologies. She also had evidently been crying, and her mouth
had a sulky droop which did not suggest that her self-complacency had
shrivelled up, like that of Julie. Madeleine found herself resenting
this; how _dare_ she not be abject?

The two following sentences contained Jeanne’s apology:—

(_a_) ‘The Reverend Mother is a spiteful old dragon!’ and she sniffed
angrily.

(_b_) ‘Will you come home for my Fête Day next month? There is to be a
Collation and a Ball and a Comedy,’ and she gave the little wriggle of
her hips, and the complacent gesture of adjusting her collar, which were
so characteristic.

A few weeks ago, this invitation would have sent Madeleine into an
ecstasy of pleasure. To enter that great fantastic door had seemed a
thing one only did in dreams. As Jeanne gave her invitation she saw it
clearly before her, cut off from the house and the street and the trees,
just itself, a finely embossed shield against the sky. It was like one
of the woodcuts that she had seen in a booth of the Fair that year by a
semi-barbarian called Master Albert Dürer. Woodcuts of one carrot, or a
king-fisher among the reeds, or, again, a portion of the grassy bank of a
high road, shown as a busy little commonwealth of bees and grasses, and
frail, sturdy flowers, heedless of and unheeded by the restless stream
of the high road, stationary and perfect like some obscure island of
the Ægean. The world seen with the eyes of an elf or an insect ... how
strange! Then she looked at Jeanne, and suddenly there flashed before her
a sequence of little ignoble things she had subconsciously registered
against her. She had a provincial accent and pronounced _volontiers_,
_voulentiers_; she had a nasty habit of picking her nose; Madeleine had
often witnessed her being snubbed by one of the nuns, and then blushing;
there was something indecently bourgeois in the way she turned the pages
of a book.

The ignoble pageant took about two seconds for its transit, then
Madeleine said, ‘I am much beholden to you, albeit, I fear me I cannot
assist at your Fête,’ and dropping her a curtsey she opened the door,
making it quite clear that Jeanne was to go, which she did, without a
word, as meek as a lamb.

In Madeleine’s description of this scene to Jacques long afterwards she
made herself say to Jeanne what actually she had only thought; many young
people, often the most sensitive, hanker after the power of being crudely
insolent: it seems to them witty and mature.

That night Madeleine was delirious, and Madame Troqueville was sent for.
It was the beginning of a long illness which, for want of a better name,
her doctor called a sharp attack of the spleen.




CHAPTER IV

THE SIN OF NARCISSUS


In time she recovered, or at least was supposed to have recovered, but
she did not return to the Convent, and her mother still watched her
anxiously and was more than ever inclined to give in to her in everything.

The doctor had advised her to continue taking an infusion of steel in
white wine, and to persist in daily exercise, the more violent the
better. So at first she would spend several hours of the day playing at
shuttlecock with her mother, but Madame Troqueville’s energy failing her
after the first few weeks, Madeleine was forced to pursue her cure by
herself.

She found the exercise led to vague dreaming of a semi-dramatic
nature—imaginary arguments with a nameless opponent dimly outlined
against a background of cloth of gold—arguments in which she herself was
invariably victorious. In time, she discarded the shuttlecock completely,
finding that this semi-mesmeric condition was reached more easily through
a wild dance, rhythmic but formless.

In the meantime her social values had become more just, and she
realised that rank is higher than wealth, and that she herself, as the
granddaughter of a Judge of the Paris _Parlement_, and even as the
daughter of a _procureur_, was of more importance socially than the
daughters of merchants, however wealthy.

Round the Intendant of the province and his wife there moved a select
circle, dressed in the penultimate Paris fashion, using the penultimate
Paris slang, and playing for very high stakes at Hoc and Reversi. It was
to this circle that Madeleine’s eyes now turned with longing, as they had
formerly done to the Sacred Circle at the Convent.

In time she got to know some of these Olympians. Those with whom she had
the greatest success were the Précieuses, shrill, didactic ladies who
by their unsuccessful imitation of their Paris models made Lyons the
laughing-stock of the metropolis. Some of them would faint at the mention
of a man’s name; indeed, one of them, who was also a _dévote_, finding it
impossible to reconcile her prudishness with the idea of a male Redeemer,
started a theory that Christ had been really a woman—‘’Tis clear from
His clothes,’ she would say—and that the beard that painters gave Him,
was only part of a plot to wrest all credit from women. They spoke a
queer jargon, full of odd names for the most ordinary objects and barely
intelligible to the uninitiated. Madeleine talked as much like them as
self-consciousness would permit. Also, she copied them in a scrupulous
care of her personal appearance, and in their attention to personal
cleanliness, which was considered by the world at large as ridiculous
as their language. Madame Troqueville feared she would ruin her by the
expensive scents—_poudre d’iris_, _musc_, _civette_, _eau d’ange_—with
which she drenched herself.

In the meantime she had got to know a grubby, smirking old gentleman who
kept a book-shop and fancied himself as a literary critic. He used to
procure the most recent publications of Sercy and Quinet and the other
leading Paris publishers, and his shop became a favourite resort of a
throng of poetasters and young men of would-be fashion who came there to
read and criticise in the manner of the Paris _muguets_. Hither also came
Madeleine, and in a little room behind the shop, where she was safe from
ogles and insolence, she would devour all the books that pleased and
modelled the taste of the day.

Here were countless many-volumed romances, such as the _Astrée_ of Honoré
d’Urfé, La Calprenèdes’s _Cassandre_, and that flower of modernity,
Mademoiselle de Scudéry’s _Grand Cyrus_. _Romans à clef_, they were
called, for in them all the leaders of fashion, all the _bels esprits_ of
the day were dressed up in classical or Oriental costumes, and set to the
task of fitting the fashions and fads of modern Paris into the conditions
of the ancient world or of the kingdom of the Grand Turk. But the
important thing in these romances was what Madeleine called to herself,
with some complacency at the name, ‘_l’escrime galante_’—conversations
in which the gallant, with an indefatigable nimbleness of wit, pays
compliment after compliment to the prudishly arch belle, by whom they
are parried with an equal nimbleness and perseverance. If the gallant
manages to get out a declaration, then the belle is _touchée_, and in
her own eyes disgraced for ever. Then, often, paragons of _esprit_ and
_galanterie_, and the other urbane qualities necessary to _les honnêtes
gens_, give long-winded discourses on some subtle point in the psychology
of lovers. And all this against a background of earthquakes and fires and
hair-breadth escapes, which, together with the incredible coldness of
the capricious heroine, go to prove that nothing can wither the lilies
and roses of the hero’s love and patience and courage. Then there were
countless books of _Vers Galants_, sonnets, and madrigals by beplumed,
beribboned poets, who, like pedlars of the Muses, displayed their wares
in the _ruelles_ and alcoves of great ladies. There were collections of
letters, too, or rather, of _jeux d’esprit_, in which verse alternated
with prose to twist carefully selected news into something which had
the solidity of a sonnet, the grace of a madrigal. Of these letters,
Madeleine was most dazzled by those of the late Vincent Voiture, Jester,
and spoilt child of the famous Hôtel de Rambouillet, and through his
letters she came to feel that she almost knew personally all those
laughing, brilliant people, who had made the Hôtel so famous in the reign
of Louis XIII.—the beautiful touchy ‘Lionne,’ with her lovely voice and
burnished hair; the Princess Julie, suave and mocking, and, like all her
family, an incorrigible tease; and the great Arthénice herself, whimsical
and golden-hearted, with a humorous, half-apologetic chastity. She knew
them all, and the light fantastic world in which they lived, a world of
mediæval romance _pour rire_, in which magic palaces sprang up in the
night, and where ordinary mortals who had been bold enough to enter were
apt to be teased as relentlessly as Falstaff by the fairies of Windsor
Forest.

But what Madeleine pored over most of all was the theory of all these
elegant practices, embodied in species of guide-books to the polite
world, filled with elaborate rules as to the right way of entering a room
and of leaving it, analyses of the grades of deference or of insolence
that could be expressed by a curtsey, the words which must be used and
the words that must not be used, and all the other tiny things which,
pieced together, would make the paradigm of an _honnête homme_ or a
_femme galante_. There Madeleine learned that the most heinous crime
after that of being a bourgeois, was to belong to the Provinces, and the
glory speedily departed from the Lyons Précieuses to descend on those
of Paris. Her own surroundings seemed unbearable, and when she was not
storming at the Virgin for having made her an obscure provincial, she was
pestering her with prayers to transplant her miraculously to some higher
sphere.

The craze for Jansenism—that Catholic Calvinism deduced from the
writings of Saint Augustine by the Dutch Jansen, and made fashionable
by the accomplished hermits of Port-Royal—already just perceptibly on
the wane in Paris, had only recently reached Lyons. As those of Paris
some years before, the haberdashers of Lyons now filled their shops
with collars and garters _à la Janséniste_, and the booksellers with
the charming treatises on theology by ‘_les Messieurs de Port-Royal_.’
Many of the ladies became enamoured of the ‘furiously delicious Saint
Augustine,’ and would have little debates, one side sustaining the view
that his hair had been dark, the other that it had been fair. They raved
about his Confessions, vowing that there was in it a ‘Je ne sais quoi de
doux et de passionné.’

Madeleine also caught the craze and in as superficial a manner as the
others. For instance, the three petticoats worn by ladies which the
Précieuses called ‘_la modeste_,’ ‘_la friponne_,’ and ‘_la secrète_,’
she rechristened ‘_la grâce excitante_,’ ‘_la grâce subséquente_,’ and
‘_la grâce efficace_.’ She gained from this quite a reputation in Lyons.

That Lent, the wife of the Intendant manœuvred that a priest of
recognised Jansenist leanings should preach a sermon in the most
fashionable Church of the town. He based his sermon on the Epistle for
the day, which happened to be 2 Timothy, iii. 1. ‘This know also, that
in the last days perilous times shall come. _For men shall be lovers
of their own selves._’ The whole sermon was a passionate denunciation
of _amour-propre_—_self-love_ according to its earliest meaning—that
newly-discovered sin that was to dominate the psychology of the
seventeenth century. By a certain imaginative quality in his florid
rhetoric, he made his hearers feel it as a thing loathly, poisonous,
parasitic. After a description of the awful loneliness of the self-lover,
cut off for ever from God and man, he thundered out the following
peroration:—

‘Listen! This Narcissus gazing into the well of his own heart beholds,
not that reflection which awaits the eyes of every true Christian, a
Face with eyes like unto swords and hair as white as wool, a King’s head
crowned with thorns, no, what meets _his_ eyes is his own sinful face.
In truth, my brethren, a grievous and unseemly vision, but anon his face
will cast a shadow a thousand-fold more unsightly and affrighting—to wit,
the fiery eyes and foaming jowl of the Dragon himself. For to turn into a
flower is but a pretty fancy of the heathen, to turn into the Dragon is
the doom of the Christian Narcissus.’

Madeleine left the Church deeply moved. She had realised that _she_ was
such a Narcissus and that ‘_amour-propre_’ filled every cranny of her
heart.

She turned once more to the publications of Port-Royal, this time not
merely in quest of new names for petticoats, and was soon a convinced
Jansenist.

Jansenism makes a ready appeal to egotists ... is it not founded on the
teaching of those two arch-egotists, Saint Paul and Saint Augustine? And
so Madeleine found in Jansenism a spiritual pabulum much to her liking.
For instance, grace comes to the Jansenist in a passion of penitence, an
emotion more natural to an egotist than the falling in love with Christ
which was the seal of conversion in the time of Louis XIII., with its
mystical Catholicism _à l’espagnole_, touched with that rather charming
_fadeur_ peculiar to France. Then to the elect (among whom Madeleine
never doubted she was numbered) there is something very flattering in the
paradox of the Jansenists that although it is from the Redemption only
that Grace flows, and Christ died for all men, yet Grace is no vulgar
blessing in which all may participate, but it is reserved for those whom
God has decided shall, through no merit of their own, eventually be
saved.

Above all, Jansenism seemed made for Madeleine in that it promised a
remedy for man’s ‘sick will,’ a remedy which perhaps would be more
efficacious than steel and white wine for the lassitude, the moral
leakage, the truly ‘sick will’ from which she had suffered so long. The
Jansenist remedy was a complete abandonment to God, ‘an oarless drifting
on the full sea of Grace,’ and at first this brought to her a sense of
very great peace.

Her favourite of the Port-Royal books was _La Fréquente Communion_,
in which the Père Arnauld brought to bear on Theology in full force
his great inheritance, the Arnauld legal mind, crushing to powder the
treatise of a certain Jesuit priest who maintained that a Christian can
benefit from the Eucharist without Penitence.

Influenced by this book, very few Jansenists felt that they had reached
the state of grace necessary for making a good Communion.

So, what with self-examination, self-congratulation, and abstaining from
the Eucharist, for a time Jansenism kept Madeleine as happy and occupied
as a new diet keeps a _malade imaginaire_. Her emotions when she danced
became more articulate. She saw herself the new abbess of Port-Royal, the
wise, tender adviser of the ‘Solitaires,’ Mère Angélique with a beautiful
humility having abdicated in her favour, ‘for here is one greater than
I.’ She went through her farewell address to her nuns, an address of
infinite beauty and pathos. She saw herself laid out still and cold in
the Chapel, covered with flowers culled by royal fingers in the gardens
of Fontainebleau, with the heart-broken nuns sobbing around her. Finally
the real Madeleine flung herself on her bed, the tears streaming from her
eyes. Her subtle enemy, _amour-propre_, had taken the veil.

She had started a diary of her spiritual life, in which she recorded
the illuminations, the temptations, the failures, the reflections, the
triumphs, of each day. The idea suddenly occurred to her of sending the
whole to Mère Agnès Arnauld, who was head of the Paris Port-Royal. She
wrote her also a letter in which she told her of certain difficulties
that had troubled her in the Jansenist doctrine, suggested by the Five
Propositions. These were conclusions of an heretical nature, drawn from
Jansen’s book and submitted to the Pope. The Jansenists denied that they
were fair conclusions, but in their attempt to prove this, they certainly
laid themselves open to the charge of obscurantism. She included in her
letter the following _énigme_ she had written on _amour-propre_, on the
model of those of the Abbé Cotin, whose fertile imagination was only
equalled by his fine disregard of the laws of prosody.

    Je brûle, comme Narcisse, de ma propre flamme,
      Quoique je n’aie pas
      L’excuse des doux appas
    De ce jeune conquérant des cœurs de dames.

    Selon mon nom, de Vénus sort ma race;
      Suis-je donc son joli fils
      Qui rit parmi les roses et lys?
    Moi chez qui jamais se trouve _la Grâce_?

The pun on ‘Grace’ seemed to her a stroke of genius. She was certain
that Mère Agnès could not fail to be deeply impressed with the whole
communication, and to realise that Madeleine was an instrument
exquisitely tempered by God for fine, delicate work in His service.
Madeleine planned beforehand the exact words of Mère Agnèse’s answer:—

    ‘Your words have illumined like a lamp for myself and my sister
    many a place hitherto dark.’ ‘My dearest child, God has a great
    work for you.’ ‘My brother says that the Holy Spirit has so
    illumined for you the pages of his book, that you have learned
    from it things he did not know were there himself,’

were a few of the sentences. In the actual letter, however, none of
them occurred. Mère Agnès seemed to consider Madeleine’s experiences
very usual, and irritated her extremely by saying with regard to some
difficulty that Madeleine had thought unutterably subtle and original:—

    ‘Now I will say to you what I always say to my nuns when they
    are perplexed by that difficulty.’

The letter ended with these words of exhortation:—

    ‘Remember that pride of intellect is the most deadly and
    difficult to combat of the three forms of Concupiscence,
    and that the pen, although it can be touched into a shining
    weapon of God’s, is a favourite tool of the Evil One, for
    _amour-propre_ is but too apt to seize it from behind and make
    it write nothing but one’s own praises, and that when one
    would fain be writing the praises of God. Are you certain, my
    dear child, that this has not happened to you? Conceits and
    _jeux d’esprit_ may sometimes without doubt be used to the
    Glory of God, as, for example, in the writings of the late
    Bishop of Geneva of thrice blessed memory. But by him they were
    always used as were the Parables of Our Lord, to make hard
    truths clear to simple minds, but you, my child, are not yet
    a teacher. Examine your heart as to whether there was not a
    little vanity in your confessions. I will urgently pray that
    grace may be sent you, to help you to a _true_ examination of
    your own heart.’

In Madeleine’s heart rage gave way to a dull sense of failure. She
would not be a Jansenist at all if she could not be an eminent one. It
was quite clear to her that her conversion had merely reinforced her
_amour-propre_. What was to be done?

Jansenism had by no means destroyed her hankerings after the polite
society of Paris, it had merely pushed them on to a lower shelf in her
consciousness. One night she dreamed that she was walking in a garden
in thrillingly close communion with the Duc de Candale. Their talk was
mainly about his green garters, but in her dream it had been fraught with
passionate meaning. Suddenly he turned into Julie de Rambouillet, but the
emotion of the intimacy was just as poignant. This dream haunted her all
the following day. Then in a flash it occurred to her that it had been
sent from above as a direct answer to prayer. Obviously love for some one
else was the antidote to _amour-propre_. This was immediately followed
by another inspiration. Ordinary love was gradually becoming a crime in
the code of the Précieuses, and ‘_l’amitié tendre_’ the perfect virtue.
But would it not be infinitely more ‘gallant’ and distinguished to make a
_woman_ the object of that friendship? It seemed to her the obvious way
of keeping friendship stationary, an elegant statue in the discreet and
shady groves of Plato’s Academe which lies in such dangerous contiguity
to the garden of Epicurus. Thus did she settle the demands at once of
Jansenism and of the Précieuses.

The problem that lay before her now was to find an object for this
Platonic tenderness. Julie de Rambouillet, as a wife, mother, and
passionately attached daughter, could scarcely have a wide enough
emotional margin to fit her for the rôle. After first choosing and then
discarding various other ladies, she settled on Madeleine de Scudéry.
Unmarried and beyond the age when one is likely to marry (she was over
forty), evidently of a romantic temperament, very famous, she had every
qualification that Madeleine could wish. Then there was the coincidence
of the name, a subject for pleasant thrills. Madeleine soon worked up
through her dances a blazing pseudo _flamme_. The sixth book of Cyrus,
which treats of Mademoiselle de Scudéry herself, under the name of
Sappho, and of her own circle, seemed full of tender messages for _her_.

    ‘Moreover, she is faithful in her friendships; and she has
    a soul so tender, and a heart so passionate, that one may
    certainly place the supreme felicity in being loved by Sappho.’

    ‘I conceive that beyond a doubt there is nothing so sweet as to
    be loved by a person that one loves.’

She pictured herself filling the rôle of Phaon, whom she had heard was
but an imaginary character, Mademoiselle de Scudéry having as yet made no
one a ‘_Citoyen de Tendre_.’

    ‘And the most admirable thing about it was that in the midst
    of such a large company, Sappho did not fail to find a way
    of giving Phaon a thousand marks of affection, and even of
    sacrificing all his rivals to him, without their remarking it.’

Oh, the thrill of it! It would set Madeleine dancing for hours.

The emotions of her dances were at first but a vague foretasting of
future triumphs and pleasures, shot with pictures of wavering outlines
and conversations semi-articulate. But she came in time to feel a need
for a scrupulous exactitude in details, as if her pictures acquired some
strange value by the degree of their accuracy. What that value was, she
could not have defined, but her imaginings seemed now to be moulding the
future in some way, to be making events that would actually occur.... It
was therefore necessary that they should be well within the bounds of
probability.

This new conviction engendered a sort of loyalty to Mademoiselle de
Scudéry, for previously a stray word or suggestion would fire her with
the charms of some other lady, whom she would proceed to make for the
time the centre of her rites—la Comtesse de la Suze, after having read
her poetry, the Marquise de Sévigné, when she had heard her praised
as a witty beauty—but now, with the fortitude of a Saint Anthony, she
would chase the temptresses from her mind, and firmly nail her longings
to Mademoiselle de Scudéry. And soon the temptation to waver left her,
and Mademoiselle de Scudéry became a corroding obsession. She began to
crave feverishly to go to Paris. Lyons turned into a city of Hell, where
everything was a ghastly travesty of Heaven. The mock Précieuses with
their grotesque graces, the vulgar dandies, so complacently unconscious
of their provincialism, the meagre parade of the Promenade, it was all,
she was certain, like the uncouth Paris of a nightmare. If she went to
Paris, she would, of course, immediately meet Mademoiselle de Scudéry,
who, on the spot, would be fatally wounded by her _esprit_ and air
gallant, and the following days would lead the two down a gentle slope
straight to _le Pays de Tendre_. But how was she to get to Paris?

Then, as if by a miracle, her father was also seized by a longing to go
to Paris, and finally a complete _déménagement_ was decided upon. What
wonder if Madeleine felt that the gods were upon her side?

But once in Paris, she was brought face to face with reality. It had
never struck her that a meeting with Mademoiselle de Scudéry might be a
thing to need manœuvring. Days, weeks, went by, and she had not yet met
her. She began to realise the horror of time, as opposed to eternity.
Her meeting with Mademoiselle de Scudéry could only be the result of a
previous chain of events, not an isolated miracle. To fit it into an
air-tight compartment of causality and time, seemed to require more
volition than her ‘sick will’ could compass.

Then there was the maddening thought that while millions of people were
dead, and millions not yet born, and millions living at the other side
of the world, Mademoiselle de Scudéry was at that very moment alive, and
actually living in the same town as herself, and yet she could not see
her, could not speak to her. What difference was there in her life at
Paris to that at Lyons?

They had settled, as we have seen, in the Quartier de l’Université, as
it was cheap, and not far from the Île Notre-Dame, where Jacques and
Monsieur Troqueville went every day, to the Palais de Justice. It was a
quarter rich in the intellectual beauty of tradition and in the tangible
beauty of lovely objects, but—it was not fashionable and therefore held
no charm for Madeleine.

The things she valued were to be found in the quarters of Le Marais, of
the Arsenal, of the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, of the Place Royale. She hated
the Rambouillets for not begging her to live with them, she hated the
people in the streets for not acclaiming her with shouts of welcome every
time she appeared, she hated Mademoiselle de Scudéry for never having
heard of her. Whenever she passed a tall, dark lady, she would suddenly
become very self-conscious, and raising her voice, would try and say
something striking in the hopes that it might be she.

She was woken every morning by the cries of the hawkers:—

    ‘Grobets, craquelines; brides à veau, pour friands museaux!’

    ‘Qui en veut?’

    ‘Salade, belle Salade!’

    ‘La douce cerise, la griotte à confire, cerises de Poitiers!’

    ‘Amandes nouvelles, amandes douces; amendez-vous!’

And above these cries from time to time would rise the wail of an old
woman carrying a basket laden with spoons and buttons and old rags,

    ‘Vous désirez quelque cho-o-se?’

Was it Fate come to mock her?

There is no position so difficult to hold for any length of time as a
logical one. Even before leaving Lyons, in Madeleine’s mind the steps had
become obliterated of that ruthless argument by which the Augustinian
doctors lead the catechumen from the premises set down by Saint Paul to
conclusions in which there is little room for hope. She struggled no
longer in close mental contact—according to Jansenius’s summing up of the
contents of Christianity—with:—

    ‘Hope or Concupiscence, or any of the forms of Grace; or with
    the price or the punishment of man, or with his beatitude
    or his misery; or with free-will and its enslavage; or with
    predestination and its effect; or with the love and justice and
    mercy and awfulness of God; in fact, with neither the Old nor
    the New Testament.’

But, without any conscious ‘revaluing of values,’ the kindly god of the
Semi-Pelagians, a God so humble as to be grateful for the tiniest crumb
of virtue offered Him by His superb and free creatures, this God was born
in her soul from the mists made by expediency, habit, and the ‘Passions.’

But when she had come to Paris and no miracle had happened, she began
to get desperate, and Semi-Pelagianism cannot live side by side with
despair. The kind Heavenly Father had vanished, and His place was taken
by a purblind and indifferent deity who needed continual propitiation.

These changes in her religious attitude took place, as I have said,
unconsciously, and Madeleine considered herself still a sound Jansenist.

As a consequence of this spiritual slackening, the imaginary connection
had been severed between her obsession and her religion. She had
forgotten that her love for Mademoiselle de Scudéry had originally been
conceived as a remedy for _amour-propre_. But, about a week before the
dinner at Madame Pilou’s, she had come upon these lines of Voiture:—

    ‘De louange, et d’honneur, vainement affamée,
    Vous ne pouvez aimer, et voulez estre aymée.’

To her fevered imagination these innocent words hinted at some mysterious
law which had ordained that the spurner of love should in his turn be
spurned. She remembered that it was a commonplace in the writings of
both the ancients and the moderns that it was an ironical lawgiver who
had compiled the laws of destiny. And if this particular law were valid,
the self-lover was on the horns of a horrible dilemma, for, while he
continued in a condition of _amour-propre_, he was shut off from the
love of God, but if he showed his repentance by falling in love, he was
bringing on himself the appointed penalty of loving in vain. And here her
morbid logic collapsed, and she thought of a very characteristic means
of extricating herself. She would immediately start a love affair that
it might act as a buffer between the workings of this law and her future
affair with Mademoiselle de Scudéry.

It was this plan that had sent her to Jacques with the startling
announcement I have already mentioned, that she loved him very much, and
that he might take his fill of kissing her.




CHAPTER V

AN INVITATION


A few days after the dinner at Madame Pilou’s Madeleine was dancing
Mænad-like up and down her little room. Then with eyes full of a wild
triumph she flung herself on her bed.

Beside her on the table lay the sixth volume of _Le Grand Cyrus_, which
she had taken to using as a kind of _Sortes Virgilianæ_. She picked it up
and opened it. Her eyes fell on the following words:—

    ‘For with regard to these ladies, who take pleasure in being
    loved without loving; the only satisfaction which lies in store
    for them, is that which vanity can give them.’

She shut it impatiently and opened it again. This time, it was these
words that stood out:—

    ‘Indeed,’ added she, ‘I remember that my dislike came near to
    hatred for a passably pleasant gentlewoman——’

Madeleine crossed herself nervously, got down from her bed, and took
several paces up and down the room, and then opened the book again.

    ‘Each moment his jealousy and perturbation waxed stronger.’

Three attempts, and not one word of good omen. She had the sense of
running round and round in an endless circle between the four walls of a
tiny, dark cell. Through the bars she could see one or two stars, and
knew that out there lay the wide, cool, wind-blown world of causality,
governed by eternal laws that nothing could alter. But knowing this did
not liberate her from her cell, round which she continued her aimless
running till the process made her feel sick and dizzy.

She opened the book again. This time her eyes fell on words that, in
relation to her case, had no sense. She looked restlessly round the room
for some other means of divination. The first thing she noticed was her
comb. She seized it and began counting the teeth, repeating:—

‘Elle m’aime un peu, beaucoup, passionément, pas de tout.’ ‘Passionément’
came on the last tooth. She gave a great sigh of relief; it was as if
something relaxed within her.

Then the door opened, and Berthe padded in, smiling mysteriously.

‘A lackey has brought Mademoiselle this letter.’ Madeleine seized it.
It had not been put in an envelope, but just folded and sealed. It was
addressed in a very strange hand, large and illegible, to:—

    Mademoiselle Troqueville,
        Petite Rue du Paon,
            Above the baker Paul,
              At the Sign of the Cock,
            Near the Collège de Bourgogne.

‘He wore a brave livery,’ Berthe went on, ‘the cloth must have cost
several _écus_ the yard, and good strong shoes, but no pattens. I
wouldn’t let him in to stink the house, I told him——’

‘Would you oblige me by leaving me alone, Berthe?’ said Madeleine. Berthe
chuckled and withdrew.

A letter brought to her by a lackey, and in a strange writing! Her heart
stood still. It must either be from Mademoiselle de Scudéry or Madame
de Rambouillet, it did not much matter which. She felt deadly sick.
Everything danced before her. She longed to get into the air and run for
miles—away from everything. She rushed back into her room, and locked the
door. She still was unable to open the letter. Then she pulled herself
together and broke the seal. Convinced that it was from Mademoiselle de
Scudéry, she threw it down without reading it, and, giggling sheepishly,
gave several leaps up and down the room. Then she clenched her hands,
drew a deep breath, picked it up and opened it again. Though the lines
danced before her like the reflection of leaves in a stream, she was
able to decipher the signature. It was: ‘Votre obéissante à vous faire
service, M. Cornuel.’ Strange to say, it was with a feeling of relief
that Madeleine realised that it was not from Mademoiselle de Scudéry. She
then read the letter through.

    ‘MADEMOISELLE,—My worthy friend, Madame Pilou, has made mention
    of you to me. Mademoiselle de Scudéry and I intend to wait on
    Madame de Rambouillet at two o’clock, Thursday of next week. An
    you would call at a quarter to two at my Hôtel, the Marais, rue
    St-Antoine, three doors off from the big butcher’s, opposite
    _Les Filles d’Elizabeth_, I shall be glad to drive you to the
    Hôtel de Rambouillet and present you to the Marquise.’

The Lord was indeed on her side! So easily had He brushed aside the
hundreds of chances that would have prevented her first meeting
Mademoiselle de Scudéry at the Hôtel de Rambouillet, on which, as we have
seen, she had set her heart.

In a flash God became once more glorious and moral—a Being that cares for
the work of His hands, a maker and keeper of inscrutable but entirely
beneficent laws, not merely a Daimon of superstitious worship. Then she
looked at her letter again. So Madame Cornuel had not bothered to tie it
round with a silk ribbon and put it in an envelope! She was seized by a
helpless paroxysm of rage.

‘In my answer I’ll call her _Dame_ Cornuel,’ she muttered furiously. Then
she caught sight of the Crucifix above her bed, and she was suddenly
filled with terror. Was this the way to receive the great kindness of
Christ in having got her the invitation? Really, it was enough to make
Him spoil the whole thing in disgust. She crossed herself nervously and
threw herself on her knees. At first there welled up from her heart a
voiceless song of praise and love ... but this was only for a moment,
then her soul dropped from its heights into the following Litany:—

    ‘Blessed Virgin, Mother of Our Lord, make me shine on Thursday.

    Guardian Angel, that watchest over me, make me shine on
    Thursday.

    Blessed Saint Magdalene, make me shine on Thursday.

    Blessed Virgin, Mother of Our Lord, give me the friendship of
    Mademoiselle de Scudéry.

    Guardian Angel, that watchest over me, give me the friendship
    of Mademoiselle de Scudéry.

    Blessed Saint Magdalene, give me the friendship of Mademoiselle
    de Scudéry.’

She gabbled this over about twenty times. Then she started a wild dance
of triumphant anticipation. It was without plot, as in the old days; just
a wallowing in an indefinitely glorious future. She was interrupted by
her mother’s voice calling her. Feeling guilty and conciliatory, as she
always did when arrested in her revels, she called back:—

‘I am coming, Mother,’ and went into the parlour. Madame Troqueville was
mending a jabot of Madeleine’s. Monsieur Troqueville was sitting up
primly on a chair, and Jacques was sprawling over a chest.

‘My love, Berthe said a lackey brought a letter for you. We have been
impatient to learn whom it was from.’

‘It was from Madame Cornuel, asking me to go with her on Thursday to the
Hôtel de Rambouillet.... Mademoiselle de Scudéry is to be there too.’

(Madeleine would much rather have not mentioned Mademoiselle de Scudéry
at all, but she felt somehow or other that it would be ‘bearing
testimony’ and that she _must_.)

Madame Troqueville went pink with pleasure, and Jacques’s eyes shone.

‘Madame de Rambouillet! The sister of Tallemant des Réaux, I suppose.
Her husband makes a lot of cuckolds. Madame _Cornuel_, did you say? If
she’s going to meet young Rambouillet, it will be her husband that will
have the _cornes_! _hein_, Jacques? _hein?_ It will be he that has the
_cornes_, won’t it?’ exclaimed Monsieur Troqueville, who was peculiarly
impervious to emotional atmosphere, chuckling delightedly, and winking at
Jacques, his primness having suddenly fallen from him. Madeleine gave a
little shrug and turned to the door, but Madame Troqueville, turning to
her husband, said icily:—

‘’Twas of the _Marquise_ de Rambouillet that Madeleine spoke, no kin
whatever of the family you mention. Pray, my love, tell us all about it.
Which Madame Cornuel is it?’

Monsieur Troqueville went on giggling to himself, absolutely intoxicated
by his own joke, and Madeleine began eagerly:—

‘Oh! the famous one ... “Zénocrite” in the _Grand Cyrus_. She’s an
exceeding rich widow and a good friend of Mademoiselle de Scudéry. She
is famed in the Court and in the Town, for her quaint and pungent wit.
’Twas she who stuck on the malcontents the name of “_les Importants_,”
you know, she——’

‘I had some degree of intimacy with her in the past,’ said Madame
Troqueville, then in a would-be careless voice, ‘I wonder if she has any
sons!’ Madeleine shut her eyes and groaned, and Jacques with his eyes
dancing dragged up Monsieur Troqueville, and they left the house.

So her mother had known Madame Cornuel once; Madeleine looked round the
little room. There was a large almanac, adorned, as was the custom,
with a woodcut representing the most important event in the previous
year. This one was of Mazarin as a Roman General with Condé and Retz as
barbarian prisoners tied to his chariot; her mother had bound its edges
with saffron ribbon. The chairs had been covered by her with bits of silk
and brocade from the chest in which every woman of her day cherished her
sacred hoard. On the walls were samplers worked by her when she had been
a girl.

What was her life but a pitiful attempt to make the best of things? And
Madeleine had been planning to leave her behind in this pathetically thin
existence, while she herself was translated to unutterable glory. It
suddenly struck her that her _amour-propre_ had sinned more against her
mother than any one else. She threw her arms round her neck and hugged
her convulsively, then ran back to her own room, her eyes full of tears.
She flung herself on her knees.

‘Blessed Virgin, help me to show that I am sensible to your great care
over me by being more loving and dutiful to my mother, and giving her
greater assistance in the work of the house. Oh, and please let pleasant
things be in store for _her also_. And oh! Blessed Lady, let me cut an
exceeding brave figure on Thursday. Give me occasions for airing all
the conceits I prepare beforehand. Make me look furiously beautiful and
noble, and let them all think me _dans le dernier galant_, but mostly
_her_. _Give me the friendship of Mademoiselle de Scudéry._’ She had not
meant to add this long petition about herself, but the temptation had
been too great.

And now to business. She must ensure success by being diligent in her
dancing, thus helping God to get her her heart’s desire.

Semi-Pelagianism does not demand the blind faith of the Jansenists. Also,
it implicitly robs the Almighty of omnipotence. Thus was Madeleine a
true Semi-Pelagian in endeavouring to assist God to effect her Salvation
(we know she considered her Salvation inextricably bound up with the
attainment of the friendship of Mademoiselle de Scudéry), for:—

‘The differentia of semi-Pelagianism is the tenet that in regeneration,
and all that results from it, the divine and the human will are
co-operating, co-efficient (synergistic) factors.’

       *       *       *       *       *

In the train of the shadowy figure of Madame Cornuel, Madeleine mounts
the great stairs of the Hôtel de Rambouillet. The door is flung open;
they enter the famous _Salle Bleue_. Lying on a couch is an elderly lady
with other ladies sitting round her, at whose feet sit gallants on their
outspread cloaks.

‘Ah! dear Zénocrite, here you come leading our new _bergère_,’ cries
the lady on the couch. ‘Welcome, Mademoiselle, I have been waiting with
impatience to make your acquaintance.’

Madeleine curtseys and says with an indescribable mixture of modesty and
pride:—

‘Surely the world-famed amiability of Madame is, if I may use the
expression, at war with her judgment, or rather, for two such qualities
of the last excellence must ever be as united as Orestes and Pylades,
some falsely flattering rumour has preceded me to the shell of Madame’s
ear.’

‘Say rather some Zephyr, for such always precede Flora,’ one of the
gallants says in a low voice to another.

‘But no one, I think,’ continues Madeleine, ‘will accuse me of flattery
when I say that the dream of one day joining the pilgrims to the shrine
of Madame was the fairest one ever sent me from the gates of horn.’

‘Sappho, our _bergère_ has evidently been initiated into other mysteries
than those of the rustic Pan,’ says Arthénice, smiling to Mademoiselle
de Scudéry, whom Madeleine hardly dares to visualise, but feels near, a
filmy figure in scanty, classic attire.

Madeleine turns to Sappho with a look at once respectful and gallant, and
smiling, says:—

‘That, Madame, is because being deeply read in the Sibylline Books—which
is the name I have ventured to bestow on your delicious romances—I need
no other initiation to _les rites galants_.’

‘I fear, Mademoiselle, that if the Roman Republic had possessed only the
Books that you call Sibylline, it would have been burned to the ground by
the great Hannibal,’ says Sappho with a smile.

‘Madame, it would have been of no consequence, for the Sibyl herself
would have taken captive the conqueror,’ answers Madeleine gallantly.

‘Ah, Sappho!’ cries the Princess Julie, ‘I perceive that we Nymphs are
being beaten by the Shepherdess in the battle of flowers.’

‘Ah, no, Madame!’ Madeleine answers quickly. ‘Say rather that the
Shepherdess knows valleys where grow wild flowers that are not found
in urban gardens, and these she ventures to twine into garlands to lay
humbly at the feet of the Nymphs.’ She pauses. Sappho, by half a flicker
of an eyelid, shows her that she knows the garlands are all meant for her.

‘But, Mademoiselle, if you will pardon my curiosity, what induced you to
leave your agreeable prairies?’ asks Mégabate.

‘Monsieur,’ answers Madeleine, smiling, ‘had you asked Aristæus why he
left the deserts of Libya, his answer would have been the same as mine:
“There is a Greece.”’

‘Was not Aristæus reared by the Seasons themselves and fed upon nectar
and ambrosia?’ asks Sappho demurely.

‘To be reared by the Seasons! What a ravishing fate!’ cries one of the
gallants. ‘It is they alone who can give the _real_ roses and lilies,
which blossom so sweetly on the cheeks of Mademoiselle.’

‘Monsieur, one of the Seasons themselves brings the refutation of your
words. For Lady Winter brings ... _la glace_,’ says Madeleine, with a
look of delicious raillery.

‘But, indeed,’ she continues, ‘I must frankly admit that my distaste
for Bœotia (for that is what I call the Provinces!) is as great as that
felt for pastoral life by Alcippe and Amaryllis in the _Astrée_. There
is liberty in the prairies, you may say, but any one who has read of the
magic palaces of Armide or Alcine in _Amadis de Gaule_, would, rather
than enjoy all the liberty of all the sons of Boreas, be one of the
_blondines_ imprisoned in the palace of the present day Armide,’ and she
bows to Arthénice.

‘I do not care for _Amadis de Gaule_,’ says Sappho a little haughtily.
Madeleine thrills with indescribable triumph. Can it be possible that
Sappho is jealous of the compliment paid to Arthénice?




CHAPTER VI

THE GRECIAN PROTOTYPE


During the days that followed, Madeleine wallowed in Semi-Pelagianism.
With grateful adoration, she worshipped the indulgent God, who had hung
upon a Cross that everything she asked might be given her.

As a result of this new-found spiritual peace, she became much more
friendly and approachable at home. She even listened with indulgence to
her father’s egotistical crudities, and to her mother’s hopes of her
scoring a great success on the following Wednesday when the Troguins
were giving a ball. Seeing that her imprisonment in the bourgeois world
of pale reflections was so nearly over, and that she would so soon be
liberated to the plane of Platonic ideas and face to face with the _real_
Galanterie, the _real_ Esprit, the _real_ Fashion, she could afford a
little tolerance.

Then, in accordance with her promise to the Virgin, she insisted on
helping her mother in the work of the house. Madame Troqueville would
perhaps be sewing, Madeleine would come up to her and say in a voice
of resigned determination: ‘Mother, if you will but give me precise
instructions what to do, I will relieve you of this business.’ Then,
having wrested it from her unwilling mother, she would leave it half
finished and run off to dance—feeling she had discharged her conscience.
The virtue did not lie in a thing accomplished, but in doing something
disagreeable—however useless. The boredom of using her hands was so acute
as to be almost physical pain. It was as if the fine unbroken piece of
eternity in which her dreams took place turned into a swarm of little
separate moments, with rough, prickly coats that tickled her in her
most tender parts. The prickly coats suggested thorns, and—the metaphor
breaking off, as it were, into a separate existence of its own—she
remembered that in the old story of her childhood, it was thorns that
had guarded the palace of the hidden Princess. This association of ideas
seemed full of promise and encouraged her to persevere.

Many were the winks and leers of Berthe over this new domesticity, which
she chose to interpret in a manner Madeleine considered unspeakably
vulgar. ‘Ho! Ho!’ ... wink ... ‘Mademoiselle is studying to be a
housewife! Monsieur Jacques will be well pleased.’ And when Madeleine
offered to help her wash some jabots and fichus, she said, with a
mysterious leer, that she was reminded of a story of her grandmother’s
about a girl called Nausicaa, but when Madeleine asked to be told the
story, she would only chuckle mysteriously.

One evening she made a discovery that turned her hopes into certainty.

After supper, she had given Jacques a signal to follow her to her own
room. It was not that she wanted his society, but it was incumbent on her
to convince the gods that she loved him. She sat down on his knee and
caressed him. He said suddenly:—

‘I could scarce keep from laughing at supper when my uncle was descanting
on his diverse legal activities and reciting the fine compliments paid
him by judges and advocates by the score! _Malepest!_ So you do not drive
him to a nonplus with too close questionings, but let him unmolested
utter all his conceit, why then his lies will give you such entertainment
as——’

‘Have a care what you say, Jacques,’ she cried, ‘I’ll not have my father
called a liar. It may be that he paints the truth in somewhat gaudy
colours, but all said, ’tis a good-natured man, and I am grateful to
him in that being exercised as to the material welfare of my mother and
myself, he came to Paris to better our fortunes. Jacques! Have done with
your foolish laughter!’

But Jacques continued cackling with shrill, mocking glee.

‘My aunt’s and your material welfare, forsooth! This is most excellent
diversion! If you but knew the true cause of his leaving Lyons! If you
but knew!’

‘Well, tell me.’

‘That I will not, sweet Chop! Oh, ’tis a most fantastic nympholeptic! As
passionate after dreams as is his daughter.’

‘I am to seek as to your meaning, Jacques,’ said Madeleine very coldly,
and she slipped down from his knee.

Jacques went on chuckling to himself: ‘To see him standing there,
nonplussed, and stammering, and most exquisitely amorous.

    ‘Lingua sed torpet, tenuis sub artus
    Flamma demanat, sonitu suopte
    Tintinant aures, gemina teguntur
          Lumina nocte.’

‘What’s that you are declaiming, Jacques?’

‘Some lines of the Grecian Sappho, turned into Latin by Catullus, that
figure, with an exquisite precision, the commingling in a lover of
passion and of bashfulness.’

The look of cold aloofness suddenly vanished from Madeleine’s face.

‘The Grecian Sappho!’ she cried eagerly. ‘She is but a name to me. Tell
me of her.’

‘She was a poetess. She penned amorous odes to diverse damsels, and then
leapt into the sea,’ he answered laconically, looking at her with rather
a hostile light in his bright eyes.

‘Repeat me one of her odes,’ she commanded, and Jacques began in a level
voice:—

    ‘Deathless Dame Venus of the damasked throne, daughter of Jove,
    weaver of wiles, I beseech thee tame not my soul with frets and
    weariness, but if ever in time past thou heard’st and hearkened
    to my cry, come hither to me now. For having yoked thy chariot
    of gold thou did’st leave thy father’s house and fair, swift
    swans, with ceaseless whirring of wings over the sable earth
    did carry thee from heaven through the midmost ether. Swift
    was their coming, and thou, oh, blessed one, a smile upon thy
    deathless face, did’st ask the nature of my present pain, and
    to what new end I had invoked thee, and what, once more, my
    frenzied soul was fain should come to pass.

    ‘“Who is she now that thou would’st fain have Peitho lead to
    thy desire? Who, Sappho, does thee wrong? _For who flees, she
    shall pursue; who spurns gifts, she shall offer them; who loves
    not, willy-nilly she shall love._”

    ‘Now, even now, come to me! Lift from me the weight of hungry
    dreams, consummate whatever things my soul desires, and do thou
    thyself fight by my side.’

He looked at her, his eyes screwed up into two hard, bright points.
Madeleine continued to gaze in front of her—silent and impassive.

‘Well, is it to your liking?’ he asked.

‘What?’ she cried with a start, as if she had been awakened from a
trance. ‘Is it to my liking? I can scarcely say. To my mind ’tis ... er
... er to speak ingenuously, somewhat blunt and crude, and lacking in
_galanterie_.’

He broke into a peal of gay laughter, the hostile look completely
vanished.

‘_Galanterie_, forsooth! Oh, Chop, you are a rare creature! Hark’ee, in
the “smithy of Vulcan,” as you would say, weapons are being forged of
the good iron of France—battle-axes _à la Rabelais_, and swords _à la
Montaigne_—and they will not tarry to smash up your fragile world of
_galanterie_ and galimatias into a thousand fragments.’

Madeleine in answer merely gave an abstracted smile.

Madame Troqueville came in soon afterwards to turn out Jacques and order
Madeleine to bed. Madeleine could see that she wanted to talk about the
Troguin’s ball, but she was in no mood for idle conjectures, and begged
her to leave her to herself.

As soon as she was alone she flung herself on her knees and offered up a
prayer of solemn triumphant gratitude. That of her own accord she should
have come to the conclusion reached centuries ago by the Paris Sappho’s
namesake—that the perfect _amitié tendre_ can exist only between two
women—was a coincidence so strange, so striking, as to leave no doubt in
her mind that her friendship with Mademoiselle de Scudéry was part of the
ancient, unalterable design of the universe. Knowing this, how the Good
Shepherd must have laughed at her lack of faith!




CHAPTER VII

THE MERCHANTS OF DAMASCUS AND DAN


Madeleine woke up the following morning to the sense of a most precious
new possession.

She got out of bed, and, after having first rubbed her face and hands
with a rag soaked in spirit, was splashing them in a minute basin of
water—her thoughts the while in Lesbos—when the door opened and in walked
Madame Troqueville.

‘_Jésus!_ Madeleine, it _cannot_ be that you are _again_ at your
washing!’ she cried in a voice vibrant with emotion. ‘Why, as I live,
’twas but yesterday you did it last. Say what you will, it will work
havoc with your sight and your complexion. I hold as naught in this
matter the precepts of your Précieuses. You need to sponge yourself but
once a week to keep yourself fresh and sweet, a skin as fine and delicate
as yours——’

But Madeleine, trembling with irritation that her mother should break
into her pleasant reverie with such prosaic and fallacious precepts,
cried out with almost tearful rage: ‘Oh, mother, let me be! What you say
is in the last of ignobility; ’tis the custom of all _honnêtes gens_
to wash their hands and face _each day_.... I’ll not, not, _not_ be a
stinking bourgeoise!’

It was curious how shrill and shrewish these two outwardly still and
composed beings were apt to become when in each other’s company.

Madame Troqueville shrugged her shoulders: ‘Well, if you won’t be ruled!
But let that go—I came to say that we should do well to go to the Foire
Saint-Germain this morning to provide you with some bravery for the
Troguin’s ball——’

‘The Troguin’s ball, forsooth! Ever harping on that same string! Are you
aware _that I am for the Hôtel de Rambouillet_ on Thursday? That surely
is a more staid and convenient event on which to hang your hopes!’

‘Is it?’ said Madame Troqueville, with a little smile. ‘Well, what shall
you wear on that most pregnant day? Your flowered ferrandine petticoat
and your crimson sarge bodice?’

Madeleine went rather pale; she rapped out in icy tones: ‘_Les honnêtes
gens_ pronounce it _serge_. Leave me, please ... I have the caprice to
dress myself unaided this morning.’

Once alone, Madeleine flung herself on her bed, clutched her head in her
hands and gave little, short, sharp moans.

The truth of the matter was this—that when, in her dances, she rehearsed
her visit to the Hôtel de Rambouillet, she pictured herself dressed in
a very _décolleté_ bodice of _céladon_ velvet sparkling with jewels and
shrouded in priceless Italian lace, a petticoat of taffetas dotted with
countless knots of ribbon, and green silk stockings with rose-coloured
clocks. Until this moment, when her mother, with her irritating sense of
reality, had brought her face to face with facts, it had never so much
as occurred to her that nothing of this bravery existed outside her own
imagination. Yes, it was true! a serge bodice and a ferrandine petticoat
were all the finery her wardrobe could provide. Was she then to make
her début at the Palace of Arthénice as a dingy little bourgeoise? What
brooked the Grecian Sappho and her conceits, what brooked the miraculous
nature of Madame Cornuel’s invitation if the masque of reality was to
lack the ‘ouches and spangs’ of dreams? Well, God had made the path of
events lead straight to Mademoiselle de Scudéry, could He not too turn
her mother’s purse into that of Fortunatus? She could but go to the
Fair—and await a miracle.

As they made their way along the bank of the Seine, Madame Troqueville
was wrapt in pleasant reverie. None of the wealthy young bourgeoises at
the ball would look as delicate and fine as her Madeleine ... what if
she took the fancy of some agreeable young magistrate, with five or six
different posts in the _Parlement_, and a flat, red house with white
facings in the Place Dauphine, like the Troguins? Then he would ‘give
the Fiddles’ for a ball, and offer Madeleine a bouquet in token that it
was in her honour, then Madeleine would ‘give the Fiddles’ for a return
ball.... The Troguins would lend their house ... and then ... why not?
stranger things had happened.

‘A fragment of Lyons silk ... some _bisette_ and some _camelot de
Hollande_ ... a pair of shoes that you may foot it neatly ... yes, you
will look rare and delicate, and ’twill go hard but one gold coin will
furnish us with all we need.’

Madeleine smiled grimly—unless she were much mistaken, not even one
_silver_ coin would be squandered on the Troguins’s ball.

They were now making their way towards two long rows of wooden buildings
in which was held the famous Fair.

In the evenings it was a favourite haunt of beauty and fashion, but in
the mornings it was noisy with all the riff-raff of the town—country
cousins lustily bawling ‘Stop, thief!’; impudent pages; coarse-tongued
musketeers; merchant’s wives with brazen tongues and sharp, ruthless
elbows; dazzled Provincials treating third-rate courtesans to glasses of
_aigre de cèdre_ and the delicious cakes for which the Fair was famous.

Through this ruthless, plangent, stinking crowd, Madame Troqueville and
Madeleine pushed their way, with compressed lips and faces pale with
disgust.

Of a sudden, their ears were caught by the cry:—

‘Galants pour les dames! Faveurs pour les galants! Rubans d’écarlate, de
cramoisie, et de Cé-la-don!’

It came from a little man of Oriental appearance, sitting at a stall that
contained nothing but knots of ribbon of every colour, known as _galants_.

When he caught sight of Madeleine, he waved before her one of pale green.

‘A _céladon galant_ for the young lady—a figure of the perfect lover,’ he
called out. ‘Mademoiselle cannot choose but buy it!’ Céladon, the perfect
lover, in the famous romance called _Astrée_, had given his name to a
certain shade of green.

Madeleine, thinking the words of good omen, pinched her mother’s arm and
said she _must_ have it. After a good deal of bargaining, they got it for
more than Madame Troqueville had intended spending on a pair of shoes,
and with a wry little smile, she said:—

‘Enough of these childish toys! Let us now to more serious business,’ and
once more began to push her way through the hateful, seething crowd.

Suddenly, Madeleine again pinched her mother’s arm, and bade her stop.
They were passing the stall of a mercer—a little man with black, beady
eyes, leering at them roguishly from among his delicate merchandise.

‘Here is most rare Italian lace,’ said Madeleine, with a catch in her
voice.

‘Ay, here, for example, is a piece of _point de Gênes_ of most exquisite
design,’ broke in the mercer’s wife—an elegant lady, with a beautifully
dressed head of hair, ‘I sold just such a piece, a week come Thursday, to
the Duchesse de Liancourt.’

‘Ah! but if one be fair and young and juicy ’tis the transparent _point
de Venise_ that is best accordant with one’s humour,’ interrupted the
mercer, with a wink at Madeleine. ‘’Tis the _point de Venise_ that
discovers the breasts, Mademoiselle! Which, being so, I vow the names
should be reversed, and the _transparent_ fabric be called _point de
Gênes_, _hein_? _Point de gêne!_’ and he gleefully chuckled over his own
wit, while his wife gave him a good-natured push and told him with a grin
not to be a fool.

‘Whatever laces you may stock, good sir, no one can with truth affirm
that you have—_point d’Esprit_,’ said Madeleine graciously.

‘Come, my child!’ said Madame Troqueville, with a smile, and prepared to
move away. This put the mercer on his mettle.

‘Ladies, you would be well advised to tarry a while with me!’ he cried,
in the tones of a disinterested adviser. ‘Decked in these delicate toys
you would presently learn how little serves, with the help of art, to
adorn a great deal. Let a lady be of any form or any quality, after a
visit to my stall she’d look a Marquise!’

‘Nay, say rather that she’d look a Duchesse,’ amended his wife.

‘Come, my child!’ said Madame Troqueville again.

‘Nay, lady, there is good sense in what I say!’ pleaded the mercer, ‘the
very pith of modishness is in my stall. A _galant_ of gay ribbons, and a
fichu of fine point—such as this one, for example—in fact the trifling
congeries which in the dress of _gallants_ is known as “_petite oie_”
will lend to the sorriest _sarge_ the lustre of velvet!’

Madeleine’s eyes were blazing with excitement. God had come to her
rescue once again, and forgoing, with the economy of the true artist,
the meretricious aid of a material miracle, had solved her problem in
the simplest manner by the agency of this little mercer. To cut a brave
figure on Thursday, there was no need of Fortunatus’s purse. Her eyes
had been opened. Of course, as in manners, so in dress, the days of
solidity were over. Who now admired the heavy courtesy of the school of
the Admiral de Bassompière in comparison with the careless, mocking grace
of the _air galant_? In the same way, she, twirling a little cane in her
hand, motley with ribbons, her serge bodice trimmed with the _pierreries
du Temple_ (of which, by the way, more anon), with some delicate trifles
from the mercer’s stall giving a finish to the whole, could with a free
mind, allow three-piled velvet and strangely damasked silk to feed the
moths in the brass-bound, leather chests that slumber in châteaux, far
away mid the drowsy foison of France.

With strange, suppressed passion, she pleaded with her mother, first,
for a Holland handkerchief, edged with Brussels lace, and caught up at
the four corners by orange-coloured ribbon; then for a pair of scented
gloves, also hung with ribbons; then for a bag of rich embroidery for
carrying her money and her Book of Hours. And Madame Troqueville, under
the spell of Madeleine’s intense desire, silently paid for one after
another.

They left the mercer’s stall, having spent three times over the coin that
Madame Troqueville had dedicated to the Troguins’s ball. Suddenly, she
realised what had happened, and cried out in despair:—

‘I have done a most inconsiderate, rash, weak thing! How came it that I
countenanced such shameless, such fantastic prodigality? I fear——’

‘Mother, by that same prodigality I have purchased my happiness,’ said
Madeleine solemnly.

‘Oh, my foolish love! ’Tis only children that find their happiness in
toys,’ and her mother laughed, in spite of herself. ‘Well, our purse
will not now rise above a piece of ferrandine. We must see what we can
contrive.’

They walked on, Madeleine in an ecstasy of happiness—last night, the
Grecian Sappho, this morning, God’s wise messenger, the mercer—the Lord
was indeed on her side!

They were passing the stall of a silk merchant. He was a tight-lipped,
austere-looking old man, and he was listening to an elderly bourgeoise,
whose expression was even more severe than his own. The smouldering
fire in her eye and the harsh significance of her voice, touched their
imagination, and they stopped to listen.

‘Ay, as the Prophet tells us, the merchants of Damascus and Dan and
Arabia brought in singing ships to the fairs of Tyre, purple, and
broidered work, and fine linen, and coral, and agate, and blue clothes in
chests of rich apparel, bound with cords and made of cedar. And where now
is Tyre, Master Petit?’

‘Tyre, with its riches and its fairs, and its merchandise and its
mariners fell into the midst of the seas in the day of its ruin,’
solemnly chanted in reply Master Petit. Evidently neither he nor the lady
considered the words to have any application either to himself or to the
costly fabrics in which he was pleased to traffic.

‘Vanity of vanities! ’Tis a lewd and sinful age,’ said the lady, with
gloomy satisfaction, ‘I know one old vain, foolish fellow who keeps in
my attic a suit of tawdry finery in which to visit bawdy-houses, as if,
forsooth, all the purple and fine linen of Solomon himself could add
an ounce of comeliness to his antic, foolish face! He would be better
advised to lay up the white garment of salvation with sprigs of the
lavender of grace, in a coffer of solid gold, where neither moth nor rust
doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through and steal. I do
oft-times say to him: “Monsieur Troqueville——”’

‘Come, my child,’ said Madame Troqueville quietly, moving away.

So this was what Jacques had meant by his mysterious hints the night
before! Madeleine followed her mother with a slight shudder.




CHAPTER VIII

‘RITE DE PASSAGE’


At about six o’clock on Wednesday evening a hired coach came to take them
to the Troguin’s. To a casual eye it presented a gorgeous appearance of
lumbering gilt, but Madeleine noticed the absence of curtains, the straw
leaking out of the coachman’s cushion, and the jaded, shabby horses.
Jacques had arranged that a band of his devoted clerks of _la Bazoche_,
armed with clubs, should follow the coach to the Île Notre Dame, for the
streets of Paris were infested by thieves and assassins, and it did not
do to be out after dusk unarmed and unattended. On ordinary occasions
this grotesque parody of the state of a Grand Seigneur—a hired coach,
and grinning hobbledehoys instead of lackeys, strutting it, half proud,
half sheepish, in their quaint blue and yellow livery—would have nearly
killed Madeleine with mortification. To-night it rather pleased her, as
a piquant contrast to what was in store for her to-morrow and onwards.
For were not _all_ doors to open to her to-morrow—the doors of the Hôtel
de Rambouillet, the doors of the whole fashionable world, as well as
the doors of Mademoiselle de Scudéry’s heart? The magical _petite-oie_,
hidden away in her drawer at home, and the miraculous manner in which her
eyes had been opened to its efficacy were certain earnests of success.
The whole universe was ablaze with good omens—to-morrow ‘the weight
of hungry dreams’ would drop from her, and her soul would get what it
desired.

She found herself remembering with some perplexity that in romances
the siege of a lady’s heart was a very long affair. Perhaps the
instantaneous yielding of the fortress, which she felt certain would be
the case with Mademoiselle de Scudéry when they met, was not quite in the
best traditions of _Galanterie_. It was annoying, but inevitable, for she
felt that any further delay would kill her.

The Troguins lived in the new, red-brick triangle of houses called la
Place Dauphine, facing the bronze statue of Henri IV., and backed by
Notre-Dame.

Lackeys holding torches were standing on the steps of their house, that
the guests might have no trouble in finding it.

After having taken off their cloaks and pattens, the Troquevilles went
into the ball-room. Here were countless belles and gallants, dressed
in white, carnation, and sea-water green, which, on the authority
of a very grave writer, we know to be the colours that show best by
candle-light. Here and there this delicate mass of colour was freaked
with the sombre _soutanes_ of magistrates and the black silk of dowagers.
The Four Fiddles could be heard tuning up through the hubbub of mutual
compliments. Madeleine felt as if she were gazing at it all from some
distant planet. Then Madame Troguin bustled up to them.

‘Good-evening, friends, you are exceeding welcome. You must all have a
glass of Hippocras to warm you. It operates so sweetly on the stomach. I
am wont to say a glass of Hippocras is better than any purge. I said as
much to Maître Patin—our doctor, you know—and he said——’

Madeleine heard no more, for she suddenly caught sight of her father’s
shining, eager eyes and anxious smile, ‘his vanity itching for praise,’
she said to herself scornfully. She saw him make his way to where the
youngest Troguin girl was sitting on a _pliant_ with several young men
on their cloaks at her feet. How could he be such an idiot, Madeleine
wondered, he _must_ know that the Troguin girl did not want to talk to
_him_ just then. But there he stood, hawking and spitting and smirking.
Now he was sitting down on a _pliant_ beside her ... how angry the young
men were looking ... Madeleine was almost certain she saw the Troguin
girl exchange a look of despair with one of them. Now, from his arch
gesture, she could see that he was praising the outline of her breasts
and regretting the jabot that hid them.... _Jésus!_ his provinciality!
it was at least ten years ago since it had been fashionable to praise a
lady’s breasts! So her thoughts ran on, while every moment she felt more
irritated.

Then the fiddles struck up the air of ‘Sur le pont d’Avignon,’ and the
whole company formed up into circles for the opening _Branle_.

There was her father, grimacing and leaping like a baboon in a nightmare,
grave magistrates capering like foals, and giving smacking kisses to
their youthful partners, young burghers shouting the words at the top of
their voices. The whole scene seemed to Madeleine to grow every minute
more unreal.

Then the fiddles stopped and the circles broke up into laughing,
breathless groups. A young bourgeois, beplumed and beribboned, and
wearing absurd thick shoes, came up to her, and taking off his great hat
by the crown, instead of, in the manner of ‘_les honnêtes gens_,’ by the
brim, made her a clumsy bow. He began to ‘_galantise_’ her. Madeleine
wondered if he had learned the art from the elephant at a fair. She fixed
him with her great, still eyes. Then she found herself forced to lead
him out to dance a _Pavane_. The fiddles were playing a faint, lonely
tune, full of the sadness of light things bound to a ponderous earth, for
these were the days before Lulli had made dance tunes gay. The beautiful
pageant had begun—the _Pavane_, proud and preposterous as a peacock or
a Spaniard. Then some old ladies sitting round the room began in thin,
cracked voices to sing according to a bygone fashion, the words of the
dance:—

    ‘Approche donc, ma belle,
    Approche-toi, mon bien;
    Ne me sois plus rebelle,
    Puisque mon cœur est tien;
    Pour mon âme apaiser,
    Donne mois un baiser.’

They beat time with their fans, and their eyes filled with tears.
Gradually the song was taken up by the whole room, the words rising up
strong and triumphant:—

    ‘Approche donc, ma belle,
    Approche-toi, mon bien——’

Madeleine’s lips were parted into a little smile, and her spellbound eyes
filled with tears; then she saw Jacques looking at her and his eyes were
bright and mocking. She blushed furiously.

‘He is like Hylas, the mocking shepherd in the _Astrée_,’ she told
herself. ‘Hylas, hélas, Hylas, hélas,’ she found herself muttering.

After another pause for _Galanterie_ and preserved fruits, the violins
broke into the slow, voluptuous rhythm of the Saraband. The old ladies
again beat time with their fans, muttering ‘vraiment cela donne à rêver.’

Madeleine danced with Jacques and he never took his eyes from her face,
but hers were fixed and glassy, and the words of the Sapphic Ode, ‘that
man seems to me the equal of the gods’ ... clothed itself, as with a
garment, with the melody.

She was awakened from her reverie by feeling Jacques’s grasp suddenly
tighten on her hand. She looked at him, he was white and scowling. A
ripple of interest was passing over the dancers, and all eyes were turned
to the door. Two or three young courtiers had just come in, attracted by
the sound of the fiddles. For in those days courtiers claimed a vested
right to lounge uninvited into any bourgeois ball, and they were always
sure of an obsequious welcome.

There was the Président Troguin puffily bowing to them, and the
Présidente bobbing and smirking and offering refreshment. Young Brillon,
the giver of the fiddles, had left his partner, Marguerite Troguin, and
was standing awkwardly half-way to the door, unable to make up his mind
whether he should doff his hat to the courtiers before they doffed theirs
to him; but they rudely ignored all three, and, swaggering up to the
fiddles, bade them stop playing.

‘_Foi de gentilhomme_, I vow that it is of the last consequence that this
Saraband should die. It is really ubiquitous,’ lisped one of them, a
little _muguet_, with a babyish face.

‘It must be sent to America with the Prostitutes,’ said another.

‘That is furiously well turned, Vicomte. Really it deserves to be put to
the torture.’

‘Yes, because it is a danger to the kingdom, it debases the coinage.’

‘Why?’

‘Because it generates tender emotions in so many vulgar bosoms turning
thus the fine gold of Cupid into a base alloy!’

‘Bravo! Comte, tu as de l’esprit infiniment.’

During this bout of wit, the company had been quite silent, trying hard
to look amused, and in the picture.

‘My friends, would you oblige us with the air of a _Corante_?’ the
Vicomte called out with a familiar wink to the ‘Four Fiddles,’ with
whom it behoved every fashionable gallant to be on intimate terms. The
‘Fiddles’ with an answering wink, started the tune of this new and most
fashionable dance.

‘Ah! I breathe again!’ cried the little Marquis. They then proceeded to
choose various ladies as partners, discussing their points, as if they
had been horses at a Fair. The one they called Comte, a tall, military
looking man, chose Marguerite Troguin, at which Brillon tried to assert
himself by blustering out that the lady was _his_ partner. But the Comte
only looked him up and down, with an expression of unutterable disgust,
and turning to the Marquis, asked: ‘What _is_ this _thing_?’ Brillon
subsided.

Then they started the absurd _Corante_. The jumping steps were performed
on tip-toe, and punctuated by countless bows and curtseys. There was a
large audience, as very few of the company had yet learned it. When it
was over, it was greeted with enthusiastic applause.

The courtiers proceeded to refresh themselves with Hippocras and
lemonade. Suddenly the little Marquis seized the cloak of the Comte, and
piped out in an excited voice:—

‘Look, Comte, over there ... I swear it is our old friend, the ghost of
the fashion of 1640!’

‘It is, it is, it’s the black shadow of the white Ariane! The _crotesque_
and importunate gallant!’ They made a dash for Monsieur Troqueville, who
was trying hard to look unconscious, and leaping round him beset him
with a volley of somewhat questionable jests. All eyes were turned on
him, eyebrows were raised, questioning glances were exchanged. Madame
Troqueville sat quite motionless, gazing in front of her, determined not
to hear what they were saying. She would _not_ be forced to see things
too closely.

When they had finished with Monsieur Troqueville, they bowed to the
Présidente, studiously avoiding the rest of the company in their
salutation, and, according to their picture of themselves, minced or
swaggered out of the room. Jacques followed them.

This interlude had shaken Madeleine out of her vastly agreeable dreams.
The _muguets_ had made her feel unfinished and angular, and they had not
even asked her to dance. Then, their treatment of her father had been a
sharp reminder that after all she was by birth nothing but a contemptible
bourgeoise. But as the evening’s gaiety gradually readjusted itself, so
did her picture of herself, and by the time of the final _Branle_, she
was once more drunk with vanity and hope.

The Troguins sent them back in their own coach, and the drive through the
fantastic Paris of the night accentuated Madeleine’s sense of being in
a dream. There passed them from time to time troops of tipsy gallants,
their faces distorted by the flickering lights of torches, and here and
there the _lanternes vives_ of the pastry-cooks—brilliantly-lighted
lanterns round whose sides, painted in gay colours, danced a string of
grimacing beasts, geese, and apes, and hares and elephants—showed bright
and strange against the darkness.

Then the words:—

_La joie! la joie! Voilà des oublies!_ echoed melancholy in the distance.
It was the cry of the _Oublieux_, the sellers of wafers and the
nightingales of seventeenth century Paris, for they never began to cry
their wares before dusk.

_La joie! la joie! Voilà des oublies!_

_Oublie, oublier!_ The second time that evening there came into
Madeleine’s head a play on words.

_La joie! la joie! Voilà des oublies!_ Could it be that the secret of
_la joie_ was nothing but this dream-sense and—_l’oubli_?

They found Jacques waiting for them, pale but happy. He would not
tell them why he had left the ball-room, but he followed Madeleine to
her room. He was limping. And then, with eyes bright with triumph,
he described how, at their exit from the ball-room, he had rallied
the _Clercs_ of the _Bazoche_ (they had stayed to play cards with the
Troguin’s household), how they had followed the courtiers, and, taking
them by surprise, had given them the soundest cudgelling they had
probably ever had in their lives. ‘Though they put up a good fight!’ and
he laughed ruefully and rubbed his leg.

‘How came it that they knew my father?’ Madeleine asked. Jacques grinned.

‘Oh, Chop, should I tell you, it would savour of the blab ... yet, all
said, I would not have you lose so good a diversion ... were I to tell
you, you would keep my counsel?’

‘Yes.’

Then he proceeded to tell her that her father had fallen in love in Lyons
with a courtesan called Ariane. She had left Lyons to drive her trade in
Paris, and that was the true cause of his sudden desire to do the same.
On reaching Paris, his first act was to buy from the stage wardrobe of
the Hôtel de Bourgogne, an ancient suit of tawdry finery, which long
ago had turned a courtier into the Spirit of Spring in a Royal Ballet.
This he had hidden away in the attic of an old Huguenot widow who kept a
tavern on the Mont Sainte-Geneviève, and had proceeded to pester Ariane
with letters and doggerel imploring an interview—but in vain! Finally,
he had taken his courage in both hands, and donning his finery—‘which he
held to have the virtue of the cestus of Venus!’ laughed Jacques—he had
boldly marched into Ariane’s bedroom, only to be received by a flood of
insults and ridicule by that lady and her gallants.

Madeleine listened with a pale, set face. Why had she been so pursued
these last few days by her father’s sordid _amours_?

‘So this ... Ariane ... rejected my father’s suit?’ she said in a low
voice.

‘Ay, that she did! How should she not?’ laughed Jacques.

‘And you gave your suffrage to the foolish enterprise?’

Jacques looked rather sheepish.

‘I am not of the stuff that can withstand so tempting a diversion—why,
’twill be a jest to posterity! His eager, foolish, obsequious face; _and_
his tire! I’faith, I would not have missed it for a kingdom!’ and he
tossed back his head and laughed delightedly.

Hylas, _hélas_!... Jacques was limping ... Vulcan was lame, wasn’t he?
‘In the smithy of Vulcan weapons are being forged that will smash up your
world of _galanterie_ and galamatias into a thousand fragments!’

‘Why, Chop, you look sadly!’ he cried, with sudden contrition. ‘’Tis
finished and done with, and these coxcombs’ impudence bred them, I can
vouch for it, a score of bruises apiece! Chop, come here! Why, the most
modish and _galant_ folk have oftentimes had the strangest _visionnaires_
for fathers. There is Madame de Chevreuse—who has not heard of the
_naïvetés_ and _visions_ of her father? And ’twas a strange madman that
begot the King himself!’ he said, thinking to have found where the shoe
pinched. But Madeleine remained silent and unresponsive, and he left her.

Yes, why had she been so pursued these last few days by her father’s
_amours_? It was strange that love should have brought him too from
Lyons! And he too had set his faith on the magical properties of bravery!
What if.... Then there swept over her the memory of the Grecian Sappho,
driving a host of nameless fears back into the crannies of her mind.
Besides—_to-morrow_ began the new era!

She smiled ecstatically, and, tired though she was, broke into a
triumphant dance.




CHAPTER IX

AT THE HÔTEL DE RAMBOUILLET


When Madeleine awoke next morning, the feeling she had had over night of
being in a dream had by no means left her.

From the street rose the cries of the hawkers:—

    ‘Ma belle herbe, anis fleur.’

    ‘A la fraîche, à la fraîche, qui veut boire?’

    ‘A ma belle poivée à mes beaux épinards! à mon bel oignon!’

And then shrill and plaintive:—

    ‘Vous désirez quelque cho-o-o-se?’

It was no longer a taunt but the prayer of a humble familiar asking for
its mistress’s orders, or, rather, of Love the Pedlar waiting to sell
her what she chose. She opened her window and looked out. The length
of the narrow street the monstrous signs stuck out from either side,
heraldic lions, and sacred hearts, and blue cats, and mothers of God,
and _Maréchales_ looking like Polichinelle. It was as incongruous an
assortment as the signs of the Zodiac, as flat and fantastic as a pack of
cards——

‘_Vous désirez quelque cho-o-ose?_’ She laughed aloud. Then she suddenly
remembered her vague misgivings of the night before. She drew in her head
and rushed to her divination book. These were the lines her eyes fell
upon:—

    ‘ ... and she seemed in his mind to have said a thousand good
    things, which, in reality, she had not said at all.’

For one moment Madeleine’s heart seemed to stop beating. Did it mean
that she was not going to get in her prepared mots? No, the true
interpretation was surely that Mademoiselle de Scudéry would think her
even more brilliant than she actually was. She fell on her knees and
thanked her kind gods in anticipation.

However, she too must do her part, must reinforce the Power behind
her, so over and over again she danced out the scene at the Hôtel de
Rambouillet, trying to keep it exactly the same each time. ‘_Ah! dear
Zénocrite! here you come, leading our new Bergère._’

All the morning she seemed in a dream, and her mother, father, Jacques,
and Berthe hundreds of miles away. She could not touch a morsel of
food. ‘Ah! the little creature with wings. I know, I know,’ Berthe kept
muttering.

With her throat parched, and still in a strange, dry dream, she went to
dress. The magical _petite-oie_ seemed to her to take away all shabbiness
from the serge bodice and the petticoat of _camelot de Hollande_. Then,
in a flash, she remembered she had decided to add to her purchases at
the Fair a trimming of those wonderful imitation jewels known as the
_pierreries du Temple_. The _petite-oie_ had taken on the exigency of a
magic formulary, and its contents, to be efficacious, had to conform as
rigidly to the original conception as a love-potion must to its receipt.
In a few minutes she would have to start, and the man who sold the stones
lived too far from Madame Cornuel for her to go there first. She was in
despair.

At that moment the door opened, and in walked Jacques; as a rule he did
not come home till evening. He sheepishly brought out of his hose an
elaborate arrangement of green beads.

‘Having heard you prate of the _pierreries du Temple_, I’ve brought you
these glass gauds. I fear me they aren’t from the man in the Temple, for
I failed to find the place ... but these seemed pretty toys. I thought
maybe they would help you to cut a figure before old Dame Scudéry.’

It was truly a strange coincidence that he should have brought her the
very thing that at that very moment she had been longing for. But was it
the very thing? For the first time that morning, Madeleine felt her feet
on earth. The beads were hideous and vulgar and as unlike the _pierreries
du Temple_ as they were unlike the emeralds they had taken as their
model. She was almost choked by a feeling of impotent rage.

How dare Jacques be such a ninny with so little knowledge of the fashion?
How dare he expect a belle to care for him, when he was such a miserable
gallant with such execrable taste in presents? The idea of giving _her_
rubbish like that! She would like to kill him!

Always quick to see omens, her nerves, strung up that morning to their
highest pitch, felt in the gift the most malignant significance. _Timeo
Danaos et dona ferentes_—I fear the Greeks even when they bear gifts. She
blanched, and furtively crossed herself. Having said, in a dead voice,
some words of thanks, she silently pinned the bead trimming on to her
bodice and slowly left the room.

It was time to start; she got into the little box-like sedan. There was
her mother standing at the door, waving her hand, and wishing her good
luck. She was soon swinging along towards the Seine.

When the house was out of sight, with rude, nervous fingers she tore off
the beads, and they fell in a shower about the sedan. Though one could
scarcely move in the little hole, she managed to pick them all up, and
pulling back the curtain she flung them out of the window. They were at
that moment crossing the Pont-Neuf, and she caught a glimpse of a crowd
of beggars and pages scrambling to pick them up. Recklessly scattering
jewels to the rabble! It was like a princess in _Amadis_, or like the
cardinal’s nieces, the two Mancini, whose fabulous extravagance was the
talk of the town. Then she remembered that they were only glass beads.
Was it an omen that her grandeur would be always a mere imitation of
the real thing? Also—though she had got rid of the hateful trimming,
her _petite-oie_ was still incomplete. Should she risk keeping Madame
Cornuel waiting and go first to the man in the Temple? No, charms or
no charms, she was moving on to her destiny, and felt deadly calm.
What she had prayed for was coming and she could not stop it now. Its
inevitableness frightened her, and she began to feel a poignant longing
for the old order, the comforting rhythm of the rut she was used to,
with the pleasant feeling of every day drawing nearer to a miraculous
transformation of her circumstances.

She pulled back the curtain again and peeped out, the Seine was now
behind them, and they were going up la rue de la Mortellerie. Soon she
would be in the clutches of Madame Cornuel, and then there would be no
escape. Should she jump out of the sedan, or tell the porters to take her
home? She longed to; but if she did, how was she to face the future? And
what ingratitude it would be for the exquisite tact with which the gods
had manipulated her meeting with Sappho! the porters swung on and on, and
Madeleine leaned back and closed her eyes, hypnotised by the inevitable.

The shafts of the sedan were put down with a jerk, and Madeleine
started up and shuddered. One of the porters came to the window. ‘Rue
Saint-Antoine, Mademoiselle.’ Madeleine gave him a coin to divide with
his companion, opened the door, and walked into the court. Madame
Cornuel’s coach was standing waiting before the door.

She walked in and was shown by a valet into an ante-room. She sat
down, and began mechanically repeating her litany. Suddenly, there
was a rich rustle of taffeta, the door opened, and in swept a very
handsomely-dressed young woman. Madeleine knew that it must be
Mademoiselle le Gendre, the daughter of Monsieur Cornuel’s first wife. In
a flash Madeleine took in the elegant continence of her toilette. While
Madeleine had seven patches on her face, she had only three. Her hair
was exquisitely neat, and she was only slightly scented, while her deep,
plain collar _à la Régente_, gave an air of puritanic severity to the
bright, cherry-coloured velvet of her bodice. Also, she was not nearly as
_décolletée_ as Madeleine.

Madeleine felt that all of a sudden her _petite-oie_ had lost both its
decorative and magical virtue and had become merely incongruous gawds on
the patent shabbiness of her gown. For some reason there flashed through
her head the words she had heard at the Fair: ‘As if all the purple and
fine linen of Solomon himself could add an ounce of comeliness to his
antic, foolish face.’

‘Mademoiselle Troqueville? My step-mother awaits us in the coach,
will you come?’ said the lady. Her manner was haughty and unfriendly.
Madeleine realised without a pang that it would all be like this. But
after all, nothing in this dull reality really mattered.

‘Bestir yourself! ’Tis time we were away!’ shouted a voice from the
_carrosse_. Mademoiselle le Gendre told Madeleine to get in.

‘Mademoiselle Troqueville? I am glad to make your acquaintance—pray
get in and take the back seat opposite me.’ Madeleine humbly obeyed,
indifferent to what in her imaginings she would have looked upon as an
unforgivable insult, the putting her in the back seat.

‘Hôtel de Rambouillet,’ Madame Cornuel said to a lackey, who was waiting
for orders at the window. The words left Madeleine quite cold.

Madame Cornuel and her step-daughter did not think it necessary to talk
to Madeleine. They exchanged little remarks with each other at intervals,
and laughed at allusions which she could not catch.

‘Are we to fetch Sappho?’ suddenly asked the younger woman.

‘No, she purposes coming later, and on foot.’

Madeleine heard the name without a thrill.

The coach rolled on, and Madeleine sat as if petrified. Suddenly she
galvanised herself into activity. In a few minutes they would be there,
and if she allowed herself to arrive in this condition all would be lost.
Why should she let these two horrid women ruin her chance of success? She
muttered quickly to herself:—

‘Oh! blessed Virgin, give me the friendship of Mademoiselle de Scudéry,’
and then started gabbling through her prepared scene.

    ‘“Ah, dear Zénocrite, here you come, leading our new
    _bergère_!” cries the lady on the bed. “Welcome, Mademoiselle,
    I have been waiting with impatience to make your acquaintance.”’

Would she get it finished before they arrived? She felt all her happiness
depended on it.

    ‘“Madame, it would have been of no consequence, for the Sibyl
    herself would have taken the conqueror captive.... But,
    Mademoiselle, what, if you will pardon my curiosity, induced
    you to leave your agreeable prairies?”’

They were passing the Palais Cardinal—soon they would turn down the rue
St Thomas du Louvre—she had not much time.

The coach was rolling into the court of the Hôtel de Rambouillet and she
had not finished. They got out. A tall woman, aged about thirty, with
reddish hair and a face badly marked by smallpox, but in spite of these
two blemishes of an extremely elegant and distinguished appearance, came
towards them, screwing up her eyes in the manner of the near-sighted. Her
top petticoat was full of flowers; she was too short-sighted to recognise
Madame Cornuel till she was quite close, then she dropped a mock-low
curtsey, and drawled ‘Ma-a-a-dame.’ Madame Cornuel laughed: evidently
she had imitated a mutual acquaintance. With a sudden sense of exclusion
Madeleine gave up hope.

‘Are you following the example of our friend of the Faubourg St-Germain,
may I inquire?’ asked Madame Cornuel, with a little smile, pointing to the
flowers, at which her step-daughter laughed, and the tall red-haired lady
made a _moue_ and answered with a deep sigh:—

‘Ah! the wit of the Marais!’ The meaning of this esoteric persiflage was
entirely lost on Madeleine, and she sat with an absolutely expressionless
face, trying to hide her own embarrassment.

‘Ah! pardon me, I had forgotten,’ Madame Cornuel exclaimed. ‘Mademoiselle
de Rambouillet, allow me to present to you Mademoiselle Troqueville.’
(It may have been Madeleine’s imagination, but it seemed to her that
Madame Cornuel paused before calling her Mademoiselle.) Mademoiselle de
Rambouillet screwed up her eyes at her and smiled quite pleasantly, while
Madeleine, absolutely tongue-tied, tried to perform the almost impossible
task of curtseying in a coach. They got out, and went inside, the three
others continuing their mystifying conversation.

They went up a staircase and through one large splendid room after
another. So here was Madeleine, actually in the famous ‘Palais de
Cléomire,’ as it was called in _Cyrus_, but the fact did not move her,
indeed she did not even realise it. Once Mademoiselle de Rambouillet
turned round and said to her:—

‘I fear ’tis a long journey, Mademoiselle,’ but the manner in which she
screwed up her eyes both terrified and embarrassed her, so instead of
answering she merely blushed and muttered something under her breath.

Finally they reached Madame de Rambouillet’s bedroom (she had ceased for
some years to receive in the _Salle Bleue_). She was lying on a bed in an
alcove and there were several people in the _ruelle_; as the thick velvet
curtains of the windows were drawn Madeleine got merely an impression of
rich, rare objects glowing like jewels out of the semi-darkness, but in
a flash she took in the appearance of Madame de Rambouillet. Her face
was pale and her lips a bright crimson, which was obviously not their
natural colour; she had large brown eyes with heavy pinkish eyelids, and
the only sign that she was a day over fifty was a slight trembling of the
head. She was wearing a loose gown of some soft gray material, and on her
head were _cornettes_ of exquisite lace trimmed with pale yellow ribbons.
One of her hands was lying on the blue coverlet, it was so thin that its
veins looked almost like the blue of the coverlet shining through. The
fingers were piled up with beautiful rings.

There was a flutter round the bed, and then Madeleine found herself being
presented to the Marquise.

‘Ah! Mademoiselle Toctin, I am ravished to make your acquaintance,’ she
said in a wonderfully melodious voice, with a just perceptible Italian
accent. ‘You come from delicious Marseilles, do you not? You will be able
to recount to us strange Orient romances of orange-trees and Turkish
soldiers. Angélique, bring Mademoiselle Touville a _pliant_, and place it
close to me, and I will warm myself at her Southern _historiettes_.’

‘It is from Lyons that I come, not from Marseilles,’ was the only
repartee of which at the moment Madeleine was capable. Her voice sounded
strange and harsh, and she quite forgot a ‘Madame.’ However, the Marquise
did not hear, as she had turned to another guest. But Angélique de
Rambouillet heard, and so did another lady, with an olive complexion
and remarkably bright eyes, whom Madeleine guessed to be Madame de
Montausier, the famous ‘Princesse Julie.’ They exchanged glances of
delight, and Madeleine began to blush, and blush, though, as a matter of
fact, it was by their mother they were amused.

In the meantime a very tall, elderly man, with a hatchet face, came
stumbling towards her.

‘You have not a chair, have you, Mademoiselle?’

‘Here it is, father,’ said Angélique, who was bringing one up.

‘Ah! that is right, Mademoiselle er ... er ... er ... will sit here.’

Madeleine took to this kind, polite man, and felt a little happier. He
sat down beside her and made a few remarks, which Madeleine, full of the
will to be agreeable, answered as best she could, endeavouring to make up
by pleasant smiles for her sudden lack of _esprit_. But, unfortunately,
the Marquis was almost stone-blind, so the smiles were lost upon him, and
before long Madeleine noticed by his absent laugh and amused expression
that his attention was wandering to the conversation of the others.

‘I am of opinion you would look inexpressibly _galant_ in a scarlet hat,
Marquis,’ Madame de Rambouillet was saying to a short, swarthy man with
a rather saturnine expression. They all looked at him mischievously.
‘Julie would be obliged to join Yvonne in the Convent, but there would
be naught to hinder you from keeping Marie-Julie at your side as your
_adopted_ daughter.’ The company laughed a little, the laugh of people
too thoroughly intimate to need to make any effort. ‘Monsieur de Grasse
is wearing his episcopal smile—look at him, pray! Come, Monseigneur, you
_must_ confess that a scarlet hat would become him to a marvel,’ and
Madame de Rambouillet turned her brilliant, mischievous eyes on a tiny
prelate with a face like a naughty schoolboy’s.

He had been called Monsieur de Grasse. Could he, then, be the famous
Godeau, bishop and poet? It seemed impossible. For Saint Thomas is the
patron saint of provincials when they meet celebrities in the flesh.

‘I fear Monsieur’s head would be somewhat too _large_ to wear it with
comfort,’ he answered.

‘Hark to the episcopal _fleurette_! Marquis, rise up and bow!’ but the
only answer from the object of these witticisms was a surly grunt.
Another idle smile rippled round the circle, and then there fell a
silence of comfortable intimacy. If Madeleine had suddenly found herself
in the kingdom of Prester John she could not have understood less of what
was going on around her.

‘Madame Cornuel has a furiously _galante historiette_ she is burning to
communicate to us,’ said Mademoiselle de Rambouillet, screwing up her
eyes at Madame Cornuel.

‘Julie, bid Monsieur de Grasse go upstairs to play with Marie-Julie, and
then Madame Cornuel will tell it.’

‘Monsieur de Grasse——’

‘Madame la Marquise come to my rescue! I too would fain hear the
_historiette_!’

‘Nolo episcopari, hein?’

‘Now, then, be obedient, and get you to Marie-Julie!’

‘Where can I take refuge?’

‘If there were a hazel-nut at hand, ’twould serve your purpose.’

‘No, Madame la Marquise, permit me to hide within your locket.’

‘As you will. Now, Madame, we are all attention.’

Throughout this fooling, Madeleine had sat with aching jaws stretched
into a smile, trying desperately hard not to look out of it. They all
looked towards Madame Cornuel, who sat smiling in unruffled silence.

‘Madame?’

‘Well, Mademoiselle, tell me who is to be its heroine, who its hero, and
what its plot, and then I will recount it to you,’ she said. They seemed
to think this very witty, and laughed heartily. There was another pause,
and Madeleine again made an attempt to engage the Marquis’s attention.

‘The ... the ... the houses in Paris ... seem to me most goodly
structures,’ she began. He gave his nervous laugh.

‘Yes, yes, we have some rare architects these days. Have you been to see
the new buildings of the Val de Grâce?’

‘No, I have not ... er ... it is a Convent, is it not?’

‘Yes. Under the patronage of Notre Dame de la Crêche.’

His attention began to wander again; she made a frantic effort to
rekindle the flames of the dying topic.

‘What a strange name it is—Val de Grâce, what do you think can be its
meaning?’

‘Yes, yes,’ with his nervous laugh, ‘Val de Grâce, doubtless there is
some legend connected with it.’

Madeleine gave up in despair.

The languid, intimate talk and humorous silences had suddenly turned into
something more animated.

‘Madame de Sablé vows that she saw her there with her own eyes, and that
she was dressed in a _justaucorps_.’

‘Sophie has seen more things than the legendary Argos!’

‘Well, it has been turned into a Vaudeville in her quarter.’

‘In good earnest, has it? What an excellent diversion! Julie, pray ask
Madame d’Aiguillon about it and tell us. Go to-day.’

‘I daren’t; “my dear, my dear, _cela fait dévotion_ and that puts me in
mind, the Reine-Mère got a special chalice of Florentine enamel and I
must——” Roqueten, Roqueten, Roquetine.’

‘Upon my life, the woman’s talk has less of meaning than a magpie’s!’
growled Madeleine to herself.

At that moment the door opened and in came a tall, middle-aged woman,
swarthy, and very ugly. She was dressed in a plain gown of gray serge.
Her face was wreathed in an agreeable smile, that made her look like a
civil horse.

Madeleine had forgotten all about Mademoiselle de Scudéry, but when this
lady came in, it all came rushing back; she got cold all over, and if
before she had longed to be a thousand miles away, she now longed to be
ten thousand.

There was a general cry of:—

‘Mademoiselle: the very person we were in need of. You know everything.
Tell us all about the Présidente Tambonneau, but avoid, in your
narration, an excessive charity.’

‘If you talk with the tongues of men and of Angels and yet _have_
Charity, ye are become as sounding brass and as a tinkling cymbal,’ said
Madame Cornuel in her clear, slow voice. She spoke rarely, but when she
did it was with the air of enunciating an oracle.

‘Humph! That is a fault that _you_ are rarely guilty of!’ growled
Montausier quite audibly.

‘The Présidente Tambonneau? No new extravagance of hers has reached my
ears. What is there to tell?’ said the new-comer. She spoke in a loud,
rather rasping voice, and still went on smiling civilly.

‘Oh, you ladies of the Marais, every one is aware that you are
omniscient, and yet you are perfect misers of your _historiettes_!’

‘Sappho, we must combine against the _quartier du Palais Cardinal_,
albeit they _do_ call us “omniscient.” It sounds infinitely _galant_, but
I am to seek as to its meaning,’ said Madame Cornuel.

‘Ask Mademoiselle, she is in the last intimacy with the _Maréchal des
mots_; it is reported he has raised a whole new company to fight under
his _Pucelle_.’

‘From all accounts, she is in sore need of support, poor lady. Madame
de Longueville says she is “_parfaitement belle mais parfaitement
ennuyeuse_,”’ said Mademoiselle de Rambouillet very dryly.

‘That would serve as an excellent epitome of divers among our friends,’
murmured Madame de Montausier.

‘Poor Chapelain! all said, he, by merely being himself, has added
infinitely more to our diversion than the wittiest person in the world,’
said Madame de Rambouillet, looking mischievously at Mademoiselle de
Scudéry, who, though still wearing the same smile, was evidently not
pleased.

‘Yes, Marquis, when you are made a duke, you would do well to employ
Monsieur Chapelain as your jester. Ridiculous, solemn people are in
reality much more diverting than wits,’ said Mademoiselle de Rambouillet
to Montausier, who looked extremely displeased, and said in angry,
didactic tones:—

‘Chapelain a des sentiments fins et delicats, il raisonne juste, et dans
ses œuvres on y trouve de nobles et fortes expressions,’ and getting up
he walked over to Mademoiselle de Scudéry, and they were soon talking
earnestly together.

Madeleine all this time had been torn between terror of being introduced
to Mademoiselle de Scudéry, and terror of not being introduced. Her face
was absolutely impassive, and she had ceased to pretend to take any
interest in what was going on around her.

Suddenly she heard Madame de Rambouillet saying to Monsieur de Grasse:—

‘You remember Julie’s and her sister’s _vision_ about night-caps?’

‘Ah, yes, and the trick played on them by Voiture, and the poor,
excellent Marquis de Pisani.’

‘Yes,’ she answered, with a little sigh and a smile. ‘Well, it has been
inherited by little Marie-Julie, whenever she beholds one she becomes
transfixed by terror. _Visions_ are strange things!’

Madeleine for the first time that afternoon felt happy and pleased.
She herself had always loathed night-caps, and as a child had screamed
with terror whenever she had seen any one wearing one. What a
strange coincidence that this _vision_ should be shared by Madame de
Rambouillet’s daughters! She turned eagerly to the Marquis.

‘Monsieur, I hear Madame la Marquise telling how Mesdames her daughters
were wont to be affrighted by night-caps; when I was a child, they worked
on me in a like manner, and to speak truth, to this day I have a dislike
to them.’

‘Indeed, indeed,’ he answered, with his nervous laugh. ‘Yes, my daughters
had quite a _vision_ as to night-caps. Doubtless ’twas linked in their
memory with some foolish, monstrous fable they had heard from one
of their attendants. ’Tis strange, but our little granddaughter has
inherited the fear and she refuses to kiss us if we are wearing one.’

Alas! There was no crack through which Madeleine could get in her
own personality! The Marquis got up and stumbled across the room to
Mademoiselle de Scudéry, and Montausier, having to give up his chair, sat
down by Madeleine. There was a cry of ‘Ah! here she comes!’

The door opened and a little girl of about seven years old walked into
the room, followed by a _gouvernante_ who stood respectfully in the
doorway. The child was dressed in a miniature Court dress, cut low and
square at the neck. She had a little pointed face, and eyes with a slight
outward squint. She made a beautiful curtsey, first to her grandmother
and then to the company.

‘My dearest treasure,’ Madame de Rambouillet cried in her beautiful husky
voice. ‘Come and greet your friend, Monsieur de Grasse.’

Every one had stopped talking and were looking at the child with varying
degrees of interest. Madeleine felt suddenly fiercely jealous of her;
she stole a glance at Mademoiselle de Scudéry, and saw on her face the
universal smile of tolerant amusement with which grown-up people regard
children. The child went up to Godeau, kissed his ring, and then busily
and deliberately found a foot-stool for herself, dragged it up to Madame
de Rambouillet’s bed, and sat down on it.

‘The little lady already has the _tabouret chez la reine_,’[2] said
Mademoiselle de Scudéry, smiling and bowing to Madame de Rambouillet. The
child, however, did not understand the witticism; she looked offended,
frowned, and said severely:—

‘I am working a _tabouret_ for myself,’ and then, as if to soften what
she evidently had meant for a snub, she added: ‘It has crimson flowers
on it, and a blue saint feeding birds.’

Montausier went into fits of proud laughter.

‘There is a bit of hagiology for you to interpret, Monsieur de Grasse,’
he cried triumphantly, suddenly in quite a good temper, and looking round
to see if the others were amused. Godeau looked interested and serious.

‘That must be a most rare and delicate _tabouret_, Mademoiselle,’ he
said; ‘do you know what the saint’s name is?’

‘No, I thank you,’ she answered politely, but wearily, and they all again
went into peals of laughter.

‘My love,’ said Madame de Rambouillet. ‘I am certain Monsieur de Grasse
and that lady,’ nodding towards Mademoiselle de Scudéry, ‘would be
enchanted by those delicious verses you wrote for my birthday, will you
recite them?’

But the child shook her head, backwards and forwards, the more she was
entreated, the more energetically she shook her head, evidently enjoying
the process for its own sake. Then she climbed on to her grandmother’s
bed and whispered something in her ear. Madame de Rambouillet shook with
laughter, and after they had whispered together for some minutes the
child left the room. Madame de Rambouillet then told the company that
Marie-Julie’s reason for not wishing to recite her poem was that she
had heard her father say that all _hommes de lettres_ were thieves and
were quite unprincipled about using each other’s writings, and she was
afraid that Mademoiselle de Scudéry or Monsieur de Grasse might, if they
heard her poem, publish it as their own. There was much laughter, and
Montausier was in ecstasies.

‘I am impatient for you to hear the poem,’ said Madame de Rambouillet.
‘It is quite delicious.’

‘Yes, my daughter promises to be a second Neuf-germain!’[3] said Madame
de Montausier, smiling.

‘What a Nemesis, that a mother who has inspired so many delicious verses,
and a father——’ began Mademoiselle de Scudéry, but just then the child
came back with her head disappearing into a large beplumed man’s hat, and
carrying a shepherd’s crook in her hand.

‘I am a Muse,’ she announced, and the company exchanged delighted,
bewildered glances.

‘Now, I will begin.’

‘Yes, pray do, my dear love,’ said Madame de Rambouillet, trying to
compose her face.

‘The initial letters form my grandmother’s name: Cathérine,’ she
explained, and then, taking her stand in the middle of the room, began to
declaim with great unction:—

    ‘Chérie, vous êtes aimable et
    Aussi belle que votre perroquet,
    Toujours souriante et douce.
    Hélas! j’ai piqué mon pouce
    En brodant pour votre jour de fête
    Rien qu’une bourse qui n’est pas bête.
    J’aime ma Grandmère, c’est ma chatte,
    Nellie, mon petit chien, donne lui ta patte,
    Et lèche la avec ta petite langue.’

She then made a little bow to the company, and sat down again on her
_tabouret_, quite undisturbed by the enthusiastic applause that had
followed her recitation.

‘Mademoiselle,’ began Godeau solemnly, ‘words fail me, to use the
delicious expression of Saint Amant, with which to praise your ravishing
verses as they deserve. But if the Abbé Ménage were here, I think he
might ask you if the _qui_ in ... let me see ... the sixth line,
refers to the _bourse_ or to the act of pricking your finger. Because
if, as I imagine, it is to the latter, the laws of our language demand
the insertion of a _ce_ before the _qui_, while the unwritten laws of
universal experience assert that the action of pricking one’s finger
should be called _bête_ not _pas bête_. We writers must be prepared for
this sort of ignoble criticism.’

‘Of course the _qui_ refers to _bourse_,’ said Madame de Montausier,
for the child was looking bewildered. ‘You will pardon me but what an
exceeding foolish question from a Member of the Academy! It was _bête_
to prick one’s finger, but who, with justice, could call _bête_ a
_bourse_ of most quaint and excellent design? Is it not so, _ma chatte_?’
The child nodded solemnly, and Monsieur de Grasse was profuse in his
apologies for his stupidity.

Madeleine had noticed that the only member of the company, except
herself, who had not been entranced by this performance, was Mademoiselle
de Scudéry. Though she smiled the whole time, and was profuse in her
compliments, yet she was evidently bored. Instead of pleasing Madeleine,
this shocked her, it also made her rather despise her, for being out of
it.

She turned to Montausier and said timidly:—

‘I should dearly love to see Mademoiselle _votre fille_ and the
Cardinal’s baby niece together. They would make a delicious pair.’ But
Montausier either really did not hear, or pretended not to, and Madeleine
had the horrible embarrassment of speaking to air.

‘Who is that _demoiselle_?’ the child suddenly cried in a shrill voice,
looking at Madeleine.

‘That is Mademoiselle Hoqueville, my love.’

‘Hoqueville! _what_ a droll name!’ and she went into peals of shrill
laughter. The grandparents and mother of the child smiled apologetically
at Madeleine, but she, in agony at being humiliated, as she considered,
before Mademoiselle de Scudéry, tried to improve matters by looking
haughty and angry. However, this remark reminded Madame de Rambouillet of
Madeleine’s existence, and she exclaimed:—

‘Oh! Mademoiselle Hoqueville, you have, as yet, seen naught of the hôtel.
Marie-Julie, my love, go and say _bon-jour_ to that lady and ask her if
she will accompany you to the _salle bleue_.’

The child obediently went over to Madeleine, curtseyed, and held out
her hand. Madeleine was not certain whether she ought to curtsey back
or merely bow without rising from the chair. She compromised in a cross
between the two, which made her feel extremely foolish. On being asked if
she would like to see _la salle bleue_, she had to say yes, and followed
the child out of the room.

She followed her through a little _cabinet_, and then they were in
the famous room, sung by so many poets, the scene of so many gay and
brilliant happenings.

Madeleine’s first feeling was one of intense relief at being freed from
the strain of the bedroom, then, as it were, she galvanised into activity
her demand upon life, and felt in despair at losing even a few moments of
Mademoiselle de Scudéry’s company. The child walked on in front humming
a little tune to herself. Madeleine felt she must pull herself together,
and make friends with her.

‘What rare and skilful verses those were you recited to us,’ she began,
her voice harshly breaking the silence of the huge room. The child looked
at her out of her crab-eyes, pursed up her mouth, and went on humming.

‘Do you dearly love your little dog?’

‘Haven’t got one.’ This was startling.

‘But you made mention of one in your poem,’ said Madeleine in an
aggrieved tone.

The child screamed with scornful laughter:—

‘She isn’t _mine_, she’s Aunt Angélique’s!’ she cried, and looked at
Madeleine as if she must be mad for having made such a mistake. There was
another pause. Madeleine sighed wearily and went to look at the famous
tapestry, the child followed her.

Its design consisted of groups of small pastoral figures disporting
themselves in a blue Arcady. In one group there was a shepherdess sitting
on a rustic bench, surrounded by shepherds; a nymph was offering her a
basket of flowers. The child pointed to the shepherdess: ‘That is my
grandmother, and that is me bringing her flowers, and that is my father,
and that is Monsieur Sarrasin, and that is my dear Maître Claude!’ ...
This was better. Madeleine made a violent effort to be suitably fantastic.

‘It may be when you are asleep you do in truth become that nymph and live
in the tapestry.’ The child stared at her, frowned, and continued her
catalogue:—

‘And that is my mother, and that is Aunt Angélique, and that is Madame
de Longueville, and that is Madame de Sablé, and that is Monsieur de la
Rochefoucauld, and that is my little friend Mademoiselle de Sévigné,’ and
so on.

When she had been through the list of her acquaintances, she wandered
off and began to play with a box of ivory puzzles. Madeleine, in a final
attempt to ingratiate herself, found for her some of the missing pieces,
at which her mouth began to tremble, and Madeleine realised that all the
pleasure lay in doing it by herself, so she left her, and with a heavy
heart crept back to the bedroom.

She found Madame Cornuel and Mademoiselle Legendre preparing to go, and
supposing they had already said good-bye, solemnly curtseyed to all the
company in turn. They responded with great friendliness and kindness,
but she suddenly noticed Madame Cornuel exchanging glances with her
step-daughter, and realised in a flash that by making her _adieux_ she
had been guilty of a provincialism. She smiled grimly to herself. What
did it matter?

Madame Cornuel dropped her in the rue Saint-Honoré, and she walked
quietly home.

She had not exchanged a single word with Mademoiselle de Scudéry.




CHAPTER X

AFTERWARDS


Madeleine walked up the petite rue du Paon, in at the baker’s door,
and upstairs. She still felt numbed, but knew that before her were the
pains of returning circulation; Madame Troqueville heard her come in
and ran out from the kitchen, full of smiles and questions. Madeleine
told her in a calm voice that it had all been delightful, praised the
agreeable manners of the Rambouillets, and described the treasures of the
_salle bleue_. She repeated the quaint sayings of the child, and Madame
Troqueville cried ‘_Quel amour!_ Oh, Madeleine, I would like you to have
just such another little daughter!’

Madeleine smiled wearily.

‘And what of Mademoiselle de Scu-tary?’ her mother asked rather nervously.

‘De Scudéry,’ corrected Madeleine, true to habit. ‘She was furiously
_spirituelle_ and very ... civil. I am a trifle tired.... I think I will
away and rest,’ and she dragged herself wearily off to her own room.
Madame Troqueville, who had watched her very unhappily, made as if she
would follow her, but thought better of it.

When Madeleine got into her room, she sat down on her bed, and clasped
her head. She could not, she would not think. Then, like a wave of
ecstasy there swept over her little points she had noticed about
Mademoiselle de Scudéry, but which had not at the time thrilled her
in the slightest. Her teeth were rather long; she had a mole on her
left cheek; she was not as grandly dressed as the others; the child
had snubbed her; Montausier had been very attentive to her; she was
a great celebrity; Madame de Rambouillet had teased her. This medley
of recollections, each and all of them made her feel quite faint with
pleasure, so desirable did they make her love appear. But then ... she
had not spoken to her ... she had been humiliated before her.... Oh! it
was not to be faced! Her teeth were rather long. Montausier had been
attentive to her ... oh, how thrilling! And yet ... she, Madeleine had
not even been introduced to her. The supernal powers had seemed to have
a scrupulous regard for her wishes. They had actually arranged that the
first meeting should be at the Hôtel de Rambouillet ... and she had
not even been introduced to her! Could it be possible that the Virgin
had played her a trick? Should she turn and rend in mad fury the whole
Heavenly Host? No; that would be accepting defeat once for all, and that
must not be, for the past as well as the future was malleable, and it was
only by emotionally accepting it that a thing became a fact. This strange
undercurrent of thought translated itself thus in her consciousness:
God and the Virgin must be trusted; they had only disclosed a tiny bit
of their design, what madness then, to turn against them, thus smashing
perhaps their perfect scheme for her happiness! Or perhaps her own
co-operation had not been adequate—she had perhaps not been instant
enough in dancing—but still ... but still ... the visit to the Hôtel de
Rambouillet was over, she had seen Mademoiselle de Scudéry, and was still
not one inch nearer to her heart’s desire. She _could_ not face it.

She came down to supper. Her father was silent and gloomy, shaking his
head and twisting his lips. His visit to _his_ lady had been a failure.
Was there ... could there be ... some mystical connection? And there
was Jacques still limping ... and he had given her that horrid bead
trimming.... _No, no, no_ ... these were insane, goblin ideas that must
be crushed.

Her mother was trying hard to be cheerful, and Jacques kept looking at
her anxiously. When supper was over she went up to her room, half hoping,
half fearing that he would follow.

Shortly there was a scratch at the door (with great difficulty she had
persuaded him to adopt the fashionable scratch—to knock was _bourgeois_).

He came in, and gave her a look with his bright eyes, at once
compassionate and whimsical. She felt herself dully hoping that he would
not ask why she was not wearing the bead trimming. He did not, but began
to tell her of his day, spent mostly at the Palais and a tavern. But all
the time he watched her; she listened languidly. ‘How went the _fête
galante_?’ he asked, after a pause.

‘It was furiously _galante_,’ she answered with a tragic smile. He walked
slowly up to her, half smiling all the time, sat down on her bed, and put
his arm around her.

‘You are cruelly unhappy, my poor one, I know. But ’twill pass, in time
all caprices yield to graver things.’

‘But it is no caprice!’ she cried passionately. ‘Oh, Jacques, it is hard
to make my meaning clear, but they be real live people with their own
pursuits ... they are all square like little fat boxes ... oh, how can I
make you understand?’

Jacques could not help laughing. ‘I’m sure, ’tis hateful of them to
be like boxes; though, in truth, for my part, I am to seek ... oh,
Madeleine, dear life, it’s dreadful to be miserable ... the cursed
_phantasia_, what tricks it plays us ... ’tis a mountebank, don’t heed it
but put your faith in the good old _bourgeois_ intellect,’ but Madeleine,
ignoring this comfort from Gassendi, moaned out,—

‘Oh! Jacques! I want to die ... you see, ’tis this way—they’ve got their
own lives and memories, folded up all tight around them. Oh! can no one
ever get to know any one else?’

He began to understand.

‘Indeed one can, but it takes time. One has to hew a path through the
blood, through the humours, up to the brain, and, once there, create the
Passion of Admiration. How can it be done at once?’

‘I can’t wait ... I can’t wait ... except things come at once I’ll
have none of them ... at least that’s not quite my meaning,’ she added
hurriedly, looking furtively round and crossing herself several times.
‘Oh! but I don’t feel that I am of a humour that can wait.... Oh! I feel
something sick and weak in me somewhere.’

‘It’s but those knavish old animal spirits playing tricks on the will,
but I think that it is only because one is young,’ and he would have
launched out on a philosophical dissertation, only Madeleine felt that
she could not stand it.

‘_Don’t_, Jacques!’ she screamed. ‘Talk about _me_, or I shall go mad!’

‘Well, then, recount to me the whole matter.’

‘Oh! there is nothing worth the telling, but they _would_ make dædal
pleasantries—pleasantries one fails to understand, except one have a
clue—and they would talk about people with whom I was not acquainted....
Oh! it seems past human compassing to make friends with a person except
one has known them all one’s life! How _could_ I utter my conceit if they
would converse of matters I did not understand?’ she repeated furiously.
Jacques smiled.

‘I admit,’ he said dryly, ‘to be show man of a troupe of marionettes is
an agreeable profession.’ She looked at him suspiciously for a second,
and then catching his hands, cried desperately:—

‘Is it beyond our powers ever to make a _new_ friend?’

‘That it is not, but it can’t be effected at once. I am sure that those
_Messieurs de Port-Royal_ would tell you that even Jesus Christ finds
’tis but a slow business worming His way into a person’s heart. There He
stands, knocking and knocking, and then——’ Madeleine saw that he was on
the point of becoming profane, and as her gods did not like profanity,
she crossed herself and cut in with:—

‘But even admitting one can’t come to any degree of intimacy with a
person at once, the _beginning_ of the intimacy must happen at once, and
I’m at a loss to know how the beginning can happen at once any more than
the whole thing.’

She had got into one of her tight knots of nerves, when she craved to be
reasoned with, if only for the satisfaction of confounding the reasons
offered her. Jacques clasped his head and laughed.

‘You put me in mind of the philosophy class and old Zeno! It’s this way,
two people meet, nothing takes place perhaps. They meet again, and one
gives a little look, it may be, that sets the bells of the other’s memory
pleasantly ringing, or says some little thing that tickles the humours of
the other, and thus a current is set up between them ... a fluid, which
gradually reaches the heart and solidifies into friendship.’

‘But then, there might never be the “little look,” or the “little word,”
and then ... there would be no friendship’ (she crossed herself) ‘ ... it
all seems at the mercy of Chance.’

‘Of chance ... and of harmony. ’Tis a matter beyond dispute that we are
more in sympathy with some souls than with others—

    ‘Il est des nœuds secrets, il est des sympathies,
    Dont par le doux rapport les âmes assorties ...

you know these lines in _Rodogune_?’

‘And do you hold that sympathy can push its way past ... obstacles ...
such as bashfulness, for example?’

Jacques smiled.

‘In good earnest it can.’ Suddenly her nerves relaxed.

‘Then it is _not_ contrary to natural laws to make a new friend?’ she
cried joyfully.

‘That it is not. And who knows, the rôles may be reversed ere long and
we shall see old Mother Scudéry on her knees, while Chop plays the proud
spurner! What said that rude, harsh, untaught Grecian poetess whose naked
numbers brought a modest blush to your “precious” taste?

    ‘Who flees—she shall pursue;
    Who spurns gifts—she shall offer them;
    Who loves not—willy-nilly, she shall love.’

Madeleine gave a little sob of joy and flung her arms round Jacques’s
neck. Oh, he was right, he was right! Had she not herself feared that
immediate success would be _bourgeois_? ’Twould be breaking every law of
_galanterie_ were Sappho to yield without a struggle. It took Céladon
twelve stout volumes before he won his Astrée, and, as Jacques had
pointed out, Christ Himself, with all the armaments of Heaven at His
disposal, does not at once break through the ramparts of a Christian’s
heart. But yet ... but yet ... her relationship with Mademoiselle
de Scudéry that afternoon could not, with the most elastic poetic
licence, be described as that of ‘the nymph that flees, the faun that
pursues!’ Also ... she was not made of stuff stern enough to endure
repeated rebuffs and disappointments. Already, her nerves were worn
to breaking-point. A one-volumed romance was all her fortitude could
face.... God grant the course of true love to run smooth from now.

Jacques shortly left her, and she went to bed.

Outside Jacques ran into Madame Troqueville, who said she wished to speak
to him. They went into her room.

‘Jacques,’ she began, ‘I am uneasy about Madeleine. I greatly fear things
fell not out as she had hoped. Did she tell you aught of what took place?’

‘I think she is somewhat unhappy because they didn’t all call her
_tu_ right away ... oh, I had forgotten, she holds it _bourgeois_ to
_tutoier_,’ he answered, smiling. Madame Troqueville smiled a little too.

‘My poor child, she is of so impatient a humour, and expects so much,’
and she sighed. ‘Jacques, tell me about your uncle. Are you of opinion he
will make his way in Paris?’ She looked at him searchingly. Her eyes were
clear and cold like Madeleine’s.

Jacques blushed and frowned; he felt angry with her for asking him. But
her eyes were still fixed on his face.

‘How can I tell, aunt? It hangs on all ... on all these presidents and
people.’

Madame Troqueville gave a little shrug, and her lips curled into a tiny,
bitter smile. ‘I wonder why men always hold women to be blind, when in
reality their eyes are so exceeding sharp. Jacques, for my sake, and
for Madeleine’s, for the child’s future doth so depend on it, won’t
you endeavour to keep your uncle from ... from all these places.... I
know you take your pleasure together, and I am of opinion you have some
influence with him.’ Jacques was very embarrassed and very angry; it was
really, he felt, expecting too much of a young man to try and make him
responsible for his middle-aged uncle.

‘I fear I can do nothing, aunt. ’Tis no business of mine,’ he said
coldly, and they parted for the night.




CHAPTER XI

REBUILDING THE HOUSE OF CARDS


All next day Madeleine had the feeling of something near her which she
must, if she wished to live, push away, away, right out of her memory.
Her vanity was too vigilant to have allowed her to give to Jacques a
_full_ account of the scene at the Hôtel de Rambouillet. The fixed smile,
the failure to interest the Marquis, that awful exit, for instance, were
too indecent to be mentioned. Even her thoughts blushed at their memory,
and shuddered away from it—partly, perhaps, because at the back of her
consciousness there dwelt always the imaginary Sappho, so that to recall
these things was to be humiliated anew in her presence.

In fact, the whole scene at the Hôtel de Rambouillet must be forgotten,
and that quickly, for it had been a descent into that ruthless world of
reality in which Madeleine could not breathe. That world tyrannised over
by the co-sovereigns Cause and Effect, blown upon by sharp, rough winds,
and—most horrible of all—fretted with the counter-claims on happiness of
myriads of individuals just as ‘square’ and real as she. In such a world
how could she—with such frightful odds against her—hope for success, for
_here_ she was so impotent, merely a _gauche_ young girl of no position?

There were times, as I have shown, when she felt a _nostalgie_ for the
world of reality, as a safe fresh place, but now ... in God’s name, back
to her dreams.

       *       *       *       *       *

Madeleine is entering the door of Sappho’s house. Sappho is lying on her
bed, surrounded by her demoiselles. (This time Madeleine visualises
her quite clearly. She is swarthy and plain.) When she sees Madeleine,
she gives a little blush, which caresses the motion of Madeleine’s
passions, and fills her with as sweet an expectancy as the rhythm of a
Saraband. Madeleine comes forward, and kissing her hand says, with the
most gallant air in the world: ‘I am well aware, Madame, that poets are
exempt from the tax to _la Dame Vérité_, and that they have set up in her
place another Sovereign. So when you gave me the other day the gracious
permission to wait on you, I had, I admit, a slight fear that you were
speaking as the subject of this sovereign, whose name, I believe, is
_le joli Mensonge_, and that by taking you at your word, I would prove
myself an eager, ignorant Scythian, unable to understand what is said,
and—more important still—what is not said, by the citizens of the polite
hemisphere. Madame, I would ten times rather earn such a reputation, I
would ten times rather be an unwelcome visitor, than to wait another day
before I saw you.’ It is a bold speech, and which, if made by any one
else would surely have aroused all Sappho’s pride and prudishness. At
first she colours and seems slightly confused, and then, she lets a smile
have its own way. She changes the subject, however.

‘Do you consider,’ she asks, ‘that the society of Lesbos compensates, if
I may use the expression, for the enamelled prairies and melodious brooks
of Bœotia? For my own part, I know few greater pleasures than to sojourn
in a rustic place with my lyre and a few chosen friends.’ These last two
words awake the lover’s gadfly, jealousy, and causes it to give Madeleine
a sharp sting.

‘I should imagine, Madame,’ she says coldly, ‘that by this means you must
carry Lesbos with you wherever you go, and although it is one of the most
agreeable spots on earth, this must deprive you of many of the delights
of travel.’

‘I see that you take me for a provincial of the metropolis,’ says Sappho
with a smile full of delicious raillery and in which Madeleine imagines
she detects a realising of her jealousy and a certain pleasure in it, so
that, in spite of herself, smiling also, she answers,—

‘One has but to read your ravishing verses, which are as fresh, as full
of pomp, and as flowery as a summer meadow, to know that your pleasure
in pastoral joys is as great as your pleasure in intercourse with _les
honnêtes gens_, and the other attractions of the town. And this is
combined with such marvellous talent that in your poetry, the trees
offer a pleasanter shade, the flowers a sweeter odour, the brooks a more
soothing lullaby than in earth’s most agreeable glades.’

‘If you hold,’ answers Sappho smiling, ‘that my verses make things fairer
than they really are, you cannot consider them really admirable, for
surely the closer art resembles nature the more excellent it becomes.’

‘Pardon me, Madame,’ says Madeleine, also smiling, ‘but we who believe
that there are gods and goddesses ten times fairer than the fairest
person on earth, must also believe that somewhere there exist for these
divine beings habitations ten times fairer than the fairest of earth’s
meadows. And you, Madame, have been carried to these habitations on the
wings of the Muses, and in your verses you describe the delicious visions
you have there beheld.’

Sappho cannot keep a look of gratification from lighting up her fine eyes.

‘You think, then, that I have visited the Elysian Fields?’ she asks.

‘Most certainly,’ rejoins Madeleine quickly. ‘Did I not call you the
other day, in the Palais de Cléomire, the Sybil of Cumæ?’ She pauses, and
draws just the eighth of an inch closer to Sappho. ‘As such, you are the
authorised guide to the Elysian Fields. May I hope that some day you will
be _my_ conductress there?’

‘Then, as well, I am the “appointed guide” to Avernus,’ says Sappho with
a delicious laugh. ‘Will you be willing to descend there also?’

‘With you as my guide ... yes,’ answers Madeleine.

There follows one of _ces beaux silences_, more gallant than the most
agreeable conversation: one of the silences during which the wings of
Cupid can almost be heard fluttering. Why does the presence of that
mignon god, all dimples and rose-buds, terrify mortals as well as delight
them?

       *       *       *       *       *

Thus did Madeleine’s dreams quietly readjust themselves to their normal
state and scornfully tremble away from reality.




PART II

    ‘Cela t’amuse-t-il tant, me dit-il, d’édifier ainsi des
    systèmes?’

    ‘Rien ne m’amuse plus qu’une éthique, répondis-je, et je m’y
    contente l’esprit. Je ne goûte pas une joie que je ne l’y
    veuille attachée.’

    ‘Cela l’augmente-t-il?’

    ‘Non, dis-je, cela me la légitime.’

    Certes, il m’a plu souvent qu’une doctrine et même qu’un
    système complet de pensées ordonnées justifiât à moi-même mes
    actes; mais parfois je ne l’ai pu considérer que comme l’abri
    de ma sensualité.

                                                       ANDRÉ GIDE.




CHAPTER XII

THE FÊTE-DIEU


It was the Sunday of the octave of the _Fête-Dieu_—the Feast of _Corpus
Christi._ God Himself had walked the streets like Agamemnon over purple
draperies. The stench of the city had mingled with the perfume of a
thousand lilies—to the Protestant mind, a symbol of the central doctrine
of the day—Transubstantiation. Transubstantiation beaten out by the
cold, throbbing logic of the Latin hymns of Saint Thomas Aquinas, and
triumphantly confirmed at Bologna by the miraculous bleeding of the Host.

Seraphic logic and bleeding bread! A conjunction such as this hints at a
secret vice of the cold and immaculate intellect. What if one came in a
dark corner of one’s dreams upon a celestial spirit feeding upon carrion?

Past gorgeous altars, past houses still hung with arras, the Troquevilles
walked to Mass. From time to time they met processions of children
apeing the solemn doings of Thursday, led by tiny, mock priests, shrilly
chanting the office of the day. Other children passed in the scanty
clothing of little Saint John, leading lambs on pink or blue ribbons.
Everything sparkled in the May sunshine, and the air was full of the
scent of flowers.

_Et introibo ad altare Dei: ad Deum qui lætificat juventutem meam_—very
shortly they would be hearing these words in Church. They were solemn,
sunny words well suited to the day, but, like the day, to Madeleine they
seemed but a mockery. _Ad Deum qui lætificat juventutem meam_—To God who
makes glad my youth! Where was the kind God of the Semi-Pelagians, and
what joy did _she_ have in her youth?

They walked in silence to their destination—the smug _bourgeois_
Church Saint-André-des-Arts. Its atmosphere and furniture did not lend
themselves to religious ecstasy. Among the congregation there was
whispering and tittering and bows of recognition. The gallants were
looking at the belles, and the belles were trying not to look at the
gallants. From marble tombs smirked many a petrified magistrate, to whose
vacuous pomposity the witty commemorative art of the day had added by
a wise elimination of the third dimension, a flat, mocking, decorative
charm.

Suddenly the frivolity vanished from the atmosphere. Monsieur
Troqueville, who had been alternately yawning and spitting, pulled
himself together and put on what Jacques called his ‘Mass face’—one of
critical solemnity which seemed to say: ‘Here I am with a completely
unbiassed mind, quite unprejudiced, and a fine judicial gift for
sifting evidence. I am quite willing to believe that you have the
power of turning bread into the Body and Blood of Christ, but mind! no
hocus-pocus, and not one tiny crumb left untransubstantiated!’

The clergy in the red vestments, symbolic in France of the Blessed
Sacrament, preceded by solemn thurifer, marched in procession from the
sacristy to the altar. And then began the Sacrifice of High Mass.

The _Introit_ melted into the _Kyrie_, the _Kyrie_ swelled into the
_Gloria in excelsis_. The subdeacon sang the Epistle, the deacon sang the
Gospel. The Gospel and Epistle solidified into the fine rigidity of the
Creed.

Madeleine, quite unmoved by the solemn drama, was examining the creases
in the neck of a fat merchant immediately in front of her. There were
three real creases—the small half ones did not count—and as there were
three lines in her Litany she might use them as a sort of Rosary. She
felt that she must ‘tell’ the three creases before he turned his head.

‘Blessed Virgin, Mother of Our Lord, give me the friendship of
Mademoiselle de Scudéry. Guardian Angel that watchest over me, give me
the friendship of Mademoiselle de Scudéry. Blessed Saint Magdalene, give
me the friendship of Mademoiselle de Scudéry.’

Suddenly ... the sweet, nauseating smell of incense and the strange music
of the Preface—an echo of the music of Paradise, so said the legend,
caught in dreams by holy apostolic men.

_Quia per incarnati Verbi mysterium nova inentis nostræ oculis lux tuæ
claritatis infulsit: ut dum visibiliter Deum cognoscimus per hunc in
INVISIBILIUM AMOREM RAPIAMUR._

Dozens of times before had Madeleine heard these terse Latin words, but
to-day, for the first time, she felt their significance. ‘Caught up to
the love of invisible things’—_rapiamur_—a ghostly rape—the idea was
beautiful and terrible. Suddenly a great longing swept over her for the
still, significant life of the Spirit, for the shadowy lining of this
bright, hard earth. Yet on earth itself strange lives had been led ...
symbols, and bitter-sweet sacrifice, and little cells suddenly filled
with the sound of great waters.

A ghostly rape ... she had a sudden vision of the nervous hands of the
Almighty clutching tightly the yielding flesh of a thick, human body,
as in a picture by the Flemish Rubens she had seen in the Luxembourg.
Surely the body was that of the fat merchant with the wrinkled neck ...
there ... sitting in front of her. Something is happening ... there
are acolytes with lighted tapers ... a bell is ringing ... the central
Mystery is being consummated. For one strange, poignant second Madeleine
felt herself in a world of non-bulk and non-colour. She buried her
face in her hands and, though her mind formed no articulate prayer, she
worshipped the Unseen. Her mundane desires had, for the moment, dropped
from her and their place was taken by her old ambition of one day being
able to go up to the altar, strong in grace, a true penitent, to partake
of the inestimable blessing of the Eucharist.




CHAPTER XIII

ROBERT PILOU’S SCREEN


When Mass was over, Madeleine walked home with her parents in absolute
silence. She was terribly afraid of losing the flavour of her recent
experience. She specially dreaded Jacques. He was such a scoffer;
besides, at this moment, she felt a great distaste for the insincerity of
her relationship with him. However, as it happened, he did not come in to
dinner that day.

After dinner she went to her room and lay down on her bed, in the hopes
of sleeping, and so guarding her religious emotion from the contamination
of thoughts and desires—for, at the bottom of her heart, she knew quite
well that her obsession was only dozing. Finally, she did fall asleep,
and slept for some hours.

When she awoke, it was half-past four, and she realised with joy that she
had nursed successfully the mystic atmosphere. She felt a need for space
and fresh air, and hastily put on her pattens, mask, and cloak. As she
came out of her room, her mother appeared from the parlour.

‘Madeleine—dear life—whither in the name of madness, are you bound? You
cannot be contemplating walking alone? Why, ’twill soon be dusk! Jacques
should shortly return, and he’ll accompany you!’

This was unbearable. In a perfect frenzy, lest the spell should be
broken, Madeleine gathered up her petticoats and made a dash for the
staircase.

‘Madeleine! Madeleine! Is the child demented? Come back! I command you!’

‘For God’s sake, _let me be_!’ screeched Madeleine furiously from
half-way down the stairs. ‘Curse her! With her shrill importunity she has
shattered the serenity of my humour!’ she muttered to herself, in the
last stage of nervous irritation.

She had half a mind to go back and spend the rest of the afternoon
in dinning into her mother that by her untimely interruption she had
arrested a _coup de Grâce_, and come between her and her ultimate
redemption. But pleasant though this would be, the soft sunshine of early
June was more so, so she ran down the stairs and into the street.

At first she felt so irritated and ruffled that she feared the spell was
broken for ever, but gradually it was renewed under the magical idleness
of the Sunday afternoon. In a house opposite some one was playing a
Saraband on the lute. From a neighbouring street came the voices and
laughter of children—otherwise the whole neighbourhood seemed deserted.

Down the long rue des Augustins, that narrowed to a bright point towards
the Seine, she wandered with wide, staring eyes, to meet something, she
knew not what. Then up the quays she wandered, up and on, still in a
trance.

Finally she took her stand on the Pont-Rouge, a little wooden bridge
long since replaced. For some moments she gazed at the Seine urbanely
flowing between the temperate tints of its banks, and flanked on its
right by the long, gray gallery of the Louvre. Everything was shrouded
in a delicate distance-lending haze; there was the Cité—miles and miles
away it seemed—nuzzling into the water and dominated by the twin towers
of Notre-Dame. They had caught the sun, and though unsubstantial, they
still looked sturdy—like solid cubes of light. The uniform gray-greenness
of everything—Seine and Louvre and Cité—and a quality in it all of
decorative unreality, reminded Madeleine of a great, flat, gray-green
picture by Mantegna of the death of Saint Sebastian, that she had seen in
one of the Palaces.

The bell of Saint-Germain-des-Prés began to peal for Vespers. She started
murmuring to herself the Vesper hymn—_Lucis Creator_:—

    ‘Ne mens gravata crimine.
    Vitæ sit exul munere,
    Dum nil perenne cogitat,
    Seseque culpis illigat.’

‘Grant that the mind, borne down by the charge of guilt, be not an exile
from the fulfilment of life, perennially pondering emptiness and binding
itself by its transgressions.’

Yes, that was a prayer she had need of praying. ‘An exile from the
fulfilment of life’—that was what she had always feared to be. An exile
in the provinces, far from the full stream of life—but what was Paris
itself but a backwater, compared with the City of God? ‘Perennially
pondering emptiness’—yes, that was her soul’s only exercise. She had long
ceased to ponder grave and pregnant matters. The time had come to review
once more her attitude to God and man.

She had come lately to look upon God as a Being with little sense of sin,
who had a mild partiality for _attrition_ in His creatures, but who never
demanded _contrition_. And the compact into which she had entered with
Him was this: she was to offer Him a little lip-service, perform daily
some domestic duties and pretend to Jacques she was in love with him;
in return for this He (aided by her dances) was to procure for her the
entrée into the inner circle of the Précieuses, and the friendship of
Mademoiselle de Scudéry! And the tenets of Jansenism—it was a long time
since she had boldly faced them. What were they?

Every man is a tainted creature, fallen into an incurable and permanent
habit of sinning. His every action, his every thought—beginning from the
puny egotism of his babyhood—is a loathsome sin in the eyes of God. The
only remedy for the diseased will that prompts these sinful thoughts and
actions is the sovereign, infallible grace that God sends on those whom
He has decided in His secret councils to raise to a state of triumphant
purity. And what does this Grace engender? An agony of repentance,
a loathing of things visible, and a burning longing for things
invisible—_in invisibilium amorem rapiamur_, yes, that is the sublime and
frigid fate of the true penitent.

And she had actually deceived herself so far as to think that the
Arch-Enemy of sin manifested His goodness like a weak, earthly father by
gratifying one’s worldly desires, one’s ‘concupiscence’ which Jansenius
calls the ‘source of all the other vices’! No, His gifts to men were not
these vain baubles, the heart’s desires, but Grace, the Eucharist, His
perpetual Presence on the Altar—gigantic, austere benefits befitting this
solemn abstract universe, in which angels are helping men in the fight
for their immortal souls.

Yes, this was the Catholic faith, this was the true and living God, to
Whose throne she had dared to come with trivial requests and paltry
bargainings.

She felt this evening an almost physical craving for perfect sincerity
with herself, so without flinching she turned her scrutiny upon her love
for Mademoiselle de Scudéry. There flashed into her mind the words of
Jansenius upon the sin of Adam:—

    ‘What could Adam love after God, away from whom he had fallen?
    What could so sublime a spirit love but the sublimest thing
    after God Himself, namely—_his own_ spirit?... This love,
    through which he wished, somehow, to take joy in himself, in
    as much as he could no longer take joy in God, in itself did
    not long suffice. Soon he apprehended its indigence, and that
    in it he would never find happiness.

    ‘Then, seeing that the way was barred that led back to God, the
    source of true felicity from which he had cut himself off, the
    want left in his nature precipitated him towards the creatures
    here below, and he wandered among them, hoping that _they_
    might satisfy the want. Thence come those bubbling desires,
    whose name is legion; those tight, cruel chains with which he
    is bound by the creatures he loves, that bondage, not only of
    himself but of all he imprisons by their love for him. Because,
    once again, in this love of his for all other things, it is
    above all _himself_ that he holds dear. In all his frequent
    delights it is always—and this is a remnant of his ancient
    noble state—in _himself_ that he professes to delight.’

How could she, knowing this passage, have deceived herself into imagining
she could save her soul by love for a creature?

The words of Jansenius were confirmed by those of Saint Augustine:—

    ‘I lived in adultery away from Thee.... For the friendship of
    this world is adultery against Thee,’

and her own conscience confirmed them both, for it whispered that
her obsession for Mademoiselle de Scudéry was nothing but a subtle
development of her _amour-propre_, and what was more, had swollen to such
dimensions as completely to blot out God from her universe.

Well, she stood condemned in all her desires and in all her activities!

What was to be done? With regard to one matter at least her duty was
clear. She must confess to Jacques that she had lied to him when she
said she loved him.

And Mademoiselle de Scudéry ... would she be called upon to chase her
from her heart? Oh, the cruelty of it! The horse-face and the plain gray
gown ... the wonderful invention in _galanterie_ made by herself and
the Grecian Sappho ... the delicious ‘light fire’ of expectancy ... the
desirability of being loved in return ... the deep, deep roots it had
taken in her heart. To see the figure in gray serge growing smaller and
smaller as earth receded from her, and as her new _amours_—the ‘invisible
things’—drew her up, and up with chill, shadowy arms—_she couldn’t, she
couldn’t_ face it!

In mental agony she leaned her elbows on the parapet of the bridge,
and pressing her fingers against her eyes, she prayed passionately for
guidance.

When she opened them, two gallants were passing.

‘Have you heard the _mot_ Ninon made to the Queen of Sweden?’ one was
asking.

‘No, what was it?’

‘Her Majesty asked her for a definition of the Précieuses, and Ninon said
at once, “_Madame, les Précieuses sont les Jansénistes de l’amour!_”
’Twas prettily said, wasn’t it?’ They laughed, and were soon out of sight.

‘Les Précieuses sont les Jansénistes de l’amour!’ Madeleine laughed
aloud, as there swept over her a flood of what she imagined to be divine
illumination. Her prayer for guidance had been miraculously answered, and
in a manner perfectly accordant with her own wishes. It was obviously
a case of Robert Pilou’s sacred screen. ‘Profane history told by means
of sacred prints becomes sacred history.’ A Précieuse need only have a
knack of sacramentalism to become in the same way a Jansenist, for there
was a striking resemblance between the two creeds. In their demands on
their followers they had the same superb disregard for human weakness,
and in both this disregard was coupled with a firm belief in original sin
(for the contempt and loathing with which the Précieuses regarded the
manners of all those ignorant of their code sprang surely from a belief
in ‘original boorishness’ which in their eyes was indistinguishable from
‘original sin’), the only cure for which was their own particular form
of grace. And the grace of the Précieuses, namely, _l’air galant_—that
elusive social quality which through six or seven pages of _Le Grand
Cyrus_, gracefully evades the definitions in which the agile authoress is
striving to hold it, that quality without which the wittiest conversation
is savourless, the most graceful compliment without fragrance, that
quality which can be acquired by no amount of good-will or application,
and which can be found in the muddiest poet and be lacking in the most
elegant courtier—did it not offer the closest parallel to the mysterious
grace of the Jansenists without which there was no salvation, and which
was sometimes given in abundance to the greatest sinners and denied to
the most virtuous citizens? And then—most striking analogy of all—the
Précieuses’ conception of the true lover possessed just those qualities
demanded from us by Saint Paul and the Jansenists. What finer symbol, for
instance, of the perfect Christian could be found than that of the hero
of the _Astrée_, Céladon, the perfect lover?

Yes, in spite of Saint Augustine’s condemnation of the men ‘who blushed
for a solecism,’ she could sanctify her preciosity by making it the
symbol of her spiritual development, and—oh, rapture—she could sanctify
her obsession for Mademoiselle de Scudéry by making it definitely
the symbol of her love for Christ, not merely a means of curing her
_amour-propre_. Through _her_, she would learn to know Him. Had it not
been said by Saint Augustine: ‘_My sin was just this, that I sought for
pleasure, grandeur, vanity, not in Him, but in His creatures_,’ by which
he surely meant that the love of the creature for the creature was not in
_itself_ a sin, it only became so when it led to forgetting the Creator.

So, with singular rapidity this time, ‘La folie de la Croix s’est
atténuée.’

       *       *       *       *       *

It was already twilight. In the Churches they would be celebrating
Compline. The choir would be singing: ‘_Jube, Domine, benedicere_,’ and
the priest would answer: ‘_Noctem quietam et finem perfectum concedat
nobis Dominus omnipotens_.’

The criers of wafers were beginning their nocturnal song: ‘_La joie! la
joie! Voilà des oublies!_’ It was time to go home; her mother would be
anxious; she must try very hard not to be so inconsiderate.

It was quite dark when she reached the petite rue du Paon. She found
Madame Troqueville almost frantic with anxiety, so she flung her arms
round her neck and whispered her contrition for her present lateness and
her former ill-humour. Madame Troqueville pressed her convulsively and
whispered back that she was never ill-humoured, and even if she were, it
was no matter. In the middle of this scene in came Berthe, nodding and
becking. ‘Ah! Mademoiselle is _câline_ in her ways! She is skilled in
wheedling her parents—a second Nausicaa!’




CHAPTER XIV

A DEMONSTRATION IN FAITH


The scruples with regard to having compromised with an uncompromising
God which Madeleine entertained in spite of herself were silenced by the
determination of settling things with Jacques. For a right action is a
greater salve to conscience than a thousand good resolutions.

This determination gave her a double satisfaction, for she had realised
that the relationship was also a sin against preciosity—and a very
deadly sin to boot. For one thing, _les honnêtes femmes_ must never love
more than once, and then her shameful avowal that ‘_she loved him very
much, and that he might take his fill of kissing_,’ would surely cause
the belles who staked their reputation on never permitting a gallant to
succeed in expressing his sentiments and who were beginning to shudder
at even the ‘minor favours,’ such as the acceptance of presents and the
discreetest signs of the chastest complacency, to fall into a swoon seven
fathoms deep of indignation, horror, and scorn.

The retraction should be made that very evening, she decided; it was to
be her Bethel, a spiritual stone set up as a covenant between herself and
God. But Jacques did not come back to supper that evening, so it happened
that she celebrated her new _coup de grâce_ in a vastly more agreeable
manner.

After supper she had gone into her own room and had begun idly to turn
over the pages of _Cyrus_, and, as always happened, it soon awoke in her
an agonising sense of the author’s charms, and a craving for closer
communion with her than was afforded by the perusal of even these
intimate pages. This closer communion could only be reached through a
dance. In a second she was up and leaping:—

_She has gone to a ‘Samedi’ where she finds a select circle of Sappho’s
friends_ ... then by a great effort of will she checks herself. Is
she a Jansenist or is she not? And if she _is_ a Jansenist, is this
dancing reconcilable with her tenets? As a means of moulding the future
it certainly is not, for the future has been decided once and for all
in God’s inscrutable councils. As a mere recreation, it is probably
harmless. But is there no way of making it an integral part of her
religious life? Yes, from the standpoint of Semi-Pelagianism it was a
means of helping God to make the future, from the standpoint of Jansenism
it can be _a demonstration in faith_, by which she tells God how safe her
future is in His hands, and how certain she is of His goodness and mercy
in the making of it.

Then, an extra sanctity can be given to its contents by the useful device
of Robert Pilou’s screen—let the talk be as witty and gallant as you
please, as long as every conceit has a mystical second meaning.

This settled, once more she started her dance.

       *       *       *       *       *

_Madeleine has gone to a ‘Samedi’ at Mademoiselle de Scudéry’s, where she
finds a select circle of Sappho’s friends._

_The talk drifts to the writings of ‘Callicrate,’ as the late Monsieur
Voiture was called._

_‘There is a certain verse of his from which an astute reader can deduce
that he was not a Jansenist,’ says Madeleine, with a deliciously roguish
smile. ‘Can any of the company quote this verse?’_

_A wave of amused interest passes over the room._

_‘I did not know that Callicrate was a theologian,’ says Sappho._

_‘A theologian, yes, for he was an admirable professor of love’s theory,
but a real Christian, no, for he was but a feeble and faithless lover,’
answers Madeleine, looking straight into Sappho’s eyes. Sappho colours,
and with a laugh which thrills Madeleine’s ear, with a tiny note of
nervousness says_:—

_‘Well, Mademoiselle, prove your theory about Callicrate by quoting the
verses you allude to, and if you cannot do so, we will exact a forfeit
from you for being guilty of the crime of having aroused the delightful
emotion of curiosity without the justification of being able to gratify
it.’ The company turn their smiling eyes on Madeleine, who proceeds to
quote the following lines_:—

    ‘Ne laissez rien en vous capable de déplaire.
    Faites-vous toute belle: et _tachez de parfaire_
    _L’ouvrage que les Dieux ont si fort avancé_:’

_‘Now these lines allow great power to ~le libre arbitre~, and suppose a
collaboration between the gods and mortals in the matter of the soul’s
redemption, which would, I am sure, bring a frown to the brows of ~les
Messieurs de Port-Royale~.’_

_‘Sappho, I think it is we that must pay forfeits to Mademoiselle, not
she to us, for she has vindicated herself in the most ~spirituel~ manner
in the world,’ says Cléodamas._

_‘Let her lay a task on each of us that must be performed within five
minutes,’ suggests Philoxène._

_‘Mademoiselle, what labours of Hercules are you going to impose on us?’
asks Sappho, smiling at Madeleine. Madeleine thinks for a moment and then
says_:—

_‘Each of you must compose a ~Proposition Galante~ on the model of one of
the Five.’_

_The company is delighted with the idea, and Théodamas writes out the
five original Propositions that the company may have their models before
them, and proceeds to read them out_:—

    (1) _Some of God’s commandments it is impossible for the Just
    to obey owing to the present state of their powers, in spite of
    the desire of doing so, and in spite of great efforts: and the
    Grace by which they might obey these commandments is lacking._

    (2) _That in the state of fallen nature, one never resists the
    interior grace._

    (3) _That to merit and demerit in the state of fallen nature,
    it is not necessary that man should have liberty opposed to
    necessity (to will), but that it suffices that he should have
    liberty opposed to constraint._

    (4) _That the Semi-Pelagians admitted the necessity of the
    inward grace preceding every action, even the inception of
    Faith, but that they were heretics in so far as they held that
    grace to be of such a nature that the will of man could either
    resist it or obey it._

    (5) _That it is a Semi-Pelagian error to say that the Founder
    of our faith died and shed His blood universally, for all men._

_They all take out their tablets and begin to write. At the end of five
minutes Madeleine tells them to stop._

_‘I have taken the first as my model,’ says Sappho, ‘and indeed I have
altered it only very slightly.’ The company begs to hear it._

_‘No commandment of a lady is too difficult for an ~homme galant~ to
obey, for to him every lady is full of grace, and this grace inspires him
with powers more than human.’_

_Every one applauds, and expresses their appreciation of her wit._

_‘And now,’ says Madeleine, ‘that our appetite has been so deliciously
whetted—if I may use the expression—by Sappho, have the rest of the
company got their ~ragoûts~ ready?_’

_Doralise looks at Théodamas, and Théodamas at Philoxène, and they laugh._

_‘Mademoiselle, blindness is the penalty for looking on a goddess, and
dumbness, I suppose, that of listening to two Muses. We are unable to pay
our forfeits,’ says Théodamas, with a rueful smile._

_‘Will not Mademoiselle rescue the Sorbonne ~galante~ from ignominy,
and herself supply the missing propositions?’ says Sappho, throwing at
Madeleine a glance, at once arch and challenging._

_‘Yes! Yes!’ cries the company, ‘let the learned doctor herself compile
the theology of Cupid!’_

_‘When Sappho commands, even the doctors of the Sorbonne obey,’ says
Madeleine gallantly. ‘Well, then, I will go on to the second proposition
in which I will change nothing but ~one~ word. “That in the state of
fallen nature, man never resists the ~external~ grace.”’ The company
laughs delightedly._

_‘By the third I must admit to be vanquished,’ she continues, ‘the fourth
is not unlike that of Sappho’s! “That courtiers, although they admit the
necessity of feminine grace preceding every movement of their passions,
are heretics in so far that they hold the wishes of ladies to be of such
a nature that the will of man can either, as it chooses, resist or obey
them.”’_

_‘Delicious!’ cries the company, ‘that is furiously well expressed, and a
well-merited condemnation of Condé and his petits-maîtres.’_

_‘And now we come to the fifth, which calls for as much pruning as one of
the famous Port-Royal pear-trees. “That it is an error of provincials and
other barbarians to say that lovers burn with a universal flame, or that
~les honnêtes femmes~ give their favours to ~all~ men.”’ Loud applause
follows._

_‘Mademoiselle,’ says Théodamas, ‘you have converted me to Jansenism.’_

_‘Such a distinguished convert as the great Théodamas will certainly
compensate the sect for all the bulls launched against it by the Holy
Father,’ says Madeleine gallantly._

_‘Well, I must admit that by one thing the Jansenists have certainly
added to ~la douceur de la vie~, and that is by what we may call their
Miracle of the Graces,’ says Sappho._

_‘What does Madame mean by “the Miracle of the Graces”?’ asks Madeleine,
smiling._

_‘I mean the multiplication of what till their day had been ~three~
Graces into ~at least~ four times that number. To have done so deserves,
I think, to be called a miracle.’_

_‘The most miraculous—if I may use the expression—of the miracles
recorded in the Lives of the Saints has always seemed to me the Miracle
of the Beautiful City,’ says Madeleine innocently._

_‘What miracle is that? My memory fails me, if I may use the expression,’
says Sappho, in a puzzled voice._

_‘Madame, I scarcely believe that a lady so widely and exquisitely
informed as Sappho of Lesbos in both what pertains to mortals and in what
pertains to gods, in short in Homer and in Hesiod, should never have
heard of the “Miracle of the Beautiful City,”’ says Madeleine, in mock
surprise._

_‘Then Mademoiselle—as you say you can scarcely believe it—you show
yourself to be a lady of but little faith!’ says Sappho, her eye lighted
by a delicious gleam of raillery._

_‘I must confess that the miracle Mademoiselle mentions has—if I may use
the expression—escaped ~my~ memory too,’ says Théodamas._

_‘And ours,’ say Doralise and Philoxène._

_‘So ~this~ company of all companies has never heard of the Miracle of
the Beautiful City!’ cries Madeleine. ‘Well, I will recount it to you._

_‘Once upon a time, in a far barbarian country, there lived a great
saint. Everything about her was a miracle—her eyes, her hands, her
figure, and her wit. One night an angel appeared to her and said: (I will
not yet tell you the saint’s name), “Take your lyre” (I forgot to mention
that the saint’s performance on this instrument was also a miracle, and
a furiously agreeable one), “Take your lyre, and go and play upon it in
the wilderness.” And the saint obeyed the angel’s command, though the
wilderness was filled with lions and tigers and every other ferocious
beast. But when the saint began to play they turned into ... doves and
linnets.’ A tiny smile of comprehension begins to play round the eyes of
the company. Madeleine goes on, quite gravely_:—

_‘But that was only a baby miracle beside that which followed. As the
saint played, out of the earth began to spring golden palaces, surrounded
by delicious gardens, towers of porphyry, magnificent temples, in short,
all the agreeable monuments that go to the making of a great city, and
of which, as a rule, Time is the only building contractor. But, in a few
minutes, this great Saint built it merely by playing on her lyre. Madame,
the city’s name was Pretty Wit, and the Saint’s name was ... can the
company tell me?’ and she looks roguishly round._

_‘It is a name of five letters, and its first letter is S and its last
O,’ says Théodamas, with a smile._

       *       *       *       *       *

Madeleine flung herself breathless and exhausted on her bed.

Deep down her conscience was wondering if she had achieved a genuine
reconciliation between Preciosity and Jansenism.




CHAPTER XV

MOLOCH


The period that ensued was one of great happiness for Madeleine. It was
spent in floating on her own interpretation of the Jansenists’ ‘full sea
of grace,’ happy in the certainty, secure in the faith, that God in His
own good time would grant her desires, and reverse the rôles of fugitive
and pursuer. And being set free from the necessity of making her own
future, _ipso facto_ she was also released from the importunities of the
gnat-like taboos and duties upon the doing or not doing of which had
seemed to depend her future success.

She felt at peace with God and with man, and her family found her
unusually gentle, calm, and sympathetic.

But Bethel was not yet raised. This was partly due to the inevitable
torpor caused by an excess of faith. If it was God’s will that she should
have an explanation with Jacques, He would furnish the occasion and the
words.

So the evenings slipped by, and Madeleine continued to receive Jacques’s
caresses with an automatic responsiveness.

Then, at a party at the Troguins, she met a benevolent though gouty old
gentleman, in a black taffeta jerkin and black velvet breeches, and he
was none other than Monsieur Conrart, perpetual secretary to the Academy,
and self-constituted master of the ceremonies at the ‘_Samedis_’ of
Mademoiselle de Scudéry. Madeleine was introduced to him, and her demure
attention to his discourse, her modest demeanour, and her discreet
feminine intelligence pleased him extremely. She made no conscious effort
to attract him, she just trusted God, and, to ring another change on her
favourite _quolibet_, it was as if _la Grâce_ confided to the Graces the
secret of its own silent, automatic action. He grew very paternal, patted
her on the knee with his fat, gouty hand, and focused his energies on the
improvement of _her_ mind instead of the collective mind of the company.

The end of it was that he promised to take her with him to the very next
‘_Samedi_.’

On the way home, she and Jacques went for a stroll in the Place Maubert,
that favourite haunt of _petits-bourgeois_, where in pathetic finery
they aired their puny pretensions to pass for _honnêtes gens_, or, more
happily constituted, exercised their capacity for loud laughter and
coarse wit, and the one privilege of their class, that of making love in
public.

As a rule, Madeleine would rather have died than have been seen walking
in the Place Maubert, but now, when her soul was floating on a sea of
grace, so dazzlingly sunny, it mattered but little in which of the paths
of earth her body chose to stray; however, this evening, her happiness
was a little disturbed by an inward voice telling her that now was the
time for enlightening Jacques with regard to her feelings towards him.

She looked at him; he was a lovable creature and she realised that she
would sorely miss him. Then she remembered that on Saturday she was
going to see Sappho, and in comparison with her the charm of pale,
chestnut-haired young men lost all potency. She was going to see Sappho.
God was very good!

They were threading their way between squares of box clipped in
arabesque. It was sunset, and from a distant shrubbery there came the
sounds of children at their play. The pungent smell of box, the voices of
children playing at sunset; they brought to Madeleine a sudden whiff of
the long, nameless nostalgia of childhood, a nostalgia for what? Perhaps
for the _vitæ munus_ (the fulfilment of life) of the Vesper hymn; well,
on Saturday she would know the _vitæ munus_.

She seized Jacques’s arm and, with shining eyes, cried out: ‘Oh, God is
exceeding merciful to His chosen! He keeps the promise in the Psalms,
He “maketh glad our youth.” When I think on His great goodness ... I
want ... I want ... Oh, words fail me! How comes it, Jacques, you do not
see His footsteps everywhere upon the earth?’ She was trembling with
exultation and her voice shook.

Jacques looked at her gently, and his face was troubled.

‘One cannot reveal Grace to another by words and argument,’ she went on,
‘each must _feel_ it in his own soul, but let it once be felt, then never
more will one be obnoxious to doubts on ghostly matters, willy-nilly one
will believe to all eternity!’

They found a quiet little seat beside a fountain and sat down. After a
moment’s silence Madeleine once more took up her _Te Deum_.

‘Matter for thanksgiving is never wanting, as inch by inch the veil is
lifted from the eyes of one’s spirit to discover in time the whole fair
prospect of God’s most amiable Providence. Oh, Jacques, _why_ are you
blind?’ His only answer was to kick the pebbles, his eyes fixed on the
ground.

Then, in rather a constrained voice, he said: ‘I would rather put it
thus; matter for _pain_ is never wanting to him who stares at the world
with an honest and unblinking eye. What sees he? Pain—pain—and again
pain. It is harsh and incredible to suppose that ’twould be countenanced
by a _good_ God. What say you, Chop, to pain?’

Madeleine was pat with her answers from Jansenism—the perfection of man’s
estate before the Fall, when there was granted him the culminating grace
of free will, his misuse of it by his choice of sin, and its attendant,
pain.

Jacques was silent for a moment, and then he said:—

‘I can conceive of no scale of virtues wherein room is found for a
lasting, durable, and unremitted anger, venting itself on the progeny
of its enemy unto the tenth and twentieth-thousand generation. Yet,
such an anger was cherished by your God, towards the children of Adam.
Nor in any scale of virtues is there place for the pregnant fancy of an
artificer, who having for his diversion moulded a puppet out of mud,
to show, forsooth, the cunning of his hand, makes that same puppet
sensible to pain and to affliction. Why, ’tis a subtle malice of which
even the sponsors of Pandora were guiltless! Then his ignoble chicanery!
With truly kingly magnanimity he cedes to the puppet the franchise of
free will; but mark what follows! The puppet, guileless and trusting,
proceeds to enjoy its freedom, when lo! down on its head descends the
thunder-bolt, that it may know free will must not be exercised except
in such manner as is accordant with the purposes of the giver. The
pettifogging attorney!

‘Yes, your God is bloodier than Moloch, more perfectly tyrant than Jove,
more crafty and dishonest than Mercury.

‘Have you read the fourth book of Virgil’s _Æneid_? In it I read a
tragedy more pungent than the cozenage of Dido—that of a race of mortals,
quick in their apprehensions, tender in their affections, sensible to the
dictates of conscience and of duty, who are governed by gods, ferocious
and malign, as far beneath them in the scale of creation as are the
roaring lions of the Libyan desert. And were I not possessed by the
certainty that your faith is but a monstrous fiction, my wits would long
ere now have left me in comparing the rare properties of good men with
those of your low Hebrew idol.’

Madeleine looked at him curiously. This was surely a piece of prepared
rhetoric, not a spontaneous outburst. So she was not the only person who
in her imagination spouted eloquence to an admiring audience!

Although she had no arguments with which to meet his indictment, her
faith, not a whit disturbed, continued comfortably purring in her heart.
But as she did not wish to snub his outburst by silence—her mood was too
benevolent—she said:—

‘Do you hold, then, that there is no good power behind the little
accidents of life?’

‘The only good power lies in us ourselves, ’tis the Will that Descartes
writes of—a magic sword like to the ones in _Amadis_, a delicate, sure
weapon, not rusting in the armoury of a tyrannical god, but ready to
the hand of every one of us to wield it when we choose. _Les hommes de
volonté_—they form the true _noblesse d’épée_, and can snap their fingers
at Hozier and his heraldries,’ he paused, then said very gently, ‘Chop,
I sometimes fear that in your wild chase after winged horses you may be
cozened out of graver and more enduring blessings, which, though they be
not as rare and pretty as chimeras....’

‘Because you choose to stick on them the name of chimeras,’ Madeleine
interrupted with some heat, ‘it does not a whit alter their true nature.
Though your mind may be too narrow to stable a winged horse, that is no
hindrance to its finding free pasturage in the mind of God, of which the
universe is the expression. And even if they should be empty cheats—which
they are _not_—do you not hold the Duc de Liancourt was worthy of praise
in that by a cunningly painted perspective he has given the aspect of a
noble park watered by a fair river to his narrow garden in the Rue de
Seine?’

‘Why, if we be on the subject of painted perspectives,’ said Jacques,
‘it is reported that the late cardinal in his villa at Rueil had painted
on a wall at the end of his _Citronière_ the Arch of Constantine. ’Twas
a life-size cheat and so cunning an imitation of nature was shown in
the painting of sky and hills between the arches, that foolish birds,
thinking to fly through have dashed themselves against the wall. Chop, it
would vex me sorely to see you one of these birds!’

A frightened shadow came into Madeleine’s eyes, and she furtively crossed
herself. Then, once more, she smiled serenely.

For several moments they were silent, and then Jacques said hesitatingly:—

‘Dear little Chop ... I would have you deal quite frankly with me, and
tell me if you mean it when you say you love me. There are moments when a
doubt ... I _must_ know the truth, Chop!’

In an almost miraculous manner the way had been made easy for her
confession, and ... she put her arms round his neck (in the Place Maubert
you could do these things) and feverishly assured him that she loved him
with all her heart.




CHAPTER XVI

A VISIT TO THE ABBAYE OF PORT-ROYAL


Madeleine’s bitter self-reproaches for her own weakness were of no
avail. She had to acknowledge once and for all that she had not the
force to stand out against another personality and tell them in cold
blood things they would not like. She could hedge and be lukewarm—as
when Jacques wished to be formally affianced—but once she had got into a
false position she could not, if the feelings of others were involved,
extricate herself in a strong, straightforward way. Would God be angry
that she had not set up the Bethel she had promised? No, because it was
the true God she was worshipping now, not merely the projection of her
own barbarous superstitions.

At any rate, to be on the safe side, she would go and visit Mère Agnès
Arnauld at the Abbaye de Port-Royal (a thing she should have done long
ago) for that would certainly please Him. So she wrote asking if she
might come, and got back a cordial note, fixing Wednesday afternoon for
the interview.

In spite of her exalted mood, she did not look forward to the meeting:
‘I hate having my soul probed,’ she told herself in angry anticipation.
She could not have explained what hidden motive it was that forced her
on Wednesday to make up her face with Talc, scent herself heavily with
Ambre, and deck herself out in all her most worldly finery.

As it was a long walk to the Abbaye of Port-Royal—one had to traverse
the whole of the Faubourg Saint-Jacques—Madame Troqueville insisted on
Jacques accompanying her, and waiting for her, during the interview, at
the abbaye gates.

They set out at about half-past two. Jacques seemed much tickled by the
whole proceeding, and said that he longed for the cap of invisibility
that, unseen, he might assist at the interview.

‘You’ll be a novice ere many months have passed!’ he said, with a
mischievous twinkle, ‘what will you wager that you won’t?’

‘All in this world and the next,’ Madeleine answered passionately.

‘As you will, time will show,’ and he nodded his head mysteriously.

‘Jacques, do not be so fantastical. Why, in the name of madness, should I
turn novice just because I visited a nun? Jacques, do you hear me? I bid
you to retract your words!’

‘And if I were to retract them, what would it boot you? They would still
be true. You’ll turn nun and never clap eyes again on old Dame Scudéry!’
and he shrieked with glee. Madeleine paled under her rouge.

‘So you would frustrate my hopes, and stick a curse on me?’ she said in a
voice trembling with fury. ‘I’ll have none of your escort, let my mother
rail as she will, I’ll not be seen with one of your make; what are you
but my father’s bawd? Seek him out and get you to your low revellings,
I’ll on my way alone!’ and carrying her head very high, she strutted on
by herself.

‘Why, Chop, you have studied rhetoric in the Halles, the choiceness
of your language would send old Scudéry gibbering back to her
native Parnassus!’ he called after her mockingly, then, suddenly
conscience-stricken, he ran up to her and said, trying to take her hand:
‘Why, Chop, ’tis foolishness to let raillery work on you so strangely!
All said and done, what power have my light words to act upon your
future? I am no prophet. But as you give such credence to my words why
then I’ll say with solemn emphasis that you will _never_ be a novice,
for no nuns would be so foolish as to let a whirlwind take the veil. No,
you’ll be cloistered all your days with Mademoiselle de Scudéry, and with
no other living soul will you hold converse. Why, there’s a pleasant,
frigid, prophecy for you, are you content?’

Madeleine relented sufficiently to smile at him and let him take her
hand, but she remained firm in her resolve to forgo his further escort,
so with a shrug he left her, and went off on his own pursuits.

As Madeleine passed through the Porte Saint-Jacques, she seemed to leave
behind her all the noisy operations of man and to enter the quiet domain
of God and nature. On either side of her were orchards and monasteries in
which, leisurely, slowly, souls and fruit were ripening. Over the fields
of hay the passing wind left its pale foot-prints. Peace had returned to
her soul.

Soon she was ringing the bell of the Abbaye of Port-Royal—that alembic of
grace, for ever at its silent work of distilling from the warm passions
of human souls, the icy draught of holiness—that mysterious depository of
the victims of the Heavenly Rape.

She was shown into a waiting-room, bare and scrupulously clean. On the
wall hung crayon sketches by Moustier of the various benefactors of the
House. Madeleine gazed respectfully at this gallery of blonde ladies,
simpering above their plump _décolletage_. They were inscribed with
such distinguished names as Madame la Princesse de Guémené; Elizabeth
de Choiseul-Praslin; Dame Anne Harault de Chéverni; Louise-Marie de
Gonzagues de Clèves, Queen of Poland, who, the inscription said, had been
a pupil of the House, and whom Madeleine knew to be an eminent Précieuse.

Some day would another drawing be added to the collection? A drawing
wherein would be portrayed a plain, swarthy woman in classic drapery,
whose lyre was supported by a young fair virgin gazing up at her, and
underneath these words:—

_Madeleine de Scudéry and Madeleine Troqueville, twin-stars of talent,
piety, and love, who, in their declining years retreated to this House
that they might sanctify the great love one bore the other, by the
contemplation of the love of Jesus._

Madeleine’s eyes filled with tears. Then a lay-sister came in and said
she would conduct her to the _parloir_.

It was a great bare room, its only ornament a crucifix, and behind the
grille there sat a motionless figure—the Mother Superior, Mère Agnès
Arnauld. Her face, slightly tanned and covered with clear, fine wrinkles,
seemed somehow to have been carved out of a very hard substance, and
this, together with the austere setting of her white veil, gave her the
look of one of the Holy Women in a picture by Mantegna. Her hazel eyes
were clear and liquid and child-like.

When Madeleine reached the grille, she smiled charmingly, and said in a
beautiful, caressing voice: ‘Dear little sister, I have desired to see
you this long time.’

Madeleine mumbled some inaudible reply. She tried to grasp the mystical
fact that that face, these hands, that torso behind the grille had been
built up tissue by tissue by the daily bread of the Eucharist into the
actual flesh of God Himself. It seemed almost incredible!

Why was the woman staring at her so fixedly? She half expected her to
break the silence with some reference to Mademoiselle de Scudéry, so
certain was she that to these clear eyes her inmost thoughts lay naked to
view.

At last, the beautiful voice began again: ‘It would seem you have now
taken up your abode in Paris. Do you like the city?’

‘Exceeding well,’ Madeleine murmured.

‘Exceeding well—yes—exceeding well,’ Mère Agnès repeated after her, with
a vague smile.

Suddenly Madeleine realised that the intensity of her gaze was due to
absent-mindedness, and that she stared at things without seeing them. All
the same, she felt that if this pregnant silence were to continue much
longer she would scream; she gave a nervous little giggle and began to
fiddle with her hands.

‘And what is your manner of passing the time? Have you visited any of the
new buildings?’

The woman was evidently at a loss for something to say, why, in the name
of madness, didn’t she play her part and make inquiries about the state
of her disciple’s soul? Madeleine began to feel quite offended.

‘Yes,’ she answered, ‘I have seen the Palais Mazarin and I have visited
the Hôtel de Rambouillet.’

‘Ah, yes, the Hôtel de Rambouillet. My cousins report it to be a very
noble fabric. Some day when the family is in the country you may be able
to see the apartments, which are adorned, I am told, in a most rare and
costly manner.’

So she took it for granted that Madeleine had only seen the outside! It
was annoying, but it was no use enlightening her, because, even if she
listened, she would not be in the least impressed.

There was another pause, then Mère Agnès turned on her a quick, kind
glance, and said:—

‘Talk to me of yourself!’

‘What manner of things shall I tell you?’ Madeleine asked nervously.

‘What of theology? Do you still fret yourself over seeming
incongruities?’ she asked with a little twinkle.

‘No,’ Madeleine answered with a blush, ‘most of my doubts have been
resolved.’

‘’Tis well, dear child, for abstracted speculation is but an oppilation
to the free motion of the spirit. ’Tis but a faulty instrument, the
intellect, even for the observing of the _works_ of God, how little apt
is it then, for the apprehension of God Himself? But the spirit is the
sea of glass, wherein is imaged in lucid colours and untrembling outlines
the Golden City where dwells the Lamb. Grace will be given to you, my
child, to gaze into that sea where all is clear.’

She spoke in a soft, level, soothing voice. Her words were a confirmation
of what Madeleine had tried to express to Jacques the other day in the
garden of the Place Maubert, but suddenly—she could not have said why—she
found herself echoing with much heat those very theories of his that had
seemed so absurd to her then.

‘But how comes it that God is good? He commands _us_ to forgive, while He
Himself has need of unceasing propitiation and the blood of His Son to
forgive the Fall of Adam. And verily ’tis a cruel, barbarous, and most
unworthy motion to “visit the sins of the fathers upon the children”;
a _man_ must put on something of a devil before he can act thus. He
would seem to demand perfection in us while He Himself is moved by every
passion,’ and she looked at Mère Agnès half frightened, half defiant.

Mère Agnès, with knitted brows, remained silent for a moment. Then she
said hesitatingly and as if thinking aloud:—

‘The ways of God to man are, in truth, a great mystery. But I think we
are too apt to forget the unity of the Trinity. Our Lord was made man
partly to this end, that His Incarnation might be the instrument of our
learning to know the Father through the Son, that the divine mercy and
love, hitherto revealed but in speculative generals, might be turned into
particulars proportioned to our finite understandings. Thus, if such
mysteries as the Creation, the Preservation, nay, even the Redemption, be
too abstracted, too speculative to be apprehended by our affections, then
let us ponder the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes, the tender words to
the woman of Samaria, the command to “suffer the little children to come
unto Him,” for they are types of the other abstracted mercies, and teach
us to acknowledge that God is of that nature, which knows no conjunctions
but those of justice and mercy. Yes, my child, all your doubts find their
resolution in the life of Jesus. I mind me when I was a girl, in the
garden of the Palais, the _arborist du roy_—as he was called—grew certain
rare flowers from the Orient to serve as patterns to the Queen and her
ladies for their embroidery. But when it was determined to build the
Place Dauphine the garden had to go, and with it these strange blossoms.
But the Queen commanded the _arborist_ to make her a book of coloured
plates wherein should be preserved the form and colour of the Orient
flowers. And this was done, so patterns were not wanting after all to the
Queen and her ladies for their broidery. Thus, for a time ‘our eyes did
see, and our ears did hear, and our hands did handle’ our divine Pattern
and then He ascended into Heaven, but, in His great mercy He has left a
book wherein in clear, enduring pigments are limned the pictures of His
life, that we too might be furnished with patterns for our broidery. Read
the Gospels, dear child, read them diligently, and, above all, hearken to
them when they are read in the presence of the Host, for at such times
the operation of their virtue is most sure.’

She paused, and then, as if following up some hidden line of thought,
continued:—

‘Sometimes it has seemed to me that even sin couches mercy. Grace has
been instrumental to great sins blossoming into great virtues, and——’

‘Thus, one might say, “Blessed are the proud, for they shall become meek;
blessed are the concupiscent, for they shall become pure of heart,”’
eagerly interposed Madeleine, her eyes bright with pleasure over the
paradox.

‘Perhaps,’ said Mère Agnès, smiling a little. ‘I am glad you are so well
acquainted with the Sermon on the Mount. As I have said, there is no
instrument apter to the acquiring of grace than a diligent reading of
the Gospels; the late Bishop of Geneva was wont to insist on this with
my sister and myself. But bear in mind the consent and union of design
between the holy Life on earth and the divine existence in Eternity, if
one is pricked out with love and justice, so also is the other. We should
endeavour to read the Gospels with the apocalyptic eye of Saint John, for
it was the peculiar virtue of this Evangelist that in the narration of
particulars he never permitted the immersion of generals. The action of
his Gospel is set in Eternity. I have ever held that Spanish Catholicism
and the teaching of the Jesuit Fathers are wont to deal too narrowly with
particulars, whereas our own great teachers—I speak in all veneration
and humility—Doctor Jansen, nay, even our excellent and beloved Saint
Cyran, in that their souls were like to huge Cherubim, stationary before
the Throne of God, were apt to ignore the straitness of most mortal
minds, and to demand that their disciples should reach with one leap of
contemplation the very heart of eternity instead of leading them there by
the gentle route of Jesus’ diurnal acts on earth.’

She paused. Madeleine’s cheeks were flushed, and her eyes bright. She
had completely yielded to the charm of Mère Agnès’s personality and to
the hypnotic sway of the rich, recondite phraseology which the Arnaulds
proudly called ‘_la langue de notre maison_.’

‘By what sign can we recognise true grace?’ she asked, after some moments
of silence.

‘I think its mark is an appetite of fire for the refection of spiritual
things. Thus, if an angel appeared to you, bearing in one hand a
cornucopia of earthly blessings, and in the other, holiness—not, mind,
certain salvation, but just holiness—and bade you make your choice,
without one moment of hesitation you would choose holiness. Which would
_you_ choose?’ and she looked at Madeleine gently and rather whimsically.

‘I would choose the cornucopia,’ said Madeleine in a low voice.

There was a pause, and then with a very tender light in her eyes,
Mère Agnès said: ‘I wish you could become acquainted with one of
our young sisters—Sœur Jacqueline de Sainte-Euphémie Pascal—but she
is at Port-Royal des Champs. She was born with every grace of the
understanding, and affections most sensible to earthly joys and vanities,
but in her sacrifice she has been as unflinching as Abraham. Hers is a
rare spirit.’

Madeleine felt a sudden wave of jealousy pass over her for this paragon.

‘What is her age?’ she asked resentfully.

‘Sœur Jacqueline de Sainte-Euphémie? She must be in her twenty-eighth
year, I should say. Courage, you have yet many years in which to overtake
her,’ and she looked at Madeleine with considerable amusement. With the
intuitive insight, which from time to time flashed across her habitual
abstractedness, she had divined the motive of Madeleine’s question.

‘When she was twelve years old,’ she went on, ‘she was smitten by the
smallpox, which shore her of all her comeliness. On her recovery she
wrote some little verses wherein she thanked God that He had spared her
life and taken her beauty. Could _you_ have done that? Alas, when I was
young I came exceeding short of it in grace. I mind me, when I was some
ten years old, being deeply incensed against God, in that He had not
made me “Madame de France”! My soul was a veritable well of vanity and
_amour-propre_.’

‘So is mine!’ cried Madeleine, with eager pride.

Again Mère Agnès looked much amused.

‘My child, ’tis a strange cause for pride! And bear in mind, I am the
_last_ creature to take as your pattern. No one more grievously than I
did ever fall away from the Grace of Baptism. Since when, notwithstanding
all the privileges and opportunities of religion afforded by a cloistered
life and the conversation of the greatest divines of our day, I have not
weaned myself from the habit of sinning. But one thing I _have_ attained
by the instrument of Grace, and that is a “hunger and thirst after
righteousness” that springs from the very depths of my soul. I tell you
this, that you may be of good courage, for, believe me, my soul was of an
exceeding froward and inductile complexion.’

‘Did you always love Our Lord with a direct and particular love?’
Madeleine asked.

‘I cannot call to mind the time when I did not. Do you love Him thus?’

‘No.’

‘Well, so senseless and ungrateful is our natural state that even love
for Christ, which would seem as natural and spontaneous a motion of our
being as is a child’s love of its mother, is absent from our hearts,
before the operation of Grace. But, come, you are a Madeleine, are you
not? A Madeleine who cannot love! The Church has ordained that all
Christians should bear the name of a saint whom they should imitate
in his or her particular virtue. And the virtue particular to Saint
Madeleine was that she “loved much.” Forget not your great patron saint
in your devotions and she will intercede for you. And in truth when I was
young, I was wont to struggle against my love for Him and tried to flee
from Him with an eagerness as great as that with which I do now pursue
Him. And I think, dear child, ’twill fall out thus with you.’

Madeleine was deeply moved. Mère Agnès’s words, like the tales of a
traveller, had stirred in her soul a _wanderlust_. It felt the lure of
the Narrow Way, and was longing to set off on its pilgrimage. For the
moment, she did not shrink from “the love of invisible things,” but would
actually have welcomed the ghostly, ravishing arms.

‘Oh, tell me, tell me, what I can do to be holy?’ she cried imploringly.

‘You can do nothing, my child, but “watch and pray.” It lies not in _us_
to be holy. Except our soul be watered by Grace, it is as barren as the
desert, but be of good cheer, for some day the “desert shall blossom like
the rose.” “Watch and pray” and _desire_, for sin is but the flagging
of the desire for holiness. Grace will change your present fluctuating
motions towards holiness into an adamant of desire that neither the
tools of earth can break nor the chemistry of Hell resolve. Pray without
ceasing for Grace, dear child, and I will pray for you too. And if, after
a searching examination of your soul, you are sensible of being in the
state necessary to the acceptance of the Blessed Sacrament, a mysterious
help will be given you of which I cannot speak. Have courage, all things
are possible to Grace.’

With tears in her eyes, Madeleine thanked her and bade her good-bye.

As she walked down the rue Saint-Jacques, the tall, delicately wrought
gates of the Colleges were slowly clanging behind the little unwilling
votaries of Philosophy and Grammar, but the other inhabitants of the
neighbourhood were just beginning to enjoy themselves, and all was
noise and colour. Old Latin songs, sung perhaps by Abelard and Thomas
Aquinas, mingled with the latest ditty of the Pont-Neuf. Here, a
half-tipsy theologian was expounding to a harlot the Jesuits’ theory of
‘Probabilism,’ there a tiny page was wrestling with a brawny quean from
the _Halles aux vins_. Bells were pealing from a score of churches; in a
dozen different keys viols and lutes and guitars were playing sarabands;
hawkers were crying their wares, valets were swearing; and there were
scarlet cloaks and green jerkins and yellow hose. And all the time that
quiet artist, the evening light of Paris, was softening the colours,
flattening the architecture, and giving to the whole scene an aspect
remote, classical, unreal.

Down the motley street marched Madeleine with unseeing eyes, a passionate
prayer for grace walling up in her heart.

Then she thought of Mère Agnès herself. Her rôle of a wise teacher,
exhorting young disciples from suave spiritual heights, seemed to her
a particularly pleasant one. Though genuinely humble, she was _very_
grown-up. How delightful to be able to smile in a tender amused way at
the confessions of youth, and to call one “dear child” in a deep, soft
voice, without being ridiculous!

Ere she had reached the Porte Saint-Jacques she was murmuring over some
of Mère Agnès’s words, but it was not Mère Agnès who was saying them,
but she herself to Madame de Rambouillet’s granddaughter when grown up.
A tender smile hovered on her lips, her eyes alternately twinkled and
filled with tears: ‘Courage, dear child, I have experienced it all, I
know, I know!’




CHAPTER XVII

‘HYLAS, THE MOCKING SHEPHERD’


She reached home eager to tell them all about her visit.

Her father and Jacques were playing at spillikins and her mother was
spinning.

‘She is a marvellous personage,’ she cried out, ‘her sanctity is almost
corporeal and subject to sense. And she has the most fragrant humility,
she talked of herself as though there were no more froward and wicked
creature on the earth than she!’

‘Maybe there is not!’ said Jacques, and Monsieur Troqueville chuckled
delightedly. Madeleine flushed and her lips grew tight.

‘Do not be foolish, Jacques. The whole world acknowledges her to be an
exceeding pious and holy woman,’ said Madame Troqueville, with a warning
glance at Jacques, which seemed to say: ‘In the name of Heaven, forbear!
This new _vision_ of the child’s is tenfold less harmful and fantastical
than the other.’

Madeleine watched Jacques grimacing triumphantly at her father as he
deftly extricated spillikin after spillikin. He was entirely absorbed in
the idiotic game. How could one be serious and holy with such a frivolous
companion?

‘Pray tell us more of Mère Agnès, my sweet. What were her opening words?’
said Madame Troqueville, trying to win Madeleine back to good humour, but
Madeleine’s only answer was a cold shrug.

For one thing, without her permission they were playing with _her_
spillikins. She had a good mind to snatch them away from them! And how
dare Jacques be so at home in _her_ house? He said he was in love with
her, did he? Yet her entry into the room did not for one moment distract
his attention from spillikins.

‘Yes, tell us more of her Christian humility,’ said Jacques, as he drew
away the penultimate spillikin. ‘I’ll fleece you of two crowns for that,’
he added in an aside to Monsieur Troqueville.

‘They are all alike in that,’ he went on, ‘humility is part of their
inheritance from the early Christians, who, being Jews and slaves and
such vermin, had needs be humble except they wished to be crucified by
the Romans for impudence. And though their creeping homilies have never
ousted the fine old Roman virtue pride, yet pious Christians do still
affect humility, and ’tis a stinking pander to——’

‘Jacques, Jacques,’ expostulated Madame Troqueville, and Monsieur
Troqueville, shaking his head, and blowing out his cheeks, said severely:—

‘Curb your tongue, my boy! You do but show your ignorance. Humility is a
most excellent virtue, if it were not, then why was it preached by Our
Lord? Resolve me in that!’ and he glared triumphantly at Jacques.

‘Why, uncle, when you consider the base origin of——’

‘Jacques, I beseech you, no more!’ interposed Madame Troqueville, very
gently but very firmly, so Jacques finished his sentence in a comic
grimace.

After a pause, he remarked, ‘Chapuzeau retailed to me the other day a
_naïveté_ he had heard in a monk’s Easter sermon. The monk had said that
inasmuch as near all the most august events in the Scriptures had had a
mountain for their setting, it followed that no one could lead a truly
holy life in a valley, and from this premise he deduced——’

‘In that _naïveté_ there is a spice of truth,’ Monsieur Troqueville cut
in, in a serious, interested voice. ‘I mind me, when I was a young man, I
went to the Pyrenees, where my spirit was much vexed by the sense of my
own sinfulness.’

‘I’ faith, it must have been but hypochondria, there can have been no
true cause for remorse,’ said Jacques innocently.

Monsieur Troqueville looked at him suspiciously, cleared his throat, and
went on: ‘I mind me, I would pass whole nights in tears and prayer, until
at last there was revealed to me a strange and excellent truth, to wit,
that the spirit is immune against the sins of the flesh. To apprehend
this truth is a certain balm to the conscience, and, as I said, ’twas on
a mountain that it was revealed to me,’ and he looked round with solemn
triumph.

Madame Troqueville and Madeleine exchanged glances of unutterable
contempt and boredom, but Jacques wagged his head and said gravely that
it was a mighty convenient truth.

‘Ay, is it not? Is it not?’ cried Monsieur Troqueville, his eyes almost
starting out of his head with eagerness, triumph, and hope of further
praise. ‘Many a time and oft have I drawn comfort from it.’

‘I have ever held you to be a Saint Augustin _manqué_, uncle. When you
have leisure, you would do well to write your confessions—they would
afford most excellent and edifying reading,’ and Jacques’s eyes as he
said this were glittering slits of wickedness.

After supper the two, mumbling some excuse about an engagement to
friends, put on their cloaks and went out, and Madeleine, wishing to be
alone with her thoughts, went to her own room.

She recalled Mère Agnès’s words, and, as they had lain an hour or so
dormant in her mind, they came out tinted with the colour of her desires.
Why, what was her exhortation to see behind the ‘particulars’ of the
Gospels the ‘generals’ of Eternity, but a vindication of Madeleine’s own
method of sanctifying her love for Mademoiselle de Scudéry by regarding
it as a symbol of her love of Christ? Yes, Mère Agnès had implicitly
advised the making of a Robert Pilou screen. _Profane history told by
means of sacred woodcuts becomes sacred history_, was, in Mère Agnès’s
words, to read history ‘with the apocalyptic eye of Saint John,’ it was
to see ‘generals’ behind ‘particulars.’

But supposing ... supposing the ‘generals’ should come crashing through
the ‘particulars,’ like a river in spate that bursts its dam? And
supposing God were to relieve her of her labour? In the beginning of
time, He—the Dürer of the skies—on cubes of wood, hewn from the seven
trees of Paradise, had cut in pitiless relief the story of the human
soul. The human soul, pursuing a desire that ever evades its grasp, while
behind it, swift, ineluctable, speed ‘invisible things,’ their hands
stretched out to seize it by the hair.

What if from the design cut on these cubes he were to engrave the
pictures of her life, that, gummed with holy resin on the screen of the
heavens, they might show forth to men in ‘particulars proportioned to
their finite minds,’ the ‘generals’ cut by the finger of God?

Mère Agnès had said: ‘I was wont to struggle against my love for Him
with an eagerness as great as that with which I do now pursue Him. And
I think, dear child, ’twill fall out thus with you.’ ‘Who flees, she
shall pursue; who spurns gifts, she shall offer them; who loves not,
willy-nilly she shall love.’ Was the Sapphic Ode an assurance, not that
one day Mademoiselle de Scudéry would love her, but that she herself
would one day love Christ? What if she had read the omens wrong, what
if they all pointed to the Heavenly Rape? How could she ever have
dreamed that grace would be the caterer for her earthly desires—Grace,
the gadfly, goading the elect willy-nilly along the grim Roman road of
redemption that, undeviating and ruthless, cuts through forests, pierces
mountains, and never so much as skirts the happy meadows? That she
herself was one of the elect, she was but too sure.

‘_Sortir du siècle_’—where had she heard the expression? Oh, of course!
It was in _La Fréquente Communion_, and was used for the embracing of the
monastic life. The alternative offered to Gennadius had been to ‘sortir
du siècle ou de subir le joug de la pénitence publique.’ Madeleine
shuddered ... either, by dropping out of this witty, gallant century,
to forgo the _vitæ munus_ or else ... to suffer public humiliation ...
could she bear another public humiliation such as the one at the Hôtel de
Rambouillet? Her father had been humiliated before Ariane ... Jacques had
been partly responsible.... _Hylas, hélas!_ ... the Smithy of Vulcan ...
was she going mad?

In the last few hours by some invisible cannon a breach had been made in
her faith.




CHAPTER XVIII

A DISAPPOINTMENT


By Friday, Madeleine was in a fever of nervousness. In the space of
twenty-four hours, she would know God’s policy with regard to herself.
Oh! could He not be made to realise that to deprive her of just this one
thing she craved for would be a fatal mistake? Until she was _sure_ of
the love of Mademoiselle de Scudéry she had no energy or emotion to spare
for other things. She reverted to her old litany:—‘Blessed Virgin, Mother
of our Lord, give me the friendship of Mademoiselle de Scudéry,’ and so
on, which she repeated dozens of times on end.

_This time to-morrow it would have happened; she would know about
it all._ Oh, how could she escape from remembering this, and the
impossibility of fitting a dream into time? Any agony would be better
than this sitting gazing at the motionless curtain of twenty-four hours
that lay between herself and her fate. Oh, for the old days at Lyons!
Then, she had had the whole of Eternity in which to hope; now, she had
only twenty-four hours, for in their hard little hands lay the whole of
time; before and after lay Eternity.

Madame Troguin had looked in in the morning and chattered of the
extravagance of the Précieuses of her quarter. One young lady, for
instance, imagined herself madly enamoured of Céladon of the _Astrée_,
and had been found in the attire of a shepherdess sitting by the Seine,
and weeping bitterly.

‘I am glad that our girls have some sense, are not you?’ she had said to
Madame Troqueville, who had replied with vehement loyalty to Madeleine,
that she was indeed. ‘They say that Mademoiselle de Scudéry—the writer
of romances—is the fount of all these _visions_. She has no fortune
whatever, I believe, albeit her influence is enormous both at the Court
and in the Town.’

Any reference to Sappho’s eminence had a way of setting Madeleine’s
longing madly ablaze. This remark rolled over and over in her mind, and
it burnt more furiously every minute. She rushed to her room and groaned
with longing, then fell on her knees and prayed piteously, passionately:—

‘Give me the friendship of Mademoiselle de Scudéry. Give it me, dear
Christ, take everything else, but _give me that_.’ And indeed this
longing had swallowed up all the others from which it had grown—desire
for a famous _ruelle_, for a reputation for _esprit_, for the entrée
to the fashionable world. She found herself (in imagination) drawing a
picture to Sappho of the Indian Islands and begging her to fly there with
her.

At last Saturday came, and with it, at about ten in the morning, a valet
carrying a letter addressed to Madeleine in a small, meticulous writing.
It ran thus:—

    ‘MADEMOISELLE,—A malady so tedious and unpoetical, that had it
    not been given the entrée to the society of _les mots honnêtes_
    by being mentioned by several Latin poets, and having by its
    intrinsic nature a certain claim to royalty, for it shares
    with the Queen the power of granting “Le Tabouret”; a malady,
    I say, which were it not for these saving graces I would never
    dare to mention to one who like yourself embodies its two
    most powerful enemies—Youth and Beauty—has taken me prisoner.
    Mademoiselle’s quick wit has already, doubtless, solved my
    little enigma and told herself with a tear, I trust, rather
    than a dimple, that the malady which has so cruelly engaged me
    to my chair is called—and it must indeed have been a stoic that
    thus named it!—La Goutte! Rarely has this unwelcome guest timed
    his visit with a more tantalising inopportuneness, or has shown
    himself more ungallant than to-day when he keeps a poor poet
    from the inspiration of beauty and beauty from its true mate,
    wit. But over one circumstance at least it bears no sway: that
    circumstance is that I remain, Mademoiselle, Your sincere and
    humble servitor,

                                                         ‘CONRART.’

In all this fustian Madeleine’s ‘quick wit’ did not miss the fact that
lay buried in it, hard and sharp, that she was not to be taken to
Mademoiselle de Scudéry’s that afternoon. She laughed. It had so palpably
been all along the only possible climax. Of course. This moment had
always been part of her sum of experience. All her life, her prayers, and
placations had been but the remedies of a man with a mortal disease. As
often in moments of intense suffering, she was struck by the strangeness
of being contained by the four walls of a room, queer things were behind
these walls, she felt, if she could only penetrate them.

Berthe ambled in under pretext of fetching something, looking _espiègle_
and inquisitive.

‘Good news, Mademoiselle?’ she asked. But Madeleine growled at her like
an angry animal, and with lips stretched from her teeth, driving her
nails into her palms, she tore into her own room.

Once there, she burst into a passion of tears, banging her head against
the wall and muttering, ‘I hate God, I hate God!’ So He considered, did
He, that ‘no one could resist the workings of the inward Grace’? Pish
for the arrogant theory; _she_ would disprove it, once and for all.
Jacques was right. He was a wicked and a cruel God. All the Jansenist
casuistry was incapable of saving Him from the diabolic injustice
involved in the First Proposition:—

    ‘Some of God’s Commandments it is impossible for the just to
    fulfil.’

In plain words, the back is _not_ made for the burden. Oh, the
cold-blooded torturer! And the Jansenists with their intransigeant
consistency, their contempt of compromise, were worthy of their terrible
Master.

So, forsooth, He imagined that by plucking, feather by feather, the
wings of her hopes, He could win her, naked and bleeding, to Him and His
service? She would prove Him wrong, she would rescind His decrees and
resolve the chain of predestination. No, _her_ soul would never be ‘tamed
with frets and weariness,’ _she_ would never ‘pursue, nor offer gifts,’
and, willy-nilly, _she_ would never love, from the design on His cubes of
wood no print of _her_ life would be taken.

And then the sting of the disappointment pricked her afresh, and again
she burst into a passion of tears.

Pausing for breath, she caught sight of the Crucifix above her bed. A
feeling of actual physical loathing seized her for her simpering Saviour,
with His priggish apophthegms and His horrid Cross to which He took such
a delight in nailing other people. She tore down the Crucifix, and made
her fingers ache in her attempt to break it. And then, with an ingenuity
which in ordinary circumstances she never applied to practical details,
she broke it in the door.

A smothered laugh disclosed Berthe crouching by the wall, her face more
than usually suggestive of a comic mask. Madeleine was seized by a
momentary fear lest she should prove a spy of the sinister ‘Compagnie
du Saint-Sacrement’—that pack of spiritual bloodhounds that ran all
heretics relentlessly to earth—and she remembered with a shudder the
fate of Claude Petit and le Sieur d’Aubreville. But after all, _nothing_
could hurt her now, so she flung the broken fragments in her face and
‘_tutoied_’ her back to the kitchen.

She went and looked at her face in the glass. Her eyes were tired and
swollen and heavy, and she noted with pleasure the tragic look in them.
Then a sense of the catastrophe broke over her again in all its previous
force and she flung herself upon her bed and once more sobbed and sobbed.

Madame Troqueville, when she came in laden with fish and vegetables
from the Halles, was told by Berthe with mysterious winks that she had
better go to Mademoiselle Madeleine. She was not in the least offended by
Madeleine’s unwonted treatment of her, and too profoundly cynical to be
shocked by her sacrilege or impressed by her misery. With a chuckle for
youth’s intenseness she had shuffled silently back to her work.

Madame Troqueville flew to Madeleine. Her entry was Madeleine’s cue for a
fresh outburst. She would not be cheated of her due of crying and pity;
she owed herself many, many more tears.

Madame Troqueville took her in her arms in an agony of anxiety. At first
Madeleine kicked and screamed, irritated at the possibility of her mother
trying to alleviate the facts. Then she yielded to the comfort of her
presence and sobbed out that Conrart could not take her to Mademoiselle
de Scudéry.

How gladly would Madame Troqueville have accepted this explanation at its
face value! A disappointment about a party was such a poignant sorrow in
youth and one to which all young people were subject. But although she
welcomed hungrily any sign of normality in her child, deep down she knew
that _this_ grief was not normal.

‘But, my angel,’ she began gently, ‘Monsieur Conrart will take you some
other time.’

‘But I can’t wait!’ Madeleine screamed angrily; ‘all my hopes are utterly
miscarried.’

Madame Troqueville smiled, and stroked her hair.

‘’Tis foolish to rouse one’s spleen, and waste one’s strength over
trifles, for ’twill not make nor mend them, and it works sadly on your
health.’

Madeleine had been waiting for this. She ground her teeth and gave a
series of short, sharp screams of tearless rage.

‘For my sake, my angel, for my sake, forbear!’ implored her mother.

‘I shall scream and scream all my life,’ she hissed. ‘’Tis my concern and
no one else’s. Ba-ah, ou-ow,’ and it ended off in a series of shrill,
nervous, persistent ‘ee’s.’

Madame Troqueville sighed wearily, and sat silent for some minutes.

There was a lull in the sobbing, and then Madame Troqueville began,
very gently, ‘Dear, dear child, if you could but learn the great art of
_indifference_. I know that....’

But Madeleine interrupted with a shrill scream of despair.

‘Hush, dear one, hush! Oh, my pretty one, if I could but make life for
you, but ’tis not in my power. All I can do is to love you. But if only
you would believe me ... hush! my sweet, let me say my say ... if _only_
you would believe me, to cultivate indifference is the one means of
handselling life.’

‘But I _can’t_!’

‘Try, my dearest heart, try. My dear, I have but little to give you _in
any way_, for I cannot help you with religion, in that—you may think
this strange, and it may be wicked—I have always had but little faith in
these matters; and I am not wise nor learned, so I cannot help you with
the balm of Philosophy, which they say is most powerful to heal, but one
thing I have learned and that is to be supremely indifferent—in _most_
matters. Oh, dear treasure....’

‘But I _want_, I _want_, I _want_ things!’ cried Madeleine.

Madame Troqueville smiled sadly, and for some moments sat in silence,
stroking Madeleine’s hair, then she began tentatively,—

‘At times I feel ... that “_petite-oie_,” as you called it, frightened
me, my sweet. It caused me to wonder if you were not apt to throw away
matters of moment for foolish trifles. Do you remember how you pleased
old Madame Pilou by telling her that she was not like the dog in the
fable, that lost its bone by trying to get its reflection, well....’

‘I said it because I thought it would please her, one must needs talk
in a homely, rustic fashion to such people. Oh, let me be! let me be!’
To have her own words used against her was more than she could bear;
besides, her mother had suggested, by the way she had spoken, that there
was more behind this storm than mere childish disappointment at the
postponement of a party, and Madeleine shrank from her obsession being
known. I think she feared that it was, perhaps, rather ridiculous.

Madame Troqueville gazed at her anxiously for some minutes, and then
said,—

‘I wonder if _Sirop de Roses_ is a strong enough purge for you. Perhaps
you need another course of steel in wine; and I have heard this new
remedy they call “Orviétan” is an excellent infusion, I saw some in the
rue Dauphine at the Sign of the Sun. I will send Berthe at once to get
you some.’




CHAPTER XIX

THE PLEASURES OF DESPAIR


The disappointment had indeed been a shattering blow, and its effects
lasted much longer than the failure at the Hôtel de Rambouillet.
For then her vanity or, which is the same thing, her instinct of
self-preservation, had not allowed her to acknowledge that she had been
a social failure. But this disappointment was a hard fact against whose
fabric saving fancy beat its wings in vain. Sometimes she would play with
the thought of suicide, but would shrink back from it as the final blow
to all her hopes. For, supposing she should wake up in the other world,
and find the old longing gnawing still, like Céladon, when he wakes up
in the Palace of Galathée? She would picture herself floating invisible
round Mademoiselle de Scudéry, unable to leave any footprint on her
consciousness, and although this had a certain resemblance to her present
state, as long as they were both in this world, there must always be a
little hope. And then, supposing that the first knowledge that flashed
on her keener, freer senses when she had died was that if only she had
persevered a year longer, perhaps only a month longer, the friendship
of Mademoiselle de Scudéry would have been hers! She took some comfort
from the clammy horror of the thought. For, after all, as long as she was
alive there must always be left a few grains of hope ... while _she_ was
alive ... but what if one night she should be wakened by the ringing of a
bell in the street, and running to the window see by the uncertain light
of the lantern he held in one hand, a _macabre_ figure, looking like one
of the Kings in the pack of cards with which Death plays against Life for
mortal men, the stiff folds of his old-world garment embroidered with
skulls and tears and cross-bones! And what would he be singing as he rang
his bell?:—

‘Priez Dieu pour l’âme de la Demoiselle de Scudéry qui vient de
trépasser.’

Vient de trépasser! Lying stiff and cold and lonely, and Madeleine had
never been able to tell her that she loved her.

Good God! There were awful possibilities!

She was haunted, too, by the fear that God had _not_ deserted her, but
had resolved in His implacable way that willy-nilly she must needs
eventually receive His bitter gift of Salvation. That, struggle though
she would, she would be slowly, grimly weaned from all that was sweet and
desirable, and then in the twinkling of an eye caught up ‘to the love of
Invisible Things.’ ‘One cannot resist the inward Grace;’ well, she, at
least, would put up a good fight.

Then a wave of intense self-pity would break over her that the
all-powerful God, who by raising His hand could cause the rivers to
flow backwards to their sources, the sun to drop into the sea, when she
approached Him with her prayer for the friendship of a poverty-stricken
authoress—a prayer so paltry that it could be granted by an almost
unconscious tremble of His will, by an effort scarcely strong enough
to cause an Autumn leaf to fall—that this God should send her away
empty-handed and heart-broken.

Yes, it was but a small thing she wanted, but how passionately, intensely
she wanted it.

If things had gone as she had hoped, she would by now be known all over
the town as the incomparable Sappho’s most intimate friend. In the
morning she would go to her _ruelle_ and they would discuss the lights
and shades of their friendship; in the afternoon she would drive with her
in le Cours la Reine, where all could note the happy intimacy between
them; in the evening Sappho would read her what she had written that day,
and to each, life would grow daily richer and sweeter. But actually she
had been half a year in Paris and she and Sappho had not yet exchanged
a word. No, the trials of Céladon and Phaon and other heroes of romance
could not be compared to this, for they from the first possessed the
_estime_ of their ladies, and so what mattered the plots of rivals or
temporary separations? What mattered even misunderstandings and quarrels?
When one of the lovers in _Cyrus_ is asked if there is something amiss
between him and his mistress, he answers sadly:—

    ‘Je ne pense pas Madame que j’y sois jamais assez bien pour y
    pouvoir être mal.’

and that was her case—the hardest case of all. In the old sanguine days
at Lyons, when the one obstacle seemed to be that of space, what would
she have said if she had been told how far away she would still be from
her desire after half a year in Paris?

One day, when wandering unhappily about the Île Notre-Dame, with eyes
blind to the sobriety and majestic sweep of life that even the ignoble
crowd of litigants and hawkers was unable to arrest in that island that
is at once so central and so remote, she had met Marguerite Troguin
walking with her tire-woman and a girl friend. She had come up to
Madeleine and had told her with a giggle that they had secretly been
buying books at the Galerie du Palais. ‘They are stowed away in there,’
she whispered, pointing to the large market-basket carried by the
tire-woman, ‘Sercy’s _Miscellany of Verse_, and the _Voyage à la Lune_,
and the _Royaume de Coquetterie_; if my mother got wind of it she’d
burn the books and send me to bed,’ at which the friend giggled and the
tire-woman smiled discreetly.

‘They told us at Quinet’s that the first volume of a new romance by
Mademoiselle de Scudéry is shortly to appear. Oh, the pleasure I take
in _Cyrus_, ’tis the prettiest romance ever written!’ Marguerite cried
rapturously. ‘I have heard it said that Sappho in the Sixth volume is a
portrait of herself, I wonder if ’tis true.’

‘It is, indeed, and an excellent portrait at that, save that the original
is ten times wittier and more _galante_,’ Madeleine found herself
answering with an important air, touched with condescension.

‘Are you acquainted with her?’ the two girls asked in awed voices.

‘Why, yes, I am well acquainted with her, she has asked me to attend her
_Samedis_.’

And afterwards she realised with a certain grim humour that could she
have heard this conversation when she was at Lyons she would have
concluded that all had gone as she had hoped.

During this time she did not dance, because that would be a confession
that hope was not dead. That it should be dead she was firmly resolved,
seeing that, although genuinely miserable, she took a pleasure in nursing
this misery as carefully as she had nursed the atmosphere of her second
_coup de grâce_. By doing so, she felt that she was hurting something
or some one—what or who she could not have said—but something outside
herself; and the feeling gave her pleasure. All through this terrible
time she would follow her mother about like a whimpering dog, determined
that she should be spared none of her misery, and Madame Troqueville’s
patience and sympathy were unfailing.

Jacques, too, rose to the occasion. He lost for the time all his
mocking ways, nor would he try to cheer her up with talk of ‘some other
Saturday,’ knowing that it would only sting her into a fresh paroxysm
of despair, but would sit and hold her hand and curse the cruelty of
disappointment. Monsieur Troqueville also realised the gravity of the
situation. On the rare occasions when the fact that some one was unhappy
penetrated through his egotism, he was genuinely distressed. He would
bring her little presents—a Portuguese orange, or some Savoy biscuits,
or a new print—and would repeat over and over again: ‘’Tis a melancholy
business! A melancholy business!’ One day, however, he added gloomily:
‘’Tis the cruellest fate, for these high circles would have been the fit
province for Madeleine and for me,’ at which Madeleine screamed out in
a perfect frenzy: ‘There’s _no_ similarity between him and me! _none!_
NONE! NONE!’ and poor Monsieur Troqueville was hustled out of the room,
while Jacques and her mother assured her that she was not in the least
like her father.

Monsieur Troqueville seemed very happy about something at that time.
Berthe told Madeleine that she had found hidden in a chest, a _galant_ of
ribbons, a pair of gay garters, an embroidered handkerchief, and a cravat.

‘He is wont to peer at them when Madame’s back is turned, and, to speak
truth, he seems as proud of them as Mademoiselle was of the bravery
she bought at the Fair!’ and she went on to say that by successful
eavesdropping she had discovered that he had won them as a wager.

‘It seems that contrary to the expectations of his comrades he has taken
the fancy of a pretty maid! He! He! Monsieur’s a rare scoundrel!’ but
Madeleine seemed to take no interest in the matter.

The only thing in which she found a certain relief was in listening to
Berthe’s tales about her home. Berthe could talk by the hour about the
sayings and doings of her young brothers and sisters, to whom she was
passionately devoted. And Madeleine could listen for hours, for Berthe
was so remote from her emotionally that she felt no compulsion to din her
with her own misery, and she felt no rights on her sympathy, as she did
on her mother’s, whom she was determined should not be spared a crumb of
her own anguish. In her childhood, her imagination had been fascinated by
an object in the house of an old lady they had known. It was a small box,
in which was a tiny grotto, made of moss and shells and little porcelain
flowers, out of which peeped a variegated porcelain fauna—tiny foxes and
squirrels and geese, and blue and green birds; beside a glass Jordan, on
which floated little boats, stood a Christ and Saint John the Baptist,
and over their heads there hung from a wire a white porcelain dove. To
many children smallness is a quality filled with romance, and Madeleine
used to crave to walk into this miniature world and sail away, away,
away, down the glass river to find the tiny cities that she felt sure lay
hidden beyond the grotto; in Berthe’s stories she felt a similar charm
and lure.

She would tell how her little brother Albert, when minding the sheep of a
stern uncle, fell asleep one hot summer afternoon, and on waking up found
that two of the lambs were missing.

‘Then, poor, pretty man, he fell to crying bitterly, for any loss to his
pocket my uncle takes but ill, when lo! on a sudden, there stood before
him a damsel of heroic stature, fair as the _fleurs de lys_ on a royal
banner, in antic tire and her hair clipped short like a lad’s, and quoth
she, smiling: “Petit paysan, voilà tes agneaux!” and laying the two lost
lambs by his side, she vanished. And in telling what had befallen him he
called her just “the good Shepherdess,” but the _curé_ said she could be
no other than Jeanne, la Pucelle, plying, as in the days before she took
to arms, the business of a shepherdess.’

Then she would tell of the little, far-away inn kept by her father,
with its changing, motley company; of the rustic mirth on the _Nuit des
Rois_; of games of Colin-maillard in the garret sweet with the smell of
apples; of winter nights round the fire when tales were told of the Fairy
Magloire, brewer of love-potions; of the _sotret_, the fairy barber of
Lorraine, who curled the hair of maidens for wakes and marriages, or (if
the _curé_ happened to drop in) more guileless legends of the pretty
prowess of the _petit Jésus_.

Madeleine saw it all as if through the wrong end of a telescope—tiny and
far-away.




CHAPTER XX

FRESH HOPE


One afternoon Madame Troqueville called Madeleine in an eager voice.
Madeleine listlessly came to her.

‘I have a piece of news for you,’ she said, looking at her with smiling
eyes.

‘What is it?... Doubtless some one has invited us to a Comedy,’ she said
wearily.

‘No! I came back by the Île and there I chanced on Monsieur Conrart
walking with a friend’—Madeleine went deadly white—‘And I went up and
accosted him. He has such a good-natured look! I told him how grievously
chagrined you had been when his project came to naught of driving you to
wait upon Mademoiselle de Scudéry, indeed I told him it had worked on you
so powerfully you had fallen ill.’

‘You didn’t! Oh! Oh! Oh! ’Tis not possible you told him that!’ wailed
Madeleine, her eyes suddenly filling with tears.

‘But come, my dear heart, where was the harm?’ Madeleine covered her face
with her hands and writhed in nervous agony, giving little short, sharp
moans.

‘Oh! Oh! I would liefer have _died_.’

‘Come, my heart, don’t be so fantastical, he was so concerned about it,
and you haven’t yet heard the pleasantest part of my news!’

‘What?’ asked Madeleine breathlessly, while wild hopes darted through her
mind, such as Mademoiselle de Scudéry having confessed a secret passion
for her to Conrart.

‘This Saturday, he is coming in his coach to fetch you to wait on her!’

Madeleine received the news with a welter of different emotions—wriggling
self-consciousness, mortification at the thought of Conrart knowing, and
perhaps telling Mademoiselle de Scudéry, how much she cared, excitement
bubbling up through apprehension, premature shyness, and a little regret
for having to discard her misery, to which she had become thoroughly
accustomed. She trembled with excitement, but did not speak.

‘Are you pleased?’ her mother asked, taking her hands. She felt rather
proud of herself, for she disliked taking the field even more than
Madeleine did, and she had had to admonish herself sharply before making
up her mind to cross the road and throw herself on Conrart’s mercy.

‘Oh! yes ... yes ... I think I am,’ and Madeleine laughed nervously.
Then she kissed her mother and ran away. In a few minutes she came back
looking as if she wanted to say something.

‘What’s amiss, my dear life?’ Madeleine drew a hissing breath through her
teeth and shut her eyes, blushing crimson.

‘Er ... did ... er ... did he seem to find it odd, what you told him
about my falling ill, and all that?’

‘Dearest heart, here is no matter for concern. You see I was constrained
to make mention of your health that it should so work on his pity that he
should feel constrained to acquit himself towards you and——’

‘Yes, but what did you say?’

‘I said _naught_, my dear, that in any way he could take ill. I did but
acquaint him with the eagerness with which you had awaited the visit and
with the bitterness of your chagrin when you heard it was not to be.’

‘But I thought you said that you’d said somewhat concerning—er—my making
myself ill?’

‘Well, and what if I did? You little goose, you——’

‘Yes, but what did you say?’

‘How can I recall my precise words? But I give you my word they were such
that none could take amiss.’

‘Oh! But _what_ did you say?’ Madeleine’s face was all screwed up with
nerves, and she twisted her fingers.

‘Oh! Madeleine, dear!’ sighed her mother wearily. ‘What a pother about
nothing! I said that chagrin had made you quite ill, and he was moved to
compassion. Was there aught amiss in that?’

‘Oh, no, doubtless not. But ... er ... I hope he won’t acquaint
Mademoiselle de Scudéry with the extent of my chagrin!’

‘Well, and what if he did? She would in all likelihood be greatly
flattered!’

‘Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! do you think he will? I’d _kill_ myself if I thought he
had!’

Madame Troqueville gave up trying to reduce Madeleine’s emotions to
reason, and said soothingly, ‘I’m certain, my dearest, he’ll do nothing
of the kind, I dare swear it has already escaped his memory.’ And
Madeleine was comforted.

She ran into her own room, her emotions all in a whirl, and flung herself
on her bed.

Then she sprang up, and, after all these leaden-footed weeks, she was
again dancing.




PART III

    Ainsi de ce désir que le primitif croyait être une des forces
    de l’univers et d’où il fit sortir tout son panthéon, le
    musulman a fait Allâh, l’être parfait auquel il s’abandonne.
    De même que le primitif logeait dans la cuiller promenée
    processionnellement son désir de voir l’eau abreuver la
    terre, ainsi le musulman croit qu’Allâh réalise la perfection
    en dehors de lui. Sous une forme plus abstraite l’argument
    ontologique de Descartes conclura de l’idée du parfait à
    son existence, sans s’apercevoir qu’il y a là, non pas un
    raisonnement, un argument, mais une imagination. Et cependant,
    à bien entendre les paroles des grands croyants, c’est en eux
    qu’ils portent ce dieu: il n’est que la conscience de l’effort
    continuel qui est en nous. La grâce du Janséniste n’est autre
    que cet effort intérieur.’

                                        DOUTTÉ—_Magie et Religion_.




CHAPTER XXI

‘WHAT IS CARTESIANISM?’


With the return of hope quite involuntarily Madeleine began once more to
pray. But to whom was she praying? Surely not to the hard, remote God of
the Jansenists, for that, she knew by bitter experience, would avail her
nothing. Jansenism led straight to the ‘Heavenly Rape’; of that she was
convinced. If, as in spite of herself she could not doubt, there was only
one God, and He such a Being as the Jansenists presented Him, then she
must not pray, for prayers only served to remind Him of her existence,
and that He should completely forget her was her only hope of escape from
the ‘ravishing arms.’

But ghostly weapons she _must_ have with which to fight for success
on Saturday. If not prayers, then something she could _do_; if not
the belief in a Divine Ally, then some theory of the universe which
justified her in hoping. For in Madeleine there was this much of
rationalism—perverted and scholastic though it might be—that for her most
fantastic superstitions she always felt the need of a semi-philosophical
basis.

Suddenly she remembered Jacques’s words in the Place Maubert: ‘’Tis
the will that Descartes writes of—a magic sword like to the ones in
_Amadis_.’ To will, was not that the same as to desire? Mère Agnès had
insisted on the importance of desiring. She had talked about the _adamant
of desire that neither the tools of earth can break nor the chemistry of
Hell resolve_. Hours of anguish could testify to that adamant being hers,
but what if the adamant were a talisman, and that in its possession lay
the certainty of success? She must find out about Cartesianism.

She ran into the parlour.

‘Jacques, I would fain learn something of Descartes,’ she cried.

‘Descartes? Oh, he’s the rarest creature! ’Tis reported he never
ceases from sniffling in his nose, and like Allah, he sits clad in a
dressing-gown and makes the world.’

Monsieur Troqueville cocked an eye full of intelligent interest and said,
in his prim company voice: ‘In good earnest, is that so?’ But Madeleine
gave one of Jacques’s ringlets a sharp tweak, and asked indignantly what
he meant by ‘dressing-gowns and Allah.’

‘Why, Allah is the Turk’s God,’ then, seeing that Monsieur Troqueville
with pursed-up lips was frowning and shaking his head with the air of a
judge listening to an over-specious counsel, he added,—

‘Well, uncle, do you lean to a contrary opinion?’

‘All the world is aware that Mohammed is the Turk’s God—_Mohammed_. But
you have ever held opinions eccentric to those of all staid and learned
doctors!’

‘Uncle, I would have you know that _Allah_ is the Turk’s God.’

‘Mohammed!’

‘Allah, I say, and as there is good ground for holding that he is ever
clad in a Turkish dressing-gown, thus....’

‘They dub their God Mohammed,’ roared Monsieur Troqueville, purple in the
face.

‘Mohammed or Allah, ’tis of little moment which. But I would fain learn
something of Descartes’ philosophy,’ said Madeleine wearily.

‘Well,’ began Jacques, delighted to hold forth, ‘’Tis comprised in the
axiom, _cogito, ergo sum_—I think, therefore I am—whence he deduces....’

‘Yes, but is it not he who holds that by due exercise of the will one can
compass what one chooses?’ broke in Madeleine, to the evident delight of
Monsieur Troqueville, for he shot a triumphant glance at Jacques which
seemed to say, ‘she had you there!’

Jacques gave her a strange little look. ‘I fear not,’ he answered dryly;
‘the Will is not the bountiful beneficent Venus of the Sapphic Ode.’
Madeleine’s face fell.

‘’Tis the opinion he holds with regard to the power exercised by the will
over the passions that you had in mind,’ he went on. ‘He holds the will
to be the passions’ lawful king, and though at times ’tis but an English
king pining in banishment, by rallying its forces it can decapitate “_mee
lord protectour_” and re-ascend in triumph the steps of its ancient
throne. This done, ’tis no longer an English king but an Emperor of
Muscovy—so complete and absolute is its sway over the passions.

    ‘Ainsi de vos désirs toujours reine absolue
    De la plus forte ardeur vous portez vos esprits
    Jusqu’à l’indifférence, et peut-être au mépris,
    Et votre fermeté fait succéder sans peine
    La faveur au dédain, et l’amour à la haine.

‘There is a pretty dissertation for you, adorned with a most apt
quotation from Corneille. Why, I could make my fortune in the Ruelles
as a Professor of _philosophie pour les dames_!’ he cried with an
affectionate little _moue_ at Madeleine, restored to complete good humour
by the sound of his own voice. But Madeleine looked vexed, and Monsieur
Troqueville, his eyes starting from his head with triumph, spluttered
out, ‘’Twas from _Polyeucte_, those lines you quoted, and how does
Pauline answer them?

    ‘Ma raison, il est vrai, dompte mes sentiments;
    Mais, quelque authorité que sur eux elle ait prise,
    Elle n’y règne pas, elle les tyrannise,
    Et quoique le dehors soit sans émotion,
    Le dedans n’est que trouble et que sédition.

‘So you see, my young gallant, I know my Corneille as well as you do!’
and he rubbed his hands in glee. ‘“Le dedans n’est que trouble et que
sédition,” how would your old Descartes answer that? ’Tis better surely
to yield to every Passion like a gentleman, than to have a long solemn
face and a score of devils fighting in your heart like a knavish Huguenot
... _hein_, Jacques? _hein?_’ (It was not that Monsieur Troqueville felt
any special dislike to the tenets of Cartesianism in themselves, he
merely wished to prove that Jacques had been talking rubbish.)

‘Well, uncle, there is no need to be so splenetic, ’tis not my
philosophy; ’tis that of Descartes, and though doubtless——’

But Madeleine interrupted a discussion that threatened to wander far away
from the one aspect of the question in which she was interested.

‘If I take your meaning, Descartes doesn’t teach one how to compass what
one wishes, he only teaches us how to be virtuous?’

Monsieur Troqueville gave a sudden wild tavern guffaw, and rubbing his
hands delightedly, cried, ‘Pitiful dull reading, Jacques, _hein?_’

‘You took his book for a manual of love-potions, did you?’ Jacques said
in a low voice, with a hard, mocking glint in his eyes.

He had divined her thought, and Madeleine blushed. Then his face
softened, and he said gently,—

‘I will get you his works, nor will it be out of your gain to read them
diligently.’




CHAPTER XXII

BEES-WAX


As he had promised, Jacques brought her the works of Descartes, and she
turned eagerly to their pages. Here, surely, she would find food sweeter
to her palate than the bitter catechu of Jansenism which she had spewed
from her mouth with scorn and loathing.

But to her intense annoyance, she found the third maxim in the _Discourse
on Method_ to be as follows:—

    My third maxim was ever to endeavour to conquer myself rather
    than fortune, and to change my own desires rather than the
    order of the universe. In short, to grow familiar with the
    doctrine that ’tis but over our own thoughts we hold complete
    and absolute sway. Thus, if after all our efforts we fail in
    matters external to us, it behoofs us to acknowledge that those
    things wherein we fail belong, for us at least, to the domain
    of the impossible.

Here was a doctrine as uncompromising with regard to individual desires
as Jansenism itself.

Oh, those treacherous twists in every creed and every adventure which
were always suddenly bringing her shivering to the edge of the world of
reality, face to face with its weary outstretched horizons, its cruelly
clear outlines, and its three-dimensional, vivid, ruthless population.
Well, even Descartes was aware that it was not a pleasant place, for did
he not say in the _Six Meditations_:—

    But the Reason is that my Mind loves to wander, and suffers not
    itself to be bounded within the strict limits of Truth.

But were these limits fixed for ever: were we absolutely powerless to
widen them?

A few lines down the page she came on the famous wax metaphor:—

    Let us choose for example this piece of Beeswax: it was lately
    taken from the comb; it has not yet lost all the taste of the
    honey; it retains something of the smell of the flowers from
    whence ’twas gathered, its colour, shape, and bigness are
    manifest; ’tis hard, ’tis cold, ’tis easily felt, and if you
    will knock it with your finger, ’twill make a noise. In fine,
    it hath all things requisite to the most perfect notion of a
    Body.

    But behold whilst I am speaking, ’tis put to the fire, its
    taste is purged away, the smell is vanished, the colour is
    changed, the shape is altered, its bulk is increased, it
    becomes soft, ’tis hot, it can scarce be felt, and now (though
    you can strike it) it makes no noise. Does it yet continue the
    same wax? Surely it does: this all confess, no one denies it,
    no one doubts it. What therefore was there in it that was so
    evidently known? Surely none of those things which I perceive
    by my senses; for what I smelt, tasted, have seen, felt, or
    heard, are all vanished, and yet the wax remains. Perhaps ’twas
    this only that I now think on, to wit, that the wax itself was
    not that taste of honey, that smell of flowers, that whiteness,
    that shape, or that sound, but it was a body which a while
    before appeared to me so and so modified, but now otherwise.

She was illuminated by a sudden idea—startling yet comforting. In
_itself_ her bugbear, the world of reality, was an innocuous body without
form, sound, or colour. Once before she had felt it as it really is—cold
and nil—when at the _Fête-Dieu_ the bell at the most solemn moment of the
Mass had rung her into ‘a world of non-bulk and non-colour.’

Yes, the jarring sounds and crude colours which had so shocked and
frightened her were but delusions caused by the lying ‘animal-spirits’
of man. The true contrast was not between the actual world and her own
world of dreams, not between the design cut by God’s finger upon cubes
of wood and her own frail desires, but between the still whiteness of
reality and the crude and garish pattern of cross purposes thrown athwart
it by the contrary wills of men.

Well, not only was Jansenism distasteful, but it was also untrue, and
here was a grave doctor’s confirmation of the magical powers of her
adamant of desire.

The pattern of cross-purposes was but a delusion, and therefore not to be
feared. The only reality being a soft _maniable_ Body, why should she not
turn potter instead of engraver and by the plastic force of her own will
give the wax what form she chose?

Through her dancing she would exercise her will and dance into the wax
the fragrance of flowers, the honey of love, the Attic shape she longed
for.

       *       *       *       *       *

Madeleine is following Théodamas (Conrart) into Sappho’s reception-room.
A dispute is raging as to whether Descartes was justified in regarding
Love as _soulageant pour l’estomac_. They turn to Madeleine and ask for
her opinion: she smiles and says,—

‘’Twould provide the Faculty with an interesting _thèse du Cardinal_, but
’tis a problem that I, at least, am not fitted to tackle, in that I have
never tasted the gastric lenitive in question.’

‘If the question can be discussed by none but those experienced in love,’
cries Sappho, ‘then are we all reduced to silence, for which of us will
own to such a disgraceful experience?’

The company laughs. ‘But at least,’ cries Théodamas, ‘we can all of us in
this room confess to a wide experience in the discreet passion of Esteem,
although the spiritual atoms of which it is formed are too subtle, its
motions too delicate to produce any effect on so gross an organ as the
one in question.’

‘Do you consider that the heart is the seat of esteem, or is esteem too
refined to associate with the Passion considered as the chief denizen of
that organ from time immemorial?’ asks Doralise.

‘The words “time immemorial” shows an ignorance which in a lady as full
of agreeable information as yourself, has something indescribably piquant
and charming,’ says Aristée, with a delicious mixture of the gallant and
the pedant. ‘For ’tis well known,’ he continues, ‘that the Ancients held
the liver to be the seat of the passion in question.’

‘Well, then,’ cries Madeleine gaily, ‘these pagans were, I fear, more
evangelical in their philosophy than we, if they made love and its close
attendant, Hope, dwell together in ... _le foie_! But,’ she continues,
when the company had laughed at her sally, ‘I hear that this same
Descartes has stirred up by his writings a serious revolt in our members,
what one might call an organic Fronde.’

‘Pray act as our _Muse Historique_ and recount us this _historiette_,’
cries Sappho gaily.

‘Would it be an affront to the dignity of Clio to ask her to cite her
authorities?’ asks Aristée.

‘My authority,’ answers Madeleine, ‘is the organ whom Descartes has
chiefly offended, and the prime mover of the revolt—my heart! For you
must know that the ungallant philosopher in his treatise on the Passions
sides neither with the Ancients nor the Moderns with regard to the seat
of the Tender Passion.’

‘To the Place de Grèves with the Atheist and Libertine!’ cries the
company in chorus.

‘And who has this impious man dared to substitute for our old sovereign?’
asks Théodamas.

‘Why, a miserable pretender of as base an origin and as high pretensions
as Zaga-Christ, the so-called King of Ethiopia, in fact, an ignoble
little tube called the Conarium.’

‘Base usurper!’ cries all the company save Sappho, who says demurely,—

‘I must own to considering it a matter rather for rejoicing than
commiseration that so noble an organ as the heart should at last be
free from a grievous miasma that has gone a long way to bringing its
reputation into ill-odour. I regard Descartes not as the Heart’s enemy
but rather as its benefactor, as the venerable Teiresias who comes at
the call of the noble Œdipus, desirous of discovering wherein lies the
cause of his country’s suffering. Teiresias tells him that the cause is
none other than the monarch’s favourite page, a pretty boy called Love.
Whereupon the magnanimous Œdipus, attached though he is to this boy by
all the tenderest bonds of love and affection, wreathes him in garlands
and pelts him with rose-buds across the border. Then once more peace and
plenty return to that fair kingdom, and _les honnêtes gens_ are no longer
ashamed of calling themselves subjects of its King.’

As she finishes this speech, Sappho’s eye catches that of Madeleine, and
they smile at each other.

‘Why, Madame,’ cries Théodamas, laughing, ‘the inhabitant of so mean an
alley as that in which Descartes has established Love, must needs, to
earn his bread, stoop to the meanest offices, therefore we may consider
that Descartes was in the right when he laid down that one of the
functions of Love is to _soulager l’estomac_.’




CHAPTER XXIII

MADEMOISELLE DE SCUDÉRY’S SATURDAY


For the next few days Madeleine danced and desired and repeated
mechanically to herself: ‘I _will_ get the love of Mademoiselle de
Scudéry,’ feeling, the while, that the facets of the adamant were
pressing deep, deep into the wax of reality.

Then Saturday came, and Monsieur Conrart arrived in his old-fashioned
coach punctually at 12.30. She took her place by his side and they began
to roll towards the Seine.

‘I trust Acanthe will be worshipping at Sappho’s shrine to-day. His
presence is apt to act as a spark setting ablaze the whole fabric
of Sappho’s wit and wisdom,’ said Conrart in the tone of proud
proprietorship he always used when speaking of Mademoiselle de Scudéry.
Who was Acanthe? Madeleine felt a sudden pang of jealousy, and her high
confidence seemed suddenly to shrink and shrivel up as it always did at
any reminder that Mademoiselle de Scudéry had an existence of her own,
independent of that phantom existence of hers in Madeleine’s imaginings.
She felt sick with apprehension.

As they passed from the rue de la Mortellerie into the fine sweep of
the rue Sainte-Antoine the need for sympathy became peremptory. Conrart
had been giving her a dissertation on the resemblance between modern
Paris and ancient Rome, she had worn a look of demure attention, though
her thoughts were all to the four winds. There was a pause, and she,
to break the way for her question, said with an admirable pretence
of half-dazzled glimpses into long vistas of thought: ‘How furiously
interesting. Yes—in truth—there is a great resemblance,’ followed by a
pause, as if her eyes were held spellbound by the vistas, while Conrart
rubbed his hands in mild triumph. Then, with a sudden quick turn, as if
the thought had just come to her,—

‘I must confess to a sudden access of bashfulness; the company will all
be strange to me.’

Conrart smiled good-naturedly.

‘Oh, ’twill pass, I dare swear, as soon as you have seen Sappho. There is
an indescribable mixture of gentleness and raillery in her manners that
banishes bashfulness for ever from her _ruelle_.’

‘Well, I must confess I did not find it so, to say truth she didn’t charm
me; her ugliness frightened me, and I thought her manners as harsh as her
voice,’ Madeleine found herself saying. Conrart opened his small innocent
eyes as wide as they would go.

‘Tut-tut, what blasphemy, and I thought you were a candidate for
admission to our agreeable city!’ he said in mild surprise. ‘But here we
are!’

They had pulled up before a small narrow house of gray stone. Madeleine
tried to grasp the fact in all its thrillingness that she was entering
the door of Mademoiselle de Scudéry’s house, but somehow or other she
could not manage it.

‘I expect they will be in the garden,’ said Conrart. ‘Courage!’ he added
over his shoulder, with a kind twinkle. In another moment Madeleine
was stepping into a tiny, pleasant garden, shadowed by a fine gnarled
pear-tree in late blossom, to the left was seen the vast, cool boscage of
the Templars’ gardens, and in front there stretched to the horizon miles
of fields and orchards.

The little garden seemed filled with people all chattering at once, and
among them Madeleine recognised, to her horror, the fine figure of
Madame Cornuel. Then the bony form of Mademoiselle de Scudéry, clad in
gray linen, detached itself from the group and walked towards them. She
showed her long teeth in a welcoming smile. Mignonne, her famous dove,
was perched on her shoulder.

‘This is delicious, Cléodomas,’ she barked at Conrart, and then gave her
hand with quite a kind smile to Madeleine. ‘Mignonne affirms that all
Dodona has been dumb since its prophet has been indisposed. Didn’t you,
my sweeting?’ and she chirped grotesquely at the bird.

‘_Jésus!_’ groaned Madeleine to herself. ‘A child last time and now a
bird!’

‘Mignonne’s humble feathered admirer at Athis sends respectfully _tender_
warblings!’ Conrart answered, with an emphasis on ‘tender,’ as he took
Mademoiselle de Scudéry’s hand, still looking, in spite of himself,
ridiculously paternal.

In the meantime the rest of the company had gathered round them. A
distinguished-looking man, not in his first youth, and one of the few of
the gentlemen wearing a plumed hat and a sword, said in a slow, rather
mincing voice,—

‘But what of _indisposed_, Monsieur? Is it not a word of the last
deliciousness? I vow, sir, if I might be called _indisposed_, I would be
willing to undergo all the sufferings of Job—in fact, even of Benserade’s
_Job_——’

‘Chevalier, you are cruel! Leave the poor patriarch to enjoy the
prosperity and _regard_ that the Scriptures assure us were in his old age
once more his portion!’ answered Mademoiselle de Scudéry, and the company
laughed and cried ‘Bravo!’ This sally Madeleine understood, as accounts
had reached Lyons of the Fronde within the Fronde—the half-jesting
quarrel as to the respective merits of Voiture’s sonnet to _Uranie_ and
Benserade’s to _Job_—which had divided literary Paris into two camps,
and she knew that Mademoiselle de Scudéry had been a partisan of Job.
However, she was much too self-conscious to join in the laughter, her
instinct was to try to go one better. She thought of ‘But Benserade’s Job
isn’t old yet!’—when she was shy she was apt to be seized by a sort of
wooden literalness—but the next minute was grateful to her bashfulness
for having saved her from such bathos.

‘But really, Madame, _indisposed_ is ravishing; is it your own?’
persisted the gentleman they called Chevalier.

‘Well, Chevalier, and what if it is? A person who has invented as many
delightful words as you have yourself shows that his obligingness is
stronger than his sincerity if he flatters so highly my poor little
offspring!’ Madeleine gave a quick glance at the Chevalier. Could it be
that this was the famous Chevalier de Méré, the fashionable professor
of _l’air galant_, through whose urbane academy had passed all the most
gallant ladies of the Court and the Town? It seemed impossible.

All this time a long shabby citizen in a dirty jabot had been trying in
vain to catch Mademoiselle de Scudéry’s eye. Now he burst out with,—

‘A propos of _words_—er—of _words_,’ and he spat excitedly—on Madame
Cornuel’s silk petticoat. She smiled with one corner of her mouth,
raised her eyebrows, then pulling a leaf, gingerly rubbed the spot,
and flung it away with a little _moue_ of disgust. The shabby citizen,
quite unconscious of this by-play, which was giving exquisite
pleasure to the rest of the company, went on: ‘What do you think
then of my word affreux—aff-reux—a-f-f-r-e-u-x? It seems to me not
unsuccessful—_hein_—_hein_?’

‘Affreux?’ repeated an extremely elegant young man, with a look of mock
bewilderment.

‘Affreux! What can it possibly mean, Monsieur Chapelain?’

‘But, Monsieur, it tells us itself that it is a lineal descendant of the
_affres_ so famous in the reign of Corneille the Great, a descendant who
has emigrated to the kingdom of adjectives. It is ravishing, Monsieur; I
hope it may be granted eternal fiefs in our language!’ said Mademoiselle
de Scudéry courteously to poor Chapelain, who had begun to look rather
discomfited. Madeleine realised with a pang that Mademoiselle de Scudéry
had quite as much invention as she had herself, for the friend of her
dreams had _just_ enough wit to admire Madeleine’s.

‘Affreux—it is——’ cried Conrart, seeking a predicate that would
adequately express his admiration.

‘Affreux,’ finished the elegant young man with a malicious smile.
Mademoiselle de Scudéry frowned at him and suggested their moving into
the house. Godeau (for he was also there) stroked the wings of Mignonne
and murmured that she had confessed to him a longing to peck an olive
branch. Godeau had not recognised Madeleine, and she realised that he was
the sort of person who never would.

They moved towards the house. Through a little passage they went into the
Salle. The walls were covered with samplers that displayed Mademoiselle
de Scudéry’s skill in needlework and love of adages. The coverlet of
the bed was also her handiwork, the design being, somewhat unsuitably,
considering the lady’s virtue and personal appearance, a scene from
the _amours_ of Venus and Adonis. There were also some Moustier crayon
sketches, and portraits in enamel by Petitot of her friends, and—by
far the most valuable object in the room—a miniature of Madame de
Longueville surrounded by diamonds. Madeleine looked at them with jealous
eyes; why was not _her_ portrait among them?

Poor Chapelain was still looking gloomy and offended, so when they
had taken their seats, Mademoiselle de Scudéry, with a malicious
glance at the others, asked him if he would not recite some lines from
_La Pucelle_. The elegant young man, who was sitting at the feet of
Mademoiselle Legendre closed his eyes, and taking out an exquisite
handkerchief trimmed with _Point du Gênes_ with gold tassels in the form
of acorns, used it as a fan. Madame Cornuel smiled enigmatically.

‘Yes, Monsieur, pray give us that great pleasure!’ cried Conrart warmly.
Chapelain cleared his throat, spat into the fireplace and said,—

‘It may be I had best begin once more from the beginning, as I cannot
flatter myself that Mademoiselle has kept the thread of my argument in
her head.’ ‘Like the thread of Ariadne, it leads to a hybrid monster!’
said the elegant young man, _sotto voce_.

In spite of Mademoiselle de Scudéry’s assurances that she remembered the
argument perfectly, Chapelain began to declaim with pompous emphasis,—

    ‘Je chante la Pucelle, et la sainte Vaillance
    Qui dans le point fatal, où perissait la France,
    Ranimant de son Roi la mourante Vertu,
    Releva son État, sous l’Anglais abbatu.’

On he went till he came to the couplet—

    ‘Magnanime Henri, glorieux Longueville,
    Des errantes Vertus, et le Temple, et l’asile—’

Here Madame Cornuel interrupted with a gesture of apology—‘“L’asile des
_errantes_ vertus,”’ she repeated meditatively. ‘Am I to understand that
_Messieurs les Académiciens_ have decided that _vertu_ is feminine?’
Chapelain made an awkward bow.

‘That goes without saying, Madame; we are not entirely ungallant; _les
Vertus et les dames sont synonymes!_’ ‘Bravo!’ cried the Chevalier. But
Madame Cornuel said thoughtfully,—

‘Poor Monsieur de Longueville, he is then an _hôpital pour les femmes
perdues_; who is the Abbess: Madame his wife or—Madame de Montblazon?’
Every one laughed, including Mademoiselle de Scudéry, and Madeleine
feverishly tried to repeat her formula ten times before they stopped.
Chapelain stared, reddened, and began with ill-concealed anger to assure
Madame Cornuel that ‘erring’ was only the secondary meaning of the word;
its primary meaning was ‘wandering,’ and thus he had used it, and in
spite of all the entreaties of Mademoiselle de Scudéry, Conrart, and the
Chevalier, he could not be persuaded to resume his recitation.

Then for a time the conversation broke up into groups, Mademoiselle
de Scudéry devoting herself to Chapelain, and Madeleine found herself
between Godeau and the Chevalier, who spoke to each other across her.

‘What of Madame de la Suze?’ asked Godeau. The Chevalier smiled and
shrugged.

‘As dangerous an incendiarist as ever,’ he answered. ‘A hundred Troys
burn with her flame.’

‘What a splendid movement her jealousy used to have; it was a superb
passion to watch at play!’

‘Ah! but it is killing her, if another poet’s poems are praised, it means
the vapours for a week.’

‘She must sorely resent, then, the present fecundity of Mnemosyne.’

‘Yes, for the most part, a _galant homme_ must needs speak of the Muses
to a poetess as ten, but to her we must speak as if there were but one!’

Godeau laughed.

‘But what ravishingly languishing eyes!’ the Chevalier went on
rapturously.

‘And what a mouth! there is something in its curves at once voluptuous
and chaste; oh, it is indescribable; it is like the mouth of a Nymph!’
cried the little prelate with very unecclesiastical fervour.

‘You think it chaste? Hum,’ said the Chevalier dryly. ‘Her _chastity_,
I should say, belongs to the band of Chapelain’s “_vertus errantes_.”’
Godeau gave a noncommittal, ecclesiastical smile. ‘I was speaking of her
_mouth_,’ he answered.

‘Ah! what the Church calls a “lip-virtue.” I see.’

Godeau gave another smile, this time a rather more laïcal one.

‘And what of the charming Marquise, dear Madame de Sévigné?’ Godeau went
on. The Chevalier flung up his hands in mute admiration.

‘There surely is the _asile des vertus humaines_!’ cried Godeau. ‘Ah,
well, they both deserve an equal degree of admiration, but which of the
two ladies do we _like_ best?’ They both chuckled knowingly.

‘Yes, _Dieu peut devenir homme mais l’homme ne doit pas se faire Dieu_,’
went on Godeau, according to the fashion among worldly priests of
reminding the company of their calling, even at the risk of profanity.
Then Madeleine said in a voice shaking with nervousness,—

‘Don’t you think that parallel portraits, in the manner of Plutarch,
might be drawn of these two ladies?’

There was rather a startled look on Godeau’s ridiculous, naughty little
face. He had forgotten that this young lady had been listening to their
conversation, and it seemed to him as unsuitable that strange and
obscure young ladies should listen to fashionable bishops talking to
their intimates, as it was for mortals to watch Diana bathing. But the
Chevalier looked at her with interest; she had, the moment he had seen
her, entered into his consciousness, but he had mentally laid her aside
until he had finished with his old friend Godeau.

‘There are the seeds in that of a successful _Galanterie_, Mademoiselle,’
he said. ‘Why has it never occurred to us before to write _parallel_
portraits? We are fortunate in having for _le Plutarque de nos jours_ a
charming young vestal of Hebe instead of an aged priest of Apollo!’ and
he bowed gallantly to Madeleine.

Oh, the relief to be recognised as a _person_ at last, and by the
Chevalier de Méré, too, for Madeleine was sure it was he.

‘Monsieur du Raincy,’ he cried to the elegant young man who was still
at Mademoiselle Legendre’s feet and gazing up into her eyes. ‘We think
parallel portraits of Madame de Sévigné and Madame de La Suze would be
_du dernier galant_, will you be _le Plutarque galant_?’

‘Why not share the task with the Abbé Ménage? Let him do Mme. de Sévigné,
and you, the other!’ said Godeau with a meaning smile. Du Raincy looked
pleased and self-conscious. He took out of his pocket a tiny, exquisitely
chased gold mirror, examined himself in it, put it back, looked up.
‘Well, if it is I that point the contrasts,’ he said, ‘it might be called
“the Metamorphosis of Madame La Marquise de Sévigné into a _Mouche_,” for
she will be but a _mouche_ to the other.’

‘Monsieur Ménage might have something to say to that,’ smiled the
Chevalier.

Poor Madeleine had been trying hard to show by modest smiles of ownership
that the idea was hers: she could have cried with vexation. ‘’Twas my
conceit!’ she said, but it was in a small voice, and no one heard it.

‘What delicious topic enthralls you, Chevalier?’ cried out Mademoiselle
de Scudéry in her rasping voice, feeling that she had done her duty by
Chapelain for the present. The Chevalier answered with his well-preserved
smile,—

‘Mademoiselle, you need not ask, the only topic that is not profane
in the rue de Beauce—the heavenly twins, Beauty and Wit.’ Madeleine
blushed crimson at the mention of beauty, in anticipation of Mademoiselle
de Scudéry’s embarrassment; it was quite unnecessary, Sappho’s
characteristic was false vanity rather than false modesty. She gave a
gracious equine smile, and said that these were subjects upon which no
one spoke better than the Chevalier.

‘Mademoiselle, do you consider that most men, like Phaon in your _Cyrus_,
prefer a _belle stupide_—before they have met Sappho, I need not add—to a
_belle spirituelle_?’ asked Conrart. Mademoiselle de Scudéry cleared her
throat and all agog to be dissertating, began in her favourite manner:
‘Beauty is without doubt a flame, and a flame always burns—without being
a philosopher I think I may assert that,’ and she smiled at Chapelain.

‘But all flame is grateful—if I may use the expression—for fuel, and wit
certainly makes it burn brighter. But seeing that all persons have not
sufficient generosity, and _élan galant_ to yearn for martyrdom, they
naturally shun anything which will make their flame burn more fiercely;
not that they prefer a slow death, but rather having but a paltry spirit
they hope, though they would not own it, that their flame may die before
they do themselves. Then we must remember that the road to Amour very
often starts from the town of Amour-Propre and wit is apt to put that
city to the sword, while female stupidity, like a bountiful Ceres,
fertilises the soil from her over-flowing Cornucopia. On the other hand,
_les honnêtes gens_ start off on the perilous journey from the much more
glorious city of Esteem, and are guided on their way by the star of Wit.’

Every one had listened in admiring attention, except Madeleine, who,
through the perverseness of her self-consciousness, had given every sign
of being extremely bored.

‘I hear a rumour—it was one of the linnets in your garden that told
me—that shortly a lady will make her début at Quinets’ in whom wit and
beauty so abound that all the _femmes galantes_ will have to pocket their
pride and come to borrow from her store,’ said the Chevalier. Conrart
looked important. ‘I am already in love to the verge of madness with
Clélie,’ he said; ‘is it an indiscretion to have told her name?’ he
added, to Mademoiselle de Scudéry.

‘The Chevalier de Méré would tell you that it is indiscreet to the
verge of crime to mention the name of one’s flame,’ she answered with a
smile, but she did not look ill-pleased. So Clélie was to be the name
of the next book! Madeleine for some reason was so embarrassed and
self-conscious at the knowledge that she did not know what to do with
herself.

‘I picture her dark, with hazel eyes and——’ began Mademoiselle Legendre.

‘And I guess that she is young,’ said Madame Cornuel, with a twinkle. Du
Raincy sighed sentimentally.

‘Well, Monsieur, tell us what is _la Jeunesse_?’ said Godeau.

‘La Jeunesse?’ he cried. ‘La Jeunesse est belle; la Jeunesse est fraîche;
la Jeunesse est amoureuse,’ he cried, rolling his eyes.

‘But she rarely enters the _Royaume du Tendre_,’ said a little man
as hideous as an ape—terribly pitted by smallpox—whom they called
Pellisson, with a look at Mademoiselle de Scudéry. That lady smiled back
enigmatically, and Madeleine found herself pitying him from the bottom of
her heart for having no hope of ever getting there himself. There was a
lull, and then people began to get up and move away. The Chevalier came
up to Madeleine and sat down by her. He twisted his moustache, settled
his jabot, and set to.

‘Mademoiselle, I tremble for your Fate!’ Madeleine went white and
repeated her formula.

‘Why do you say that?’ she asked, not able to keep the anxiety out of her
voice, for she feared an omen in the words.

‘To a lady who has shown herself the mistress of so many _belles
connaissances_, I need not ask if she knows the words of the Roman Homer:
_Spretæ injuria formæ_?’ Madeleine stared at his smiling, enigmatical
face, could it be that he had guessed her secret, and by some occult
power knew her future?

‘I am to seek as to your meaning,’ she said, flushing and trembling.

‘_Jésus!_’ said the Chevalier to himself, ‘I had forgotten the prudery of
the provinces; can it be she has never before been accosted by a _galant
homme_?’

‘_Pray_ make your meaning clear!’ cried Madeleine.

‘Ah! not such a prude after all!’ thought the Chevalier. ‘Why,
Mademoiselle, we are told that excessive strength or virtue in a mortal
arouses in the gods what we may call _la passion galante_, to wit,
jealousy, from which we may safely deduce that excessive beauty in a lady
arouses the same passion in the goddesses.’

‘Oh, _that’s_ your meaning!’ cried Madeleine, so relieved that she quite
forgot what was expected of her in the _escrime galante_.

‘In truth, this _naïveté_ is not without charm!’ thought the Chevalier,
taking her relief for pleasure at the compliment.

‘But what mischief could they work me—the goddesses, I mean?’ she asked,
her nerves once more agog.

‘The goddesses are ladies, and therefore Mademoiselle must know better
than I.’

‘But have you a foreboding that they may wreak some vengeance on me?’

The poor Chevalier felt quite puzzled: this must be a _visionnaire_.
‘So great a crime of beauty would doubtless need a great punishment,’
he said with a bow. Madeleine felt tempted to rush into the nearest
hospital, catch smallpox, and thus remove all cause for divine jealousy.
The baffled Chevalier muttered something about a reunion at the Princesse
de Guéméné and made his departure, yet, in spite of the strangeness of
Madeleine’s behaviour, she had attracted him.

Most of the guests had already left, but Conrart, Chapelain, Pellisson,
and a Mademoiselle Boquet—a plain, dowdy little _bourgeoise_—were still
there, talking to Mademoiselle de Scudéry. The Chevalier’s departure had
left Madeleine by herself, so Conrart called out to her,—

‘A lady who has just been gallantised by the Chevalier de Méré’ (so
it _was_ he!) ‘will carry the memory of perfection and must needs be
a redoubtable critic in manners; Sappho, may she come and sit on this
_pliant_ near me?’ Madeleine tried to look bored, succeeded, and looked
_gauche_ into the bargain. Conrart patted her knee with his swollen,
gouty hand, and said to Mademoiselle de Scudéry: ‘This young lady feels
a bashfulness which, I think, does her credit, at meeting La Reine de
Tendre, Princesse d’Estime, Dame de Reconnaissance, Inclination, et
Terrains Adjacents.’ The great lady smiled and answered that if her
‘style’ included Ogress of Alarmingness, she would cease to lay claim
to it. Here was Madeleine’s chance. Mademoiselle de Scudéry was smiling
kindly at her and giving her a conversational opening. All she did was
to mutter her formula and look with stony indifference in the opposite
direction. Mademoiselle de Scudéry raised her eyebrows a little and
forthwith Madeleine was excluded from the conversation.

Shortly afterwards Conrart asked Madeleine if she was ready to go, and
they rose. A wave of inexpressible bitterness and self-reproach broke
over Madeleine as Mademoiselle de Scudéry took her hand absently and bade
her good-bye. Her new god in a dressing-gown had loyally done his part,
but she, like a fool, had spoiled it all. And yet, she felt if she had
it all over again, she would be seized by the same demon of perversity,
that again all her instincts would hide her real feelings under a wall
of shields. And Conrart, what would he think of her? However, he seemed
to think nothing in particular. He was evidently trying to find out what
Madeleine’s impressions of the company had been, and when she, anxious to
make atonement, praised them enthusiastically, he chuckled with pleasure,
as if her praise enhanced his own self-importance. ‘But the rest of us
are but feeble luminaries compared to Sappho—_the most remarkable woman
of the century_—she was in excellent vein on Beauty and Wit.’ It was
on the tip of Madeleine’s tongue to say ‘A trifle pedantic!’ but she
checked herself in time. ‘She always does me the honour of spending part
of July and August at my little country house. It is delicious to be
her companion in the country, the comparisons she draws between life and
nature are most instructive, as well as infinitely gallant. And like all
_les honnêtes gens_ she is as ready to learn as to instruct; on a fine
night we sometimes take a stroll after supper, and I give the company
a little dissertation on the stars, for though she knows a thousand
agreeable things, she is not a philosopher,’ he added complacently.

‘Ah, but, Monsieur, a grain of philosophy outweighs an ounce of agreeable
knowledge; there is a solidity about your mind; I always picture the
great Aristotle with your face!’ Madeleine’s voice was naturally of a
very earnest timbre, and this, helped by her lack of humour and a halting
way of speaking which suggested sincerity, made people swallow any
outrageous compliment she chose to pay them. Conrart beamed and actually
blushed, though he _was_ perpetual and honorary secretary of the Academy,
and Madeleine but an unknown young girl!

‘Aristotle was a very great man, Mademoiselle,’ he said modestly.
Madeleine smiled. ‘There have been great men _since_ Agamemnon,’ she
said. Really this was a _very_ nice girl!

‘Mademoiselle, I would like you to see my little _campagne_——’ he began.

‘That would be furiously agreeable, but I fear I could not come till the
end of July,’ said Madeleine with unwonted presence of mind.

‘Dear, dear, that is a long while hence, but I hope we shall see you
then.’

‘You are vastly kind, Monsieur; when shall I come?’ Madeleine asked
firmly.

‘Well—er—let me see—are you free to come on the first day of August?’

‘Entirely, I thank you,’ cried Madeleine eagerly. ‘Oh! with what
pleasant expectancy I shall await it!—and you must _promise_ to give
me a lesson about the stars.’ The beaming old gentleman promised with
alacrity, and made a note of the date in his tablets.

At that moment, Madeleine caught sight of Jacques, strolling along the
Quay, and suddenly filled with a dread of finding herself alone with
herself, she told Conrart that she saw her cousin, and would like to join
him.




CHAPTER XXIV

SELF-IMPOSED SLAVERY


‘I knew you would have to pass this way, and I have been waiting for
you this half-hour,’ said Jacques. ‘Well, how went the encounter?’ That
Madeleine was not in despair was clear from the fact that she was willing
to talk about it.

‘Oh! Jacques, I cannot say. Mademoiselle de Scudéry was entertaining the
whole company with discourse, but when she did address a word to me I was
awkward and bashful—and—and—not over civil. Do you think she will hate
me?’ She waited anxiously for his answer.

‘Awkward, bashful, and not over civil!’ laughed Jacques. ‘What did you do
uncivil? Did you put out your tongue and hiccough in her face? _Oh_, that
you had! Or did you deliberately undress and then dance about naked? I
would that people were more inclined to such pleasant antics!’

‘In good earnest I did _not_,’ said Madeleine severely. ‘But I feigned
not to be interested when she talked, and averted my eyes from her as if
the sight of her worked on my stomach. Oh! what _will_ she think of me?’

‘Well, I don’t know, Chop,’ Jacques said dubiously; ‘it seems you used
arts to show yourself in such colours as ’twould be hard to like!’

‘Do people never take likings to bashful, surly people?’ she persisted.

‘I fear me they are apt to prefer smooth-spoken, courtly ones,’ he
answered with a smile. ‘But, take heart, Chop, you will meet with her
again, doubtless, when you must compel yourself to civility and to the
uttering of such _galanterie_ as the occasion furnishes, and then the
issue cannot choose but be successful. Descartes holds admiration to be
the mother of the other passions; an you arouse admiration the others
will follow of their own accord.’

‘’Tis easy to talk!’ wailed Madeleine, ‘but her visible presence works so
strangely upon me as to put me out of all my precepts, and I am driven to
unseemly stammering or to uncivil silence.’

‘_Lingua sed torpet, tenuis sub artus Flamma demanat_, etcetera. Have
you been studying that most witty anatomy of the lover in the volume of
Catullus that I lent you?’ asked Jacques, rather mockingly.

‘Yes,’ said Madeleine, blushing. Then, after a pause,—

‘It seems that ... er ... er ... my father ... that this Ariane ... that,
in short, he has prospered in his suit of late?’

‘Has he? I am exceeding glad to hear it,’ said Jacques dryly. Then,
looking at her with his little inscrutable smile, he added: ‘You show a
most becoming filial interest in your father’s _roman_; ’tis as if you
held its issue to be tied up in some strange knot with the issue of your
own.’

How sinister he was looking! Madeleine stared at him with eyes of terror.
She tried to speak but no sound would come from her lips.

Suddenly his expression became once more kind and human.

‘Why, Chop,’ he cried, ‘there are no bounds set to your credulity! I
verily believe your understanding would be abhorrent of no fable or
fiction, let them be as monstrous as they will. In good earnest you are
in sore need of a dose of old Descartes!’

‘But, Jacques, I have of late been diligently studying him and yet it has
availed me nothing. My will has lost naught of its obliquity.’

‘How did you endeavour to straighten it ... _hein_?’ Jacques asked very
gently.

Madeleine hung her head and then confessed her theory about the Wax, and
how she had tried upon reality the plastic force of her will.

Jacques threw out his hands in despair.

‘Oh, Chop!’ he cried, ‘it is a sin to turn to such maniac uses the
cleanest, sweetest good sense that ever man has penned! That passage
about the wax is but a _figure_! The only way to compass what we wish is
to exercise our will first on our own passions until they will take what
ply we choose, and then to exercise it on the passions of others. Success
_lies in you_ but is not to be compassed by vain, foolish rites after the
manner of the heathen and the Christians. Why, you have made yourself a
slave, bound with the fetters of affrighting fancies that do but confound
the senses and scatter the understanding. The will is the only talisman.
Exercise yourself in the right using of it against your next meeting with
Mademoiselle de Scudéry, then when that meeting comes, at one word from
you the bashful humours—docile now—will cower behind your spleen, and
the mercurial ones will go dancing through your blood up to your brain,
whence they will let fall a torrent of conceits like sugar-plums raining
from the Palais Mazarin, and thus in Mademoiselle de Scudéry you will
arouse the mother of the passions—Admiration.’

They both laughed, and arm in arm—Madeleine with a serene look in her
eyes—made their way to the petite rue du Paon.




CHAPTER XXV

THE SYMMETRY OF THE COMIC MUSE


July came, making the perfume of the meadows more fragrant, the stench of
the Paris streets more foul.

Madeleine had adopted Jacques’s rationalism, and, having discarded all
supernatural aids, was applying her energies to the quelling of her
‘passions.’

It stood to reason that _l’amitié tendre_ could only spring from the
seeds of Admiration. It behoved her, then, to make herself worthy of
Admiration. The surest way of achieving this was to perfect herself in
the _air galant_, and she had the great good fortune to procure the
assistance of one of the most eminent professors of this difficult art.
For the Chevalier de Méré wrote an elaborate Epistle asking her to grant
him the privilege of waiting on her, which she answered in what she
considered a masterpiece of elegant discretion, consisting of pages of
obscure preciosity ending in the pleasant sting of a little piquant ‘yes.’

He became an almost daily visitor, and, unfailingly suave and fluent, he
would give her dissertations on life and manners, filled with that tame,
_fade_ common sense which had recently come to be regarded as the last
word in culture.

She was highly flattered by his attentions, naturally enough, for he was
considered to have exquisite taste in ladies and had put the final polish
on many an eminent Précieuse. Under his tuition she hoped to be, by the
time of her visit to Conrart, a past-mistress in the art of pleasing, and
to have her ‘passions’ in such complete control as to be quite safe from
an attack of bashfulness.

A July of quiet progress—then August and Mademoiselle de Scudéry! She
awaited the issue of this next meeting with quiet confidence. There is a
comfortable solidity about four weeks, like that of a square arm-chair in
which one can sit at one’s ease, planning and dreaming. If Madeleine had
been gifted with clarity of vision she would have realised that, for her,
true happiness was to be found nowhere but in that comfortable, sedentary
posture. Only those very dear to the gods can distinguish between what
they really want and what they think they want.

Berthe was full of sly hints with regard to the Chevalier, and his
visits elicited from her many an aphorism on the tender passion. She had
evidently given to him the rôle formerly played by Jacques in her version
of Madeleine’s _roman_.

And what of Jacques? He was naturally very jealous of the Chevalier and
very angry with Madeleine.

He was now rarely at home in the evenings. Monsieur Troqueville, who,
during the first week of July, was forced to keep his room by a severe
attack of gout, seemed strangely uneasy.

Suddenly Jacques ceased coming home even to sleep, and at the mention of
his name Monsieur Troqueville would be threatened by a fit of apoplexy.

When alone with Madeleine he was full of vague threats and warnings such
as: ‘When I get hold of that rascally cousin of yours, I would see him
that dares prevent me strangling him!’ ‘Have a care lest that scoundrel
Jacques stick a disgrace upon you, as he has done to me!’ ‘If you’ll be
ruled by me you’ll have none of that fellow! ’Tis a most malicious and
treacherous villain!’

A sinister fear began to stir in Madeleine’s heart.

       *       *       *       *       *

After a week’s absence, Jacques appeared at supper, dishevelled and
debonair, with rather a wicked gleam in his narrow eyes. The atmosphere
during the meal was tense with suppressed emotion, and it was evident
that Monsieur Troqueville was thirsting for his blood.

Supper over, Madeleine made a sign to Jacques to follow her.

‘Well?’ she asked him, once they were in her own room.

‘Well?’ he answered, smiling enigmatically.

‘You have been about some mischief—I know it well. Recount me the whole
business without delay.’

‘Some mischief? ’Tis merely that I have been driving the playwright’s
trade and writing a little comedy, on life instead of on foolscap.’

‘I do not take your meaning.’

‘No? Have you ever remarked that Symmetry is the prettiest attribute of
the Comic Muse? Here is my cast—two Belles and one Gallant. Belle I.
loathes the Gallant like the seven deadly sins, while he most piteously
burns with her flame, and has been hoodwinked by his own vanity and the
persuasions of a friend that she burns as piteously with his. Now, mark
the inverted symmetry—the Gallant loathes Belle II., while she burns with
his flame and is persuaded that he does with hers. Why, the three are as
prettily interrelated as a group of porcelain figures! I am of opinion
that Comedy is naught but Life viewed geometrically.’

‘You talk in riddles, Jacques, and I am entirely without clue to your
meaning—save that it is some foolishness,’ cried Madeleine with intense
irritation. Jacques’s only answer was an inscrutable smile.

‘Read me your riddle without delay, or you’ll have me stark mad with
your nonsense!’ she cried with tears of suspense and impatience in her
eyes.

So Jacques told her how after his first rebuff Monsieur Troqueville had
for a time ceased to pester Ariane with his addresses, and had found
balm for his hurt vanity in pretending to his tavern companions that his
success with Ariane had been complete, and that he held her heart in the
hollow of his hand. He had almost come to believe this himself, when one
evening his friends in the tavern, who had of course never believed his
story, had insisted on seeing Ariane in the flesh. It was in vain that
Monsieur Troqueville had furiously reiterated that ‘the lady being no
common bawd, but exceeding dainty of her favours, would never stoop to
such low company as theirs.’ The company was obdurate, reiterating that
unless they saw her with their own eyes they would hold his ‘_Chimène_’
to be but a ‘_chimère_,’ and that like Troy in Euripides’ fable, it was
but for a phantom lady that he burned. Finally, Monsieur Troqueville,
goaded beyond all endurance, vowed that the lady would be with them ere
an hour was passed. The company agreed that if he did not keep his word
he would have to stand drinks all round and kiss their grim Huguenot
hostess, while if Ariane appeared within an hour they would give him as
brave a _petite-oie_ as their joint purses could afford. (At the words
‘_petite-oie_’ Madeleine went pale.) Once outside the tavern Monsieur
Troqueville gave way to despair, and Jacques was so sorry for him that
although he felt certain the business would end in ridicule for them
both, he rushed to Ariane’s house to see if he could move her to pity.
Fortunately he found her alone and bored—and took her fancy. To cut
a long story short, before the hour was up, amid the cheers of the
revellers and the Biblical denunciations of the hostess, Ariane made her
epiphany at the tavern and saved Monsieur Troqueville’s face. After
that Jacques went often to see Ariane, and delivered the love-letters he
carried from Monsieur Troqueville, not to her but to her ancient duenna,
in whose withered bosom he had easily kindled a flame for his uncle.
Finally, having promised him a meeting with his lady, he had thrown him
into the arms of the duenna.

When Jacques had finished his story, Madeleine, who had gazed at him with
a growing horror in her eyes, said slowly,—

‘To speak truth, you seem to me compact of cruelty.’ At once he looked
penitent. ‘No, Chop, ’tis not my only humour. One does not hold
Boisrobert and the other writers of Comedy to be cruel in that they
devise droll situations for their characters.’

‘That is another matter.’

‘Well, maybe you are in the right. ’Twas a scurvy trick I played him, and
I am ashamed. Are you grievously wroth with me, Chop?’

‘I can hardly say,’ she answered and, her eyes wandering restlessly over
the room, she twisted her hands in a way she had when her nerves were
taut. ‘There are times when I am wont to wonder ... if haply I do not
somewhat resemble my father,’ she added with a queer little laugh.

The idea seemed to tickle Jacques. She looked at him angrily.

‘You hold then that there is truth in what I say?’ and try as she would
she could not get him to say that there was not.




CHAPTER XXVI

BERTHE’S STORY


Madeleine was feeling restless, so she asked Berthe to come and sit by
her bed and talk to her.

‘Tell me a story,’ she commanded, and Berthe delightedly launched forth
on her favourite theme, that of Madeleine’s resemblance to her youngest
brother.

‘Oh, he often comes to me and says, “Tell me a story, Berthe,” like that,
“tell me a story, Berthe,” and I’ll say, “Do you think I have nothing
better to do, sir, than tell you stories. Off you go and dig cabbages;”
and he’ll say, with a bow, “Dig them yourself, Madame”—oh, he’s _malin_,
ever pat with an answer; he is like Monsieur Jacques in that way. One
day——’

‘Please tell me a story,’ Madeleine persisted. ‘Tell me the one about
Nausicaa.’

‘Ah! that was the one that came back to me when Mademoiselle turned with
such zeal to housewifery!’ and she chuckled delightedly.

‘Tell it to me!’

‘Well, it was a pretty tale my grandmother used to tell; she heard it
from _her_ grandmother, who had been tire-woman to a great lady in the
reign of good King Francis.’

‘Begin the tale,’ commanded Madeleine firmly.

‘Oh, Mademoiselle will have her own way—just like Albert,’ winked Berthe,
and began,—

‘Once upon a time, hundreds of years ago, there lived a rich farmer near
Marseilles. My grandmother was wont to say he was a king, but that cannot
have been, for, as you will see, his daughter did use to do her own
washing. Mademoiselle hates housework, doesn’t she? _I_ can see you are
ill-pleased when Madame talks of a _ménage_ of your own——’

‘_Go on_,’ said Madeleine. Berthe cackled, ‘Just like Albert!’ she
exclaimed.

‘Well, this farmer had an only daughter, who was very beautiful; she had
an odd name: it was Nausicaa. She was _rêveuse_, like Mademoiselle and
me, and used to love to lie in her father’s orchard reading romances
or looking out over the sea, which lay below. She did not care for the
sons of the farmers round that came wooing her with presents of lambs
and apples or with strings of beads which they bought from sailors at
the harbour; they seemed to her clumsy with their foolish grins and
their great hands, for Nausicaa was exceeding nice,’ and Berthe winked
meaningly. ‘And there were merchants, too, with long beards and grave
faces, and gold chains, who sought her hand, but she was aware that they
looked on her as nothing better than the rare birds their ships brought
them from the Indies. Well, one night, Our Lady appeared to her in a
dream and said: “Lève-toi, petite paresseuse, les jeunes demoiselles
doivent s’occuper du mariage et de leur ménage.” And she bade Nausicaa go
to the river, and wash all her linen, for if a Prince came he would be
ill-pleased to find her foul. And Nausicaa woke up feeling very strange
and as if fair wondrous things were coming to meet her. ’Tis a fancy that
seizes us all at times, and much good it does us!’ And Berthe gave her
long, soft chuckle, while Madeleine scowled at her.

‘As soon as she was dressed, Nausicaa ran into the fields to find her
father, and she put her arms round his neck and hid her face on his
shoulder and said, laughing,—

‘“Father, I am fain you should lend me a cart and four mules for to-day,”
and her brothers, who were standing near, laughed and asked who was
waiting for her at the other end. And Nausicaa tossed her head and said
she did but want to wash her linen in the river. And her father pinched
her ear and kissed her and said that he would order four of his best
mules to be harnessed. And when her mother heard of her project she
clapped her hands with joy and winked at the old nurse, for she divined
the thought in Nausicaa’s mind, and the poor soul was exceeding glad.’

‘_Go on_,’ Madeleine commanded feverishly, forestalling a personal
deviation.

‘Well, the mother filled a big hamper full of the delicate fare that
Nausicaa liked best—_pain d’épice_, and quince jam and preserved fruits
and a fine fat capon, and bade four or five of the dairymaids go with
her and help her with her washing, and Nausicaa filled a great basket
with her linen, and they all climbed into the cart, and Nausicaa took
the reins and flicked the whip, and the mules trotted off. When they got
to the river they rolled up their sleeves and set to, and they laughed
and talked over their work, for Nausicaa was not proud. And when all
the linen was washed and laid out on the grass to dry they sat down and
ate their dinner and talked, and Nausicaa sang them songs, for she had
brought her lute with her. And then they played at _Colin-Maillard_ and
at ball, and then they danced a _Branle_, and poor grannie used always
to say that they were as lovely as the angels dancing in Paradise. Every
one, of course, was comely long ago’—and Berthe interrupted her narration
to chuckle.

‘Grannie used always to go on like this: “They laughed and played as
maidens will when they are among themselves, but they little knew what
was watching them from behind a bush of great blue flowers,” and we used
to say, with our eyes as round as buttons—“Was it a bear, grannie?” “No.”
“Was it a _lutin_, then?” And we were grievously disappointed when she
would say, “No, it was a man!” Well, it was a great Roman lord called
Ulysse who had fought with Charlemagne at the Siege of Troy, and when he
started on his voyage home, Saint Nicholas, the sailors’ saint, who did
not love him, pestered him with storms and shipwrecks and monstrous fish
so that the years passed and he got no nearer home. And all the time he
kept on praying to Our Lady to give him a safe and speedy return, and
at last she heard his prayer, and when Saint Nicholas had once again
wrecked his ship she rescued him from the sea and walked over the waves
with him in her arms as if he were a little child till she reached the
river near Marseilles, and then she laid him among the rushes by its
banks, and there he slept. And when he woke up she worked a miracle so
that the wrinkles and travel-stains and sunburn dropped away from him,
and his rags she changed into a big hat with fine plumes, and a jerkin
of Isabelle satin, and a cloak lined with crimson plush, and breeches
covered with ribbons, so that he was once more the fine young gallant
that had years ago started for the wars. And she told him to step out
from behind the bush and accost Nausicaa. Oh, believe me, he knew what
to say, for he was as _malin_ as a fox! He made as fine a bow as you
could see and told Nausicaa that she must be a king’s daughter. And her
heart was fluttering like a bird—poor, pretty soul!—as she remembered her
dream. Not that she had need to call it to mind, for, as Mademoiselle
doubtless will understand, she had thought of nothing else all day!’
Madeleine looked suspiciously at the comic mask, but Berthe went on,—

‘And then my lord Reynard tells of his misfortunes, and the hours he had
spent struggling in the cold sea, and of his hunger, and of how his ship
was lost, and he longing for his own country, “until I saw Mademoiselle,”
with another bow, so that tears came to the eyes of Nausicaa and her
maids, and shyly kind, she asked him if he would be pleased to take
shelter under her father’s roof, which, as you will believe, was just
what he had been waiting for! And her parents welcomed the handsome
stranger kindly, the father as man to man, the mother a little shyly, for
she saw that he was a great lord, though he did not tell his name, and
she feared that he might think poorly of their state. All the same, her
mind was busy weaving fantasies, and when she told them to her husband
he mocked her for a vain and foolish woman, but for all that, he looked
troubled and not well pleased. Nausicaa did not tell her parents of
her dream, but that evening when her old nurse was combing her hair—my
grannie used to say it was a comb made of pink coral—she asked her
whether she thought that dreams might be taken as omens, and the old
woman, who from the question divined the truth, brought out a dozen cases
of dreams coming true.’

‘Does it end happily?’ Madeleine interrupted feverishly.

‘Mademoiselle will see,’ chuckled Berthe, her expression inexpressibly
sly.

‘Don’t look so strangely, Berthe, you frighten me!’ cried Madeleine. She
was in a state of great nervous excitement.

‘But, Mademoiselle, it is only a tale—it is _just_ like Albert, he will
sometimes cry his eyes out over a sad tale. I remember one evening at the
Fête des Rois, the Curé——’

‘Go on with the story,’ cried Madeleine.

‘Where was I? Oh, yes.... Well, Ulysse stayed with them some days, and
he would borrow a blue smock from one of Nausicaa’s brothers and help
to bring in the hay, and in the evening tell them stories of strange
countries or play to them on the lute. And he would wander with Nausicaa
in the orchard, and though his talk was pretty and full of _fleurettes_,
he never spoke of love. Well, one evening a Troubadour—Mademoiselle knows
what that is?’

‘Of course!’

‘Came to the door and they asked him in, and after supper he sang
them songs all about the Siege of Troy and the hardships undergone by
Charlemagne and his knights when they fought there for _la belle Hélène_,
and as he listened Ulysse could not keep from weeping, and they watched
him, wondering. And when the song was finished they were all silent.
And then Ulysse spoke up, saying he would no longer keep his name from
them—“and, indeed,” he added proudly, “it is not a name that need make
its bearer blush, for,” said he, “I am the lord Ulysse!” At that they all
exclaimed with wonder, and Nausicaa turned as white as death, but Ulysse
did not look at her. Then he told them of all the troubles sent him by
Saint Nicholas and how fain he was to get to his own country and to his
lady who was waiting for him in a high tower, but that he had no ship.
Then Nausicaa’s father clapped him on the shoulder, although he was such
a great lord, and told him that he had some ships of his own to carry his
corn to barren countries like England, and that he should have one to
take him home. Then he filled up their glasses with good red Beaume and
drank to his safe arrival, but Nausicaa said never a word and left the
room. And next morning she was there, standing by a pillar of the door
to bid him godspeed, smiling bravely, for though she was but a farmer’s
daughter she had a _noble fierté_. But after he had gone she could do
nothing but weep, and pray to the Virgin to send her comfort. And some
tell that in time she forgot the lord Ulysse and the grievous sorrow he
had brought on her, and wedded with a neighbouring farmer and gat him
fair children.

‘But others tell that the poor soul could not rid herself of the burden
of her grief, but did use to pass the nights in weeping and the days in
roaming, wan and cheerless, by the sea-waves or through the meadows. And
one eve as she wandered thus through a field of corn, it chanced that
one of God’s angels was flying overhead, and he saw the damsel, and his
strange bloodless heart was filled with love and pity of her, and he
swooped down on her and caught her up to Paradise.

‘ ... There is Madame calling me!’ and Berthe hurried from the room.

Madeleine lay quite still on her bed, with a frightened shadow in her
eyes. Ever since Jacques’s dissertation on the Symmetry of the Comic
Muse, terror had been howling outside the doors of her soul, but now it
had boldly entered and taken possession.




CHAPTER XXVII

THE CHRISTIAN VENUS


The sane and steady procedure of the last few weeks—to prepare for the
arousing of Admiration in Mademoiselle de Scudéry by a course in the art
of pleasing—now seemed to Madeleine inadequate and frigid. She felt she
could no longer cope with life without supernatural aid.

Once more her imagination began to pullulate with tiny nervous fears.

There would be onions for dinner—a vegetable that she detested. She would
feel that unless she succeeded in gulping down her portion before her
father gave another hiccough, she would never gain the friendship of
Mademoiselle de Scudéry. She would wake up in the middle of the night
with the conviction that unless, standing on one leg, she straightway
repeated ‘_cogito, ergo sum_’ fifteen times, Conrart would be seized by
another attack of gout which would postpone her visit.

But these little fears—it would be tedious to enumerate them all—found
their source in one great fear, to wit _lest the Sapphic Ode and the
adventures of Nausicaa formed one story_.

The Ode tells how Venus appeared to Sappho and promised her rare things;
but were these promises fulfilled? The Ode does not tell us, but we know
that Sappho leapt from a cliff into the cold sea. The Virgin appears
to Nausicaa, and although her promises are not as explicit as those of
Venus, they are every whit as enticing, and what do they lead to? To a
maiden disillusioned, deserted, and heart-broken, finding her final
consolation in the cold and ravishing embraces of an Angel.

She, too, by omens and signs had been promised rare things; she had
abandoned God, but had she ceased to believe in His potency? She
remembered the impression left on Jacques by the fourth book of the
_Eneid_, and Descartes’ discarded hypothesis of an evil god, _le grand
trompeur_—the ‘great cheat,’ he had called Him. Perhaps He had sent the
Virgin to Nausicaa, Dame Venus to Sappho, and to herself a constellation
of auspicious stars, to cozen them with fair promises that He might have
the joy of breaking them—and their hearts as well.

One evening when her nerves were nearly cracking under the strain of this
idea, she went to the kitchen to seek out Berthe.

‘Berthe,’ she said, ‘when you do strangely desire a thing shall come to
pass, what means do you affect to compass it?’

Berthe gave her a sly look and answered: ‘I burn a candle to my patron
saint, Mademoiselle.’

‘And is the candle efficacious to the granting of your prayers?’

‘As to their granting, it hangs upon the humour of Saint Berthe.’

‘Do you know of any charm that will so work upon her as to change her
humour from a splenetic to a kindly one?’

‘There is but two charms, Mademoiselle, that will surely work upon the
humours of the great—be they in Paradise or on the earth—they be flattery
and presents. Albeit, I am a good Catholic, I hold my own opinions on
certain matters, and I cannot doubt that once the Saints are safe in
Paradise they turn exceeding grasping, crafty, and malicious. Like
financiers, they are glutted on the farthings of the poor—a pack of
Montaurons!’

‘And in what manner does one flatter them?’

‘Why, by novenas and candles and prostrating oneself before their
images. As for me, except I have a prayer I strangely desire should be
granted, I do never affect to kneel at Mass, I do but bend forward in
my seat. In Lorraine we hold all this bowing and scraping as naught but
Spanish tomfoolery! You’d seek long before you found one of _us_ putting
ourselves to any discomfort for the Saints, except it did profit us to do
so!’ and for at least a minute she chuckled and winked.

Well, here was a strange confirmation of her theory—a wicked hierarchy
could only culminate in a wicked god. Yes, but such ignoble Saints
would surely not be incorruptible. Might not timely bribes change their
malicious designs? Also, it was just possible that Nausicaa and Sappho
had neglected the rites and sacrifices without which no compact is valid
between a god and a mortal. But could she not learn from their sad
example? _Her_ story was still in the making, by timely rites she might
bring it to a happy issue.

With a sudden flash of illumination she felt she had discovered the
secret of her failure. It was due to her neglect of her own patron
saint, Saint Magdalene, who was as well the patron saint of Madeleine de
Scudéry, a mystic link between their two souls, without which they could
never be united.

_Forget not your great patron saint in your devotions. It was her
particular virtue that she greatly loved_, had been the words of Mère
Agnès. _She greatly loved_—why, it was all as clear as day; was she not
the holy courtesan, and as such had she not taken over the functions of
the pagan Venus, she who had appeared to Sappho? As the Christian Venus,
charm and beauty and wit and _l’air galant_, and all the qualities that
inspire Admiration must be in her gift, and Madeleine had neglected her!
It was little wonder she had failed. Why, at the very beginning of her
campaign against _amour-propre_ she should have invoked her aid—‘the
saint who so greatly loved.’

Thus, link by link, was forged a formidable chain of evidence proving the
paramount importance of the cult of Saint Magdalene.

What could she do to propitiate her? The twenty-second of July was her
Feast, just a few days before the visit to Conrart. That was surely a
good omen. She made a rapid calculation and found that it would fall on
a Sunday, what if ... she shuddered, for something suddenly whispered to
her soul a sinister suggestion.

       *       *       *       *       *

That afternoon the Chevalier de Méré came to wait on her, and in the
course of his elegantly didactic monologue, Madeleine inadvertently
dropped her handkerchief: he sprang to pick it up, and as he presented it
to her apostrophised it with a languorous sigh,—

‘Ah, little cambric flower, it would not have taken a seer to foretell
that happiness as exquisite as yours should precede a fall!’

Then, according to his custom of following up a concrete compliment by a
dissertation on the theory of _Galanterie_ he launched into an historical
survey of the use to which the _Muse Galante_ had made, in countless
admirable sonnets, of the enviable intimacy existing between their fair
wearer and such insensible objects as a handkerchief or a glove.

‘But these days,’ he continued, ‘the envy of a poet _à la mode_ is not
so much aroused by gloves of _frangipane_ and handkerchiefs of Venetian
lace, in that a franchise far greater than _they_ have ever enjoyed has
been granted by all the Belles of the Court and Town to ignoble squares
of the roughest cloth—truly evangelical, these Belles have exalted the
poor and meek and——’

‘I don’t take your meaning, pray explain,’ Madeleine cut in.

‘Why, dear Rhodanthos, have you never heard of Mère Madeleine de
Saint-Joseph of the Carmelites?’

‘That I have, many a time.’

‘Well, as you know, in her life time she worked miracles beyond the
dreams of Faith itself, and at her death, as in the case of the founder
of her Order, the great Elias, her virtue was transmitted to her cloak,
or rather to her habit, portions of which fortunate garment are worn
by all the _belles dévotes_ next ... er ... their ... er next ... er
... their sk ... next their secret garden of lilies, with, I am told,
the most extravagant results; it is her portion of the miraculous habit
that has turned Madame de Longueville into a penitent, for example, but
its effects are sometimes of a more profane nature, namely—breathe it
low—success in the tender passion!’ Madeleine’s eyes grew round.

‘Yes, ’tis a veritable cestus of Venus, which, I need hardly remind a
lady of such elegant learning as Mademoiselle, was borrowed by Juno when
anxious to rekindle the legitimate passion in the bosom of Jove. And
speaking of Juno I remember——’

But Madeleine had no more attention to bestow on the urbane flow of the
Chevalier’s conversation. She was ablaze with excitement and hope ...
Mère _Madeleine_ de Saint-Joseph, the mystical name again! And the cestus
of Venus ... it was surely a message sent from Saint Magdalene herself.
The Chevalier had said that these relics had usurped the rôle previously
played in the world of fashion by lace handkerchiefs and gloves of
_frangipane_, in short of the feminine _petite-oie_. Thus, by obtaining
a relic, she would kill two birds with one stone; she would absorb the
virtue of Saint Magdalene and at the same time destroy for ever the
bad magic of that _petite-oie_ of bad omen which she had bought at the
Foire St. Germain. The very next day she would go to the Carmelites,
and perhaps, _perhaps_, if they had not long ago been all distributed,
procure a piece of the magical habit. At any rate she would consolidate
her cult for Saint Magdalene by burning some candles in the wonderful
chapel set up in her honour in the Church of the Carmelites.




CHAPTER XXVIII

THE ASCENT OF MOUNT CARMEL


Many strange legends had gone to weave round the Convent of the
Carmelites—so long the centre of fashionable Catholicism—an atmosphere of
romantic mystery.

Tradition taught that the order had been founded on the summit of Mount
Carmel by Elias himself. Its earliest members were the mysterious
Essenes, but they were converted to Christianity by Saint Peter’s
Pentecostal sermon, and built on the mountain a chapel to the Blessed
Virgin Mary, she herself becoming a member of their order. Her example
was followed by the Twelve Apostles, and any association with that
mysterious company of sinister semi-plastic beings, menacing sinners with
their symbolic keys and crosses, had filled Madeleine since her childhood
with a nameless terror.

The Essenes and the Apostles! The Carmelites thus preserved the Mysteries
of both the Old and the New Testaments.

Madeleine, as she stood at the door of their Convent, too awe-struck
to enter, felt herself on the confines of the Holy Land—that land half
geographical, half Apocalyptical, where the Unseen was always bursting
through the ramparts of nature’s laws; where Transfigurations and
Assumptions were daily events, and Assumptions not only of people but of
cities. Had not Jerusalem, with all its towers and palm-trees and gardens
and temples, been lifted up by the lever of God’s finger right through
the Empyrean, and landed intact and all burning with gold in the very
centre of the Seventh Heaven?

Summoning up all her courage she passed into the court. It was quite
empty, and over its dignified proportions there did indeed seem to lie
the shadow of the silent awful Denizen of ‘high places.’ Dare she cross
it? Once more she pulled herself together and made her way into the
Church.

It was a gorgeous place, supported by great pillars of marble and bronze
and hung with large, sombre pictures by Guido and Philippe de Champagne,
while out of the darkness gleamed the ‘Arche d’Alliance’ with its huge
sun studded with jewels.

The atmosphere though impressive was familiar—merely Catholicism in its
most luxuriant form, and Madeleine took heart. She set out in quest of
the Magdalene’s Chapel. Here and there a nun was kneeling, but she was
the only stranger.

Yes, it was but meet that here—the grave of sweet Mademoiselle de
Vigean’s love for the great Condé and of many another romantic
tragedy—the Magdalene should be specially honoured.

The Chapel was small and rich, its door of fretted iron-work made it
look not unlike a great lady’s _alcove_. It was filled with pictures by
Le Brun and his pupils of scenes from the life of the Saint. There she
was in a dark grove, with tears of penitence streaming from the whites
of large upturned eyes. And there she was again, beneath the Cross, and
there watching at the Tomb, but always torn by the same intensity of
pseudo emotion, for Le Brun and Guido foreshadowed in their pictures that
quality of poignant, artificial anguish which a few years later was to
move all sensibilities in the tragedies of Racine.

Madeleine was much moved by the Magdalene’s anguish, and hesitated to
obtrude her own request. But her throbbing desire won the day, and
remembering what Berthe had said about flattery she knelt before the
largest picture and began by praising the Magdalene’s beauty and piety
and high place in Paradise, and then with humble importunity implored the
friendship of her namesake.

When she opened her eyes, there was the Magdalene as absorbed as before
in the intensity of her own emotion. Le Brun’s dramatic chiaroscuro
brings little comfort to suppliants—the eternal impassivity of the Buddha
is far less discouraging than an eternal emotion in which we have no part.

Madeleine felt the chill of repulse. Perhaps in Paradise as on earth the
Saints were sensible to nothing but the cycle of the sacred Story, and
knew no emotions but passionate grief at the Crucifixion, ecstasy at the
Resurrection, awe at the Ascension, and child-like joy as the Birth comes
round again.

‘I am scorned in both the worldly and the sacred alcoves,’ she told
herself bitterly, nevertheless, she determined to continue her attentions.

She bought three fine candles and added them to those already burning on
the Magdalen’s altar. What did the Saint do with the candles? Perhaps
at night when no one was looking she melted them down, then added
them to the wax of reality and moulded, moulded, moulded. Once more
Madeleine fell on her knees, and there welled from her heart a passion of
supplication.

_Sainte Madeleine_, the patron saint of all Madeleines ... of Madeleine
Troqueville and of Madeleine de Scudéry ... the saint who had loved
so much herself ... the successor of she whom Jacques had called ‘the
beneficent and bountiful Venus’ ... surely, surely she would grant her
request.

‘Deathless Saint Magdalen of the damasked throne,’ she muttered, ‘friend
of Jesus, weaver of wiles, vex not my soul with frets and weariness but
hearken to my prayer. Who flees, may she pursue; who spurns gifts may she
offer them; who loves not, willy-nilly may she love. Broider my speech
with the quaint flowers of Paradise, on thine own loom weave me wiles and
graces to the ensnaring of my love. Up the path of Admiration lead Sappho
to my desire.’

She felt a touch on her shoulder, and, looking round, saw a lay-sister,
in the brown habit of the Carmelites. Her twinkling black eyes reminded
Madeleine of another pair of eyes, but whose she could not remember.

‘I ask pardon, Madame,’ the sister said in a low voice, ‘but we hold
ourselves the hostesses, as it were, of all wanderers on Carmel. Is there
aught that I can do for you?’

Madeleine’s heart began to beat wildly; the suddenness with which an
opportunity had been given her for procuring her wish seemed to her of
the nature of a miracle. Through her perennial grief at the old, old
story, the Magdalene must have heard her prayer. A certainty was born
in on her that her desire would be granted. She and the other Madeleine
would one day visit the Chapel together, and side by side set up rows and
rows of wax candles in gratitude for the perfection of their friendship.

‘Oh, sister, I am much beholden to you,’ she stammered. The nun led the
way out of the Church into the great garden that marched with that of the
Luxembourg and rivalled it in magnificence. She sat down by a statue of
the Virgin, enamelled in gold and azure.

Madeleine thought with contemptuous pity of the comparatively meagre
dimensions and furnishing of Port-Royal, and triumphed to think how far
she had wandered from Jansenism.

‘You have the air of one in trouble,’ said the nun kindly. Her breath
smelt of onions, and somehow or other this broke the spell of the
situation for Madeleine. It was a touch of realism not suited to a
mystical messenger.

‘I perceive graven on your countenance the lines of sorrow, my child,’
she went on, ‘but to everything exists its holy pattern, and these
lines can also be regarded as a blessing, when we call to mind the holy
stigmata.’ She gabbled off this speech as though it had been part of the
patter of a quack.

‘Yes, I am exceeding unhappy,’ said Madeleine; ‘at least I am oppressed
by fears as to the issue of certain matters,’ she corrected herself, for
‘unhappy’ seemed a word of ill-omen.

‘Poor child!’ said the Sister, ‘but who knows but that oil and balm of
comfort may not pour on you from Mount Carmel?’

‘Oh, do you think it may?’ Madeleine cried eagerly.

‘’Tis a strange thing, but many go away from here comforted. It is richly
blessed.’

‘I wonder,’ Madeleine began hesitatingly. ‘I fear ’tis asking too
much—but if I could but have a relic of the blessed Mère Madeleine de
Saint-Joseph! The world reports her relics more potent than any other
Saint’s.’ (In spite of the efforts of many great French ladies, Mère
Madeleine de Saint-Joseph had _not_ been canonised. Madeleine knew this,
but she thought she would please the Carmelite by ignoring it.)

At Madeleine’s words the little nun wriggled her body into a succession
of Gallic contortions, in which eyebrows and hands played a large part,
expressive of surprise, horror, and complete inability to grant such an
outrageous request. But Madeleine pleaded hard, and after a dissertation
on the extraordinary virtue of the habit, and a repeated reiteration that
there were only one or two scraps of it left, the Carmelite finally
promised that one of these scraps should be Madeleine’s.

She went into the Convent and came back with a tiny piece of frayed
cloth, and muttering a prayer she fixed it inside Madeleine’s bodice.

Madeleine was almost too grateful to say ‘thank you.’

‘All the greatest ladies of the Court and the Town are wont to wear a
portion of the sacred habit,’ the nun continued complacently. Madeleine
found herself wondering quite seriously if the mère Madeleine de
Saint-Joseph had been a _Gargamelle_ in proportions.

‘To speak truth, it must have been a huge and capacious garment!’ she
said in all good faith. The nun gave her a quick look out of her shrewd
little eyes, but ignored the remark.

‘And now Mademoiselle will give us a contribution for our Order, will she
not?’ she said insinuatingly. Madeleine was much taken aback. She blushed
and said,—

‘Oh, in earnest ... ’tis accordant with my wishes ... but ... er ... how
much?’

‘Do but consult your own heart, and it will go hard but we shall be
satisfied. I have given you what to the eyes of the flesh appears but a
sorry scrap of poor rough fustian, but to the eyes of the spirit it has
the lustre of velvet, and there is not a Duchess but would be proud to
wear it!’

Why, of course, her eyes were like those of the mercer at the Fair who
had sold her the ‘_petite-oie_’!

However, one acquires merit by giving to holy Houses ... and also,
Mademoiselle has procured something priceless beyond rubies. Madeleine
offered a gold louis, and the nun was profuse in her thanks. They parted
at the great gates, the nun full of assurances as to the efficacy of the
amulet, Madeleine of grateful thanks.

It had been a strange adventure, and she left the Sacred Mountain with
conflicting emotions.




CHAPTER XXIX

THE BODY OF THE DRAGON


If you remember, when Madeleine had realised that the feast of Saint
Magdalene was approaching, an idea had flashed into her head which she
had not then dared to entertain. But it had slowly crept back and now had
established itself as a fixed purpose. It was this—on the feast of Saint
Magdalene to communicate, _without having first received Absolution_.
She felt that it would please the potent Saint that she should commit
a deadly sin in her honour. Also, it would mean a complete and final
rupture with Jansenism. And with one stroke she would annihilate her
Salvation—that predestined ghostly certainty to the fulfilment of which
the Celestial Powers seemed bent on sacrificing all her worldly hopes
and happiness. Yes, she would now be able to walk in security along the
familiar paths of life, unhaunted by the fear of the sudden whirr of
wings and then—the rape to the love of invisible things.

So on Sunday, the twenty-second of July, she partook of the Blessed
Sacrament. Arnauld had written in the ‘Fréquente Communion’: ‘_therefore
as the true penitent eats the body of Jesus Christ, so the sinner eats
the body of the Dragon_.’

Well, and so she was eating the body of the Dragon! The knowledge gave
her a strange sense of exaltation and an awful peace.




CHAPTER XXX

A JAR


It was the day before the meeting. Early next morning the Chevalier de
Méré was to call for her in his coach and drive her out to Conrart’s
house. He was also taking that tiresome little Mademoiselle Boquet. That
was a pity, but she was particularly pleased that the Chevalier himself
was to be there, he always brought out her most brilliant qualities.

_She was absolutely certain of success_ ... the real world seemed to
have become the dream world ... she felt as if she had been turned into
a creature of some light, unsubstantial substance living in an airless
crystal ball.

That afternoon, being Thursday and a holiday, she went an excursion with
Jacques to Chaillot, a little village up the Seine. She walked in a happy
trance, and the fifteenth century Church, ornate and frivolous, dotted
with its black Minims—‘_les bons hommes de Chaillot_’—and the coach of
the exiled Queen-Mother of England’s gaily rattling down the cobbled
street, seemed to her—safe inside her crystal ball—pretty and unreal and
far-away, like Berthe’s stories of Lorraine.

Then they wandered into a little copse behind the village and lay there
in the fantastic green shade, and Madeleine stroked and petted Jacques
and laughed away his jealousy about the Chevalier, and promised that next
week she would go with him to the notary and plight her troth.

Then they got up and she took his arm; on her face was a rapt smile, for
she was dreaming particularly pleasant things about herself and Sappho.

Suddenly Jacques’s foot caught in a hidden root ... down he came,
dragging Madeleine after him ... smash went the crystal ball, and once
more she saw the world bright and hard and menacing and felt around her
the rough, shrewd winds.

So Jacques had made her fall—just when she was having such pleasant
dreams of Sappho!

_Hylas, hélas! Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes. Birds thinking to fly
through have dashed themselves against the wall. ’Tis as though the issue
of his roman were tied in a strange knot with that of yours. I have been
writing a little comedy on life instead of on foolscap. In the smithy
of Vulcan are being forged weapons which will not tarry to smash your
fragile world into a thousand fragments_ ... weapons? Perhaps one of them
was ‘the scimitar of the Comic Muse’ (or was it the ‘symmetry’? It did
not really matter which.)

Who was the mercer at the Fair? He had the same eyes as the nun at the
Carmelites.... Her father, too, had a _petite-oie_ ... he had put his
faith in bravery. Perhaps Venus-Magdalen and the Comic Muse were one ...
and their servant was Hylas the mocking shepherd. _The wooden cubes on
which God’s finger had cut a design ... generals and particulars. Have
a care lest that scoundrel Jacques stick a disgrace upon you, as he has
done to me! A comedy written upon life instead of upon foolscap._

In morbid moments she had often heard a whisper to which she had never
permitted herself to listen. She heard the whisper now, louder and more
insistent than ever before. To-day she could not choose but listen to it.

_Her ‘roman’ had to follow the pattern of her father’s. Her father’s
‘roman,’ as slowly it unfolded, was nothing but a magical pre-doing of
her own future, more potent than her dances. And God had deputed the
making of it to—Jacques. He was the playwright, or the engraver, or the
moulder of wax—it mattered little in what medium he wrought his sinister
art._

There was still time to act. ‘She would _do_, she would _do_, she would
_do_.’ Action is the only relief for a hag-ridden brain. An action that
was ruthless and final—that would break his power and rid her of him for
ever. That action should be consummated.

All the while that this train of fears and memories had been coursing
through her brain, she had chattered to Jacques with hectic gaiety.

When they got home she ran to the kitchen to find Berthe.

‘Berthe, were you ever of opinion I would wed with Monsieur Jacques?’

Berthe leered and winked. ‘Well, Mademoiselle,’ she said, ‘Love is one
thing—marriage is another. Monsieur Jacques could not give Mademoiselle
a coach and a fine _hôtel_ in the Rue de Richelieu. I understand
Mademoiselle exceeding well, in that we are not unlike in some matters,’
and she gave her grotesque grin. ‘As for me, I would never wed with a
man except he could raise me to a better condition than mine own—else
what would it profit one? But if some plump little tradesman were to come
along——’

‘But did you hold that I would wed with Monsieur Jacques?’ Madeleine
persisted.

‘Well, if Mademoiselle _did_ wed with him, she would doubtless be setting
too low a price on herself, though he is a fine young gentleman and
_malin comme un singe_; he is like Albert, nothing escapes him.’

‘Do you think the Saints like us to use each other unkindly?’

Berthe laughed enigmatically, ‘I think ’tis a matter of indifference to
them, so long as they get the _sous_.’

‘But don’t you think it might accord well with their humour if they are
as wicked as you say they are?’

Part of the truth suddenly flashed on Berthe, and she winked and chuckled
violently. ‘Oh, Mademoiselle is sly!’ she cried admiringly. ‘I think it
would please them not a little were Mademoiselle to jilt a poor man that
she might wed with a rich one, for then there would be gold for them
instead of copper!’

And Madeleine, having forced her oracle into giving her a more or less
satisfactory answer, fled from the room in dread of Berthe mentioning the
name of the Chevalier de Méré and thereby spoiling the oracular answer.

She called Jacques to her room at once, and found herself—she who had
such a horror of hurting the feelings of her neighbours that she would
let a thief cut her purse-strings rather than that he should know that
she knew he was a thief—telling him without a tremor that his personality
was obnoxious to her, his addresses still more so, and that she wanted
to end their relationship once and for all. Jacques listened in perfect
silence. At her first words he had gone white and then flushed the angry
red of wounded vanity, and then once more had turned white. When she had
finished, he said in a voice of icy coldness,—

‘Mademoiselle, you have an admirable clearness of exposition; rest
assured I shall not again annoy you with my addresses—or my presence,’
and with his head very high he left the room.




CHAPTER XXXI

THE END OF THE ‘ROMAN’


Madeleine listened to Jacques’s light footsteps going down the long
flight of stairs, and knew that he had gone for ever. With this knowledge
came a sense of peace she had not known for days, and one of sacramental
purity, such as must have filled the souls of pious Athenians when at the
Thargelia the _Pharmakoi_ were expelled from the city.

Yes, just in time she had discovered the true moral of the Sapphic
Ode and the story of Nausicaa, to wit, that the gods will break their
promises if man fails to perform the necessary rites and ceremonies.
Ritually, her affairs were in exquisite order. By her sacrilegious
Communion (she still shuddered at the thought of it) she had consolidated
her cult for the powerful Saint Magdalene, and at the same time cut
out of her heart the brand of God, by which in the fullness of time
the ravishing Angel would have discovered his victim. And, finally, by
her dismissal of Jacques, she had rid herself of a most malign miasma.
The wax of reality lay before her, smooth and white and ready for her
moulding. All she had to do now was to sparkle, and, automatically, she
would arouse the passion of Admiration.

Suddenly she remembered another loose thread that needed to be gathered
up. The _roman_ of her dances had not been brought to a climax.

An unwritten law of the style gallant makes the action of a _roman_
automatically cease after a declaration of love. Nothing can happen
afterwards. What if she should force time to its fullness and make a
declaration? It would be burning her boats, it would be staking all her
happiness on this last meeting, for if it were a failure hope would be
dead. For, owing to her strange confusion of the happenings of her dances
with those of real life, the _roman_ of the one having been completed,
its magical virtue all used up, its colophon reached, she felt that the
_roman_ of the other would also have reached its colophon, that nothing
more could happen. But for great issues she must take great risks ...
_dansons_!

       *       *       *       *       *

_Sappho and Madeleine are reclining on a bank, the colour and design of
which rival all the carpets in the bazaars of Bagdad. There is no third
person to mar their ravishing solitude ~à deux~. Madeleine is saying,_—

_‘I must confess, Madame, that your delicious writings have made me a
heretic.’_

_Sappho laughs gaily. ‘Then I tremble for your fate, for heretics are
burned.’_

_‘In that case I am indeed a heretic, for a flame has long burned me,’
says Madeleine boldly. But Sappho possesses in a high degree the art of
hearing only what she chooses, and she says, a trifle coldly_,—

_‘If my writings have made you a heretic, they must themselves
be heretical. Do they contain Five Propositions worthy of papal
condemnation?’_

_‘Madame, you are resolved to misunderstand me. They have made me a
heretic in regard to the verdict of posterity as to the merits of the
ancients, for since I have steeped myself, if I may use the expression,
in your incomparable style I have become as deaf as Odysseus to the siren
songs of Greece and Rome.’_

_‘That is indeed heresy,’ cries Sappho with a smile that shows she is not
ill-pleased. ‘I fear it will be visited by excommunication by the whole
College of Muses.’_

_‘The only punishment of heresy—you have yourself said so—is ... flame,’
says Madeleine, gazing straight into the eyes of Sappho. This time she
is almost certain she can perceive a blush on that admirable person’s
cheek—~almost~ certain, for the expression of such delicate things as the
Passions of Sappho must need itself be very delicate. Descartes has said
that a blush proceeds from one of two passions—love or hate. ~En voilà un
problème galant!~_

_‘To justify my heresy, permit me, Madame, to recall to your mind a poem
by your namesake, the Grecian Sappho,_—

    ‘That man seems to me greater than the gods who doth sit facing
    thee and sees thee and hears thy delicate laughter. When this
    befalls me my senses clean depart ... all is void ... my tongue
    cleaves to the roof of my mouth, drop by drop flame steals down
    my slender veins ... there is a singing in mine ears ... my
    eyes are covered with a twin night.

_She pauses, but Sappho laughs—perhaps not ~quite~ naturally—and cries,_—

_‘Mademoiselle, your heresy still stands unjustified!’_

_‘Why, Madame, how could any one of taste take pleasure in verse so
devoid of wit, of grace, of ~galanterie~ ... so bare, so barbarous,
after they have been initiated into the Parnassian Mysteries of ~your~
incomparable verse and prose? Why, what I have quoted is the language of
lexicographers and philosophers, not the divine cadences of a poet. Put
in metre Descartes’ description of the signs by which the movements of
the Passions may be detected, namely,_—

_‘“The chief signs by which the Passions show themselves are the motions
of the eyes and the face, changes of colour, trembling, languor,
faintness, laughter, tears, moans, and sighs,” and you will have a poem
every whit as graceful and well-turned!_

_‘The poem of Sappho I. is a “small thing” ... but if it had proceeded
from the delicious pen of Sappho II. it would have been a “rose”!’_

_‘And how should I have effected this miracle?’ asks Sappho with a smile._

_‘I think, Madame, you would have used that excellent device of the Muse
Galante which I will call that of Eros Masqué.’_

_‘Eros Masqué? Is he unseen then as well as unseeing?’_

_‘On his first visit, frequently, Madame. And this droll fact—that lovers
pierced by as many of his arrows as Saint Sebastian by those of the Jews
are wont to ignore the instrument by which they have got their wounds—has
been put to pretty use by many ~poètes galants~. For example, an amorous
maiden or swain doth describe divers well-known effects of the tender
passion, and then asks with a delicious naïveté, “Can it be Love?” And
this simple little question, if inserted between each of the symptoms
enumerated by Sappho, would go far to giving her poem the ~esprit~ it so
sadly lacks. But, Madame, far the most ravishing of all the poems of Eros
Masqué are your own incomparable verses in the sixth volume of “Cyrus”_:—

    ‘Ma peine est grande, et mon plaisir extrême,
    Je ne dors point la nuit, je rêve tout le jour;
    Je ne sais pas encore si j’aime,
    Mais cela ressemble a l’amour.

    ‘Voyant Phaon mon âme est satisfaite,
    Et ne le voyant point, la peine est dans mon cœur
    J’ignore encore ma defaite
    Mais peut-être est-il mon vainqueur?

    ‘Tout ce qu’il dit me semble plein de charmes!
    Tout ce qu’il ne dit pas, n’en peut avoir pour moi,
    Mon cœur as-tu mis bas les armes?
    Je n’en sais rien, mais je le crois.

_‘Do not these verses when placed by the side of those of the Grecian
Sappho justify for ever my heresy?’_

_‘I should be guilty myself of the heresy of self-complacency were I
to subscribe your justification,’ cries Sappho with a delicious air of
raillery._

_‘Madame, the device of Eros Masqué serves another purpose besides that
of charming the fancy by its grace and drollery.... It makes Confession
innocent, for although that Sacrament is detested by Précieuses as
fiercely as by Protestants, the most precise and prudish of Précieuses
could scarce take umbrage at a Confession expressed by a string of naïve
questions.’_

_‘There, Madame, you show a deplorable ignorance of the geography of
the heart of at least one Précieuse. I can picture myself white with
indignation on receiving the Socratic Confession you describe,’ says
Sappho, but the ice of her accents thaws into two delicious little
dimples._

_‘“Mais votre fermeté tient un peu du barbare,” to quote the great
Corneille,’ cries Madeleine with a smile. ‘You called it a Socratic
Confession, alluding I presume to the fact that it was cast in the form
of questions, but a Socratic Confession, if my professors have not misled
me, is very close to a Platonic one. Can you picture yourself white with
rage at receiving a Platonic Confession?’_

_‘Before I can answer that question you must describe to me a Platonic
Confession,’ says Sappho demurely._

_‘’Tis the confession of a sentiment the purity and discreetness of which
makes it the only tribute worthy to be laid at the feet of a Précieuse.
Starting from what Descartes holds to be the coldest of the Passions,
that of Admiration, it takes its demure way down the slope of Inclination
straight into the twilight grove of l’Amitié Tendre_—

    ‘Auprès de cette Grote sombre
    Oh l’on respire un air si doux;
    L’onde lutte avec les cailloux,
    Et la lumière avec l’ombre.

    ‘Dans ce Bois, ni dans ces montagnes
    Jamais chasseur ne vint encore:
    Si quelqu’un y sonne du Cor
    C’est Diane avec ses compagnes.

_‘These delicious verses of the gentle Tristan might have been a
description of the land of ~l’Amitié Tendre~, so charmed is its
atmosphere, so deep its green shadows, so heavy its brooding peace. For
all round it is traced a magic circle across which nothing discordant
or vulgar can venture.... Without, moan the Passions like wild beasts
enchained, the thunder booms, the lightning flashes, and there is a heap
as high as a mountain of barbed arrows shot by Love, all of which have
fallen short of that magic circle._

_‘Happy they who have crossed it!_

_‘Madame, I called the Grecian Sappho a barbarian.... Barbarian or no she
discovered hundreds of years ago the charm by which the magic circle can
be crossed ... the charm is simple when you know it; it is merely this
... take another maiden with you. It has never been crossed by man and
maid, for in sight of the country’s cool trees and with the murmur of its
fountains in their ear they have been snatched from behind by one of the
enchained passions, or grievously wounded by one of the whizzing arrows
... Madame, shall we try the virtue of the Grecian Sappho’s charm?’_

_And Sappho murmurs ‘yes.’_

       *       *       *       *       *

So Madeleine put her fate ‘to the touch, to win or lose it all,’ and
there was something exhilarating in the thought that retreat now was
impossible.




CHAPTER XXXII

‘UN CADEAU’


The next morning—the morning of _the_ day—Madeleine woke up with the same
feeling of purification; she seemed to be holding the day’s culmination
in her hands, and it was made of solid white marble, that cooled her
palms as she held it.

Berthe, with mysterious winks, brought her a sealed letter. It was from
Jacques:—

    ‘DEAR CHOP,—I am moving to the lodgings of a friend for a few
    days, and then I go off to join the Army in Spain. Take no
    blame to yourself for this, for I have always desired strangely
    to travel and have my share in manly adventures, and would,
    ’tis likely, have gone anyhow. I would never have made a good
    Procureur. I have written to Aunt Marie to acquaint her with my
    sudden decision, in such manner that she cannot suspect what
    has really taken place.

    ‘Oh, dear! I had meant to rail against you and I think this
    is nothing toward it! ’Tis a strange and provoking thing that
    one cannot—try as one will—be moved by _real_ anger towards
    those one cares about! Not that I have any real cause to be
    angry upon your score—bear in mind, Chop, that I know this full
    well—but in spite of this I would dearly like to be!

                                                           ‘JACQUES.’

As she read it, she realised that she had made a big sacrifice. Surely it
would be rewarded!

She dressed in a sort of trance. Her excitement was so overwhelming, so
vibrantly acute, that she was almost unconscious.

Then the Chevalier, with little Mademoiselle Boquet, drove up to the
door, and Madeleine got in, smiling vaguely in reply to the Chevalier’s
compliments, and they drove off, her mother and Berthe standing waving
at the door. On rolled the _carrosse_ past La Porte Sainte-Antoine,
through which were pouring carts full of vegetables and fruit for the
Halles, and out into the white road beyond; and on rolled the smooth
cadences of the Chevalier’s voice—‘To my mind the highest proof that one
is possessed of wit and that one knows how to wield it, is to lead a
well-ordered life and to behave always in society in a seemly fashion.
And to do that consists in all circumstances following the most _honnête_
line and that which seems most in keeping with the condition of life to
which one belongs. Some rôles in life are more advantageous than others;
it is Fortune that casts them and we cannot choose the one we wish; but
whatever that rôle may be, one is a good actor if one plays it well ...’
and so on. Fortunately, sympathetic monosyllables were all that the
Chevalier demanded from his audience, and these he got from Mademoiselle
Boquet and Madeleine.

And so the journey went on, and at last they were drawing up before a
small, comfortable white house with neatly-clipped hedges, shrubberies,
and the play of a sedate fountain. Madame Conrart, kind and flustered,
was at the door to meet them, and led them into a large room in which
Conrart in an arm-chair and Mademoiselle de Scudéry busy with her
embroidery in another arm-chair sat chatting together. Conrart’s greeting
to Madeleine was kindness itself, and Mademoiselle de Scudéry also said
something polite and friendly. She pretended not to hear her, and moved
towards Madame Conrart, for as soon as her eyes had caught sight of
Sappho, she had been seized by the same terrible self-consciousness, the
same feeling of ‘nothing matters so long as I am seen and heard as little
as may be.’

Then came some twenty minutes of respite, for Mademoiselle Boquet with
her budget of news of the Court and the Town acted as a rampart between
Madeleine and Mademoiselle de Scudéry. But at dinner-time her terror once
more returned, for general conversation was expected at meals. ‘Simple
country fare,’ said Conrart modestly, but although the dishes were not
numerous, and consisted mainly of home-reared poultry, there were forced
peaches and grapes and the table was fragrant with flowers.

‘Flora and Pomona joining hands have never had a fairer temple than this
table,’ said the Chevalier, and all the company, save Madeleine, added
their tribute to their host’s bounty. But Madeleine sat awkward and
tongue-tied, too nervous to eat. The precious moments of her last chance
were slipping by; even if she thought of a thousand witty things she
would not be able to say them, for her tongue felt swollen and impotent.
Descartes on the Will was just an old pedant, talking of what he did not
understand.

At last dinner was over, and Conrart suggested they should go for a
little walk in the grounds. He offered his arm to Mademoiselle de
Scudéry, the Chevalier followed with Madame Conrart, so Madeleine and
Mademoiselle Boquet found themselves partners. But even then Madeleine
was at first unable to break the spell of heavy silence hanging over her.
‘Blessed Saint Magdalene, help me! help me! help me!’ she muttered, and
then reminded herself that being neither half-witted nor dumb, it did not
demand any gigantic effort of will to _force_ herself to behave like an
_honnête femme_ ... and to-day it was a matter of life or death.

She felt like a naked, shivering creature, standing at the top of a
gigantic rock, and miles below her lay an icy black pool, but she must
take the plunge; and she did.

She began to reinforce her self-confidence by being affected and
pretentious with Mademoiselle Boquet, but the little lady’s gentle
reserve made her vaguely uncomfortable. She was evidently one of those
annoying little nonentities with strong likes and dislikes, and a whole
bundle of sharp little judgments of their own, who are always vaguely
irritating to their more triumphant sisters. Then she tried hard to
realise _emotionally_ that the gray female back in front of her belonged
to Mademoiselle de Scudéry—to the _Reine de Tendre_; to Sappho—but
somehow her imagination was inadequate. The focus of all her tenderness
was not this complacent lady, but the Sappho of her dances.

    As, for example, I find in myself two divers Ideas of the Sun,
    one as received by my senses by which it appears to me very
    small, another as taken from the arguments of Astronomers by
    which ’tis rendered something bigger than the Globe of the
    Earth. Certainly both of these cannot be like that sun which
    is without me, and my reason persuades that that Idea is most
    unlike the Sun, which seems to proceed immediately from itself.

She remembered these words of Descartes’ Third Meditation ... two suns
and two Sapphos, and the one perceived by the senses, not the real one
... and yet, and yet she could _never_ be satisfied with merely the
Sappho of the dances, even though metaphysically she were more real than
the other. Her happiness depended in merging the two Sapphos into one ...
she must remember, reality is colourless and silent and malleable ... a
white, still Sappho like the Grecian statues in the Louvre ... to the
Sappho of her dances she gave what qualities she chose, so could she
to the Sappho who was walking a few paces in front of her ... forward
la Madeleine! Then the Chevalier came and walked on her other side. She
told herself that this was a good opportunity of working herself into
a vivacious mood, which would bridge over the next awful chasm. So she
burst into hectic persiflage, and to Hell with Mademoiselle Boquet’s
little enigmatical smile!

They were walking in a little wood. Suddenly from somewhere among the
trees came the sound of violins. A _cadeau_ for one of the ladies!
Madeleine felt that she would die with embarrassment if it were not
for her—yes, _die_—humiliated for ever in the eyes of Mademoiselle
de Scudéry, in relationship to whom she always pictured herself as a
triumphant beauty, with every inch of the stage to herself.

There was a little buzz of expectation among the ladies, and Madame
Conrart, looking flustered and pleased, said: ‘I am sure it is none of
our doing.’ Madeleine stretched her lips in a forced smile, in a fever of
anxiety.

Then suddenly they came to an open clearing in the wood, and there was a
table heaped with preserved fruits and jams and sweetmeats and liqueurs,
all of them rose-coloured. The napkins were of rose-coloured silk and
folded into the shape of hearts, the knives were tiny darts of silver.
Behind stood the four fiddlers scratching away merrily at a _pot pourré_
of airs from the latest _ballet de cour._ The ladies gave little ‘ohs!’
of delight, and Conrart looked pleased and important, but that did not
mean anything, for he was continually taking a possessive pride in
matters in which he had had no finger. The Chevalier looked enigmatic.
Conrart turned to him with a knowing look and said,—

‘Chevalier, you are a professor of the _philosophie de galanterie_,
can you tell us whether rose pink is the colour of _Estime_ or of _le
Tendre_?’

‘Descartes is dumb on the relation of colours to the Passions, so it
is not for me to decide,’ the Chevalier answered calmly, ‘all _I_ know
is that the Grecian rose was pink.’ Madeleine’s heart gave a bound of
triumph.

The fiddles started a languorous saraband, and from the trees a shower of
artificial rose-petals fell on the ladies. Mademoiselle de Scudéry looked
very gracious.

‘Our unknown benefactor has a very fragrant invention,’ she said in a
tone which seemed to Madeleine to intimate that _she_ was the queen of
the occasion. Vain, foolish, ugly creature, how dare she think so, when
she, Madeleine, was there! Had she not heard what the Chevalier had said
about the ‘Grecian rose’?—(though why she should know that the Chevalier
called Madeleine ‘Rhodanthos,’ I fail to perceive!)—she would put her in
her place. She gave a little affected laugh, and, looking straight at the
Chevalier, she said,—

‘It is furiously gallant. I thank you a thousand times.’

The Chevalier looked nonplussed, and stammered out that ‘Cupid must have
known that a bevy of Belles had planned to visit that wood.’

Madeleine had committed the unpardonable crime—she had openly
acknowledged a _cadeau_, whereas _Galanterie_ demanded that the
particular lady it was intended to honour should be veiled in a piquant
mystery. Why, it was enough to send all the ladies of _Cyrus_ shuddering
back for ever to their Persian seraglios! But she had as well broken the
spell of silence woven by Mademoiselle de Scudéry’s presence. That lady
exchanged a little look with Mademoiselle Boquet which somehow glinted
right off from Madeleine’s shining new armour. She gulped off a liqueur
and gave herself tooth and nail to the business of shining. She began to
flirt outrageously with the Chevalier, and though he quite enjoyed it,
the _pédagogue galant_ in him made a mental note to give Madeleine a hint
that this excessive _galanterie_ smacked of the previous reign, while
the present fashion was a witty prudishness. Certainly, Mademoiselle de
Scudéry was not looking impressed, but, somehow, Madeleine did not care;
the one thing that mattered was that she should be brilliantly in the
foreground, and be very witty, and then Mademoiselle de Scudéry _must_
admire her.

Mademoiselle de Scudéry soon started a quiet little chat with Conrart,
which caused Madeleine’s vivacity to flag; how could she sparkle when her
sun was hidden?

‘Yes, _la belle Indienne_ would doubtless have found her native America
less barbarous than the _milieu_ in which she has been placed by an
exceeding ironical fortune,’ Mademoiselle de Scudéry was saying.
Madeleine, deeply read in _La Gazette Burlesque_, knew that she was
speaking of the beautiful and ultra-refined Madame Scarron, forced to be
hostess of the most licentious _salon_ in Paris.

‘’Tis my opinion she falls far short of Monsieur Scarron in learning,
wit, and galanterie!’ burst in Madeleine. She did not think so really; it
was just a desire to make herself felt. Mademoiselle de Scudéry raised
her eyebrows.

‘Is Mademoiselle acquainted with Madame Scarron?’ she inquired in a voice
that implied she was certain that she was not. In ordinary circumstances,
such a snub, even from some one for whose good opinion she did not care a
rap, would have reduced her to complete silence, but to-day she seemed to
have risen invulnerable from the Styx.

‘No, I haven’t been presented to her—although I have seen her,’ she said.

‘And yet you speak of her as though you had much frequented her? You put
me in mind, Mademoiselle, of the troupe of players in my brother’s comedy
who called themselves _Comédiens du Roi_, although they had played before
His Majesty but once,’ said Mademoiselle de Scudéry coldly.

‘In earnest, I have no wish to pass as Madame Scarron’s comedian.
Rumour has it she was born in a prison,’ Madeleine rejoined insolently.
‘Moreover, I gather from her friends, the only merit in her prudishness
is that it acts as a foil to her husband’s wit.’

Mademoiselle de Scudéry merely raised her eyebrows, and Conrart,
attempting to make things more comfortable, said with a good-natured
smile,—

‘Ah! Sappho, the young people have their own ideas about things, I dare
swear, and take pleasure in the _genre burlesque_!’

(Jacques would have smiled to hear Madeleine turned into the champion
of the burlesque!) ‘Well, all said, the burlesque, were it to go to our
friend Ménage (whom one might call the Hozier[4] of literary forms)
might get a fine family tree for itself, going back to the Grecian
Aristophanes—is that not so, Chevalier?’ went on Conrart. The Chevalier
smiled non-committally.

‘No, no,’ interrupted Madeleine; ‘certainly not Aristophanes. I should
say that the Grecian Anthology is the founder of the family; a highly
respectable ancestor, though _de robe_ rather than _d’épée_, for I am
told Alexandrian Greek is not as noble as that of Athens. It contains
several epigrams, quite in the manner of Saint-Amant.’ She was quoting
Jacques, from whom, without knowing a word of Greek, she had gleaned
certain facts about Greek construction and literature.

Though Conrart never tried to conceal his ignorance of Greek, he could
scarcely relish a reminder of it, while to be flatly contradicted by
a fair damsel was not in his Chinese picture of Ladies and Sages.
Mademoiselle de Scudéry came to his rescue,—

‘For myself, I have always held that all an _honnête homme_ need know
is Italian and Spanish’—(here she smiled at Conrart, who was noted
for his finished knowledge of these two tongues)—‘the nature of the
passions, _l’usage de monde_, and above all, Mythology, but that can
be studied in a translation quite as well as in the original Greek or
Latin. This is the _necessary_ knowledge for an _honnête homme_, but
as the word _honnête_ covers a quantity of agreeable qualities, such
as a swift imagination, an exquisite judgment, an excellent memory,
and a lively humour naturally inclined to learning about everything it
sees that is curious and that it hears mentioned as worthy of praise,
the possessor of these qualities will naturally add a further store of
agreeable information to the accomplishments I have already mentioned.
These accomplishments are necessary also to an _honnête femme_, but as
well as being able to _speak_ Italian and Spanish, she must be able to
_write_ her native French; I must confess that the orthography of various
distinguished ladies of my acquaintance is barely decent! As well as
knowing the nature and movements of the Passions she must know the causes
and effects of maladies, and a quantity of receipts for the making of
medicaments and perfumes and cordials ... in fact of both useful and
gallant distillations, as necessity or pleasure may demand. As well as
being versed in Mythology, that is to say, in the _amours_ and exploits
of ancient gods and heroes, she must know what I will call the modern
Mythology, that is to say the doings of her King and the _historiettes_
of the various Belles and Gallants of the Court and Town.’

All the company had sat in rapt attention during this discourse, except
Madeleine, who had fidgeted and wriggled and several times had attempted
to break in with some remark of her own. Now she took advantage of the
slight pause that followed to cry out aggressively: ‘Italian and Spanish
_may_ be the language of _les honnêtes gens_, but Greek is certainly that
of _les gens gallants_, if only for this reason, that it alone possesses
the lover’s Mood.’ Madeleine waited to be asked what that was, and the
faithful Chevalier came to her rescue.

‘And what may the lover’s mood be, Mademoiselle?’ he asked with a smile.

‘What they call the Optative—the Mood of wishing,’ said Madeleine. The
Chevalier clapped delightedly, and Conrart, now quite restored to good
humour, also congratulated her on the sally; but Mademoiselle de Scudéry
looked supremely bored.

The violins started a light, melancholy dance, and from behind the trees
ran a troop of little girls, dressed as nymphs, and presented to each of
the ladies a bouquet, showing in its arrangement the inimitable touch
of the famous florist, La Cardeau. Madeleine’s was the biggest. Then
they got up and moved on to a little Italian grotto, where they seated
themselves on the grass, Madame Conrart insisting that her husband should
sit on a cloak she had been carting about with her for the purpose all
the afternoon. He grumbled a little, but sat down on it all the same.

‘And now will the wise Agilaste make music for us?’ he asked. All looked
invitingly towards Mademoiselle Boquet. She expressed hesitation at
performing in a garden where such formidable rivals were to be found
as Conrart’s famous linnets, but she finally yielded to persuasion, and
taking her lute, began to play. It was exquisite. First she played some
airs by Couperin, then some pavanes by a young Italian, as yet known only
to the elect and quite daring in his modernity, by name Lulli, and last
a frail, poignant melody of the time of Henri IV., in which, as in the
little poem of the same period praised by Alceste, ‘_la passion parlait
toute pure_.’

Madame Conrart listened with more emotion than any of them, beating time
with her foot, her eyes filling with tears. When Mademoiselle Boquet
laid down her lute, she drew a deep sigh. ‘Ah! Now that’s what _I_ call
agreeable!’ Conrart frowned at her severely, but Mademoiselle de Scudéry
and the Chevalier were evidently much amused. The poor lady, realising
that she had made a _faux pas_, looked very unhappy.

‘Oh! I did not mean to say ... I am sure ... I hope you will understand!’
she said to the company, but looking at Conrart the while.

‘We will understand, and indeed we would be very dull if we failed to,
that you are ever the kindest and most hospitable of hostesses,’ said
Mademoiselle de Scudéry. Madame Conrart looked relieved and said,—

‘I am sure you are very obliging, Mademoiselle.’ Then she turned to
Madeleine, ‘And you, Mademoiselle, do you sing or play?’ Madeleine said
in a superior tone that she did not, and the Chevalier, invariably
adequate, said: ‘Mademoiselle is a _merciful_ Siren.’

And so the afternoon passed, until it was time to take their leave. The
Conrarts were very kind and friendly and hoped Madeleine would come
again, but Mademoiselle de Scudéry had so many messages to send by
Mademoiselle Boquet to friends in Paris, that she forgot even to say
good-bye to her.

On the drive home the Chevalier and Mademoiselle Boquet had a learned
discussion about music, and Madeleine sat silent and wide-eyed. It
was eight o’clock when they reached the petite rue du Paon. Madeleine
rushed in to her mother, who was waiting for her, and launched into
a long excited account of the day’s doings, which fulfilled the same
psychological need that a dance would have done, and then she went to her
room, for her mother wished to discuss the violent decision come to so
suddenly by Jacques.

She went straight to bed and fell asleep to the cry of the _Oublieux_—‘La
joie! la joie! Voilà des oublies!’




CHAPTER XXXIII

FACE TO FACE WITH FACTS


She awoke next morning to the sense that she must make up her account.
How exactly did things stand? She certainly had been neither _gauche_ nor
silent the day before. Saint Magdalene had done all she had asked of her,
but by so doing had she played her some hideous trick?

She had had absolute faith in Descartes’ doctrine that love proceeds
from admiration, and that admiration is caused by anything rare and
extraordinary. She _was_ rare, she _was_ extraordinary, but had she
aroused admiration? And even if she had, could it not be the forerunner
of hate as well as of love?

Alas! how much easier would be self-knowledge, and hence, if the Greeks
were right, how much easier too would be virtue, if the actions of our
passions were as consistent, the laws that govern them as mechanical,
as they appear in Descartes’ Treatise. Moreover, how much easier would
be happiness if, docile and catholic like birds and flowers, we were
never visited by these swift, exclusive passions, which are so rarely
reciprocal.

No, if Mademoiselle de Scudéry did not feel for her _d’un aveugle
penchant le charme imperceptible_, the Cestus of Venus itself would be
of no avail. Even if she had not cut herself off from the relief of her
dances by bringing them to a climax beyond which their virtue could not
function, this had been, even for their opiate, too stern and dolorous a
fact.

Circumstances had forced her bang up against reality this time. She must
find out, once and for all, how matters stood, that is to say, if she
had aroused the emotion of admiration. She must have her own suspicions
allayed—or confirmed. The only way this could be done, was to go to the
Chevalier’s house and ask him. The spoken word carried for her always a
strange finality. Suspense would be unbearable; she must go _now_.

She dressed hurriedly, slipped on her mask and cloak, and stole into the
street. The strange antiphony of the hawkers rang through the morning,
and there echoed after her as she ran the well-known cry: _Vous désirez
quelque ch-o-o-se?_ This cry in the morning, and in the evening that of
the _Oublieux_.—_La joie! la joie! Voilà des oublies!_ ... Did one answer
the other in some strange way, these morning and evening cries? It could
be turned into a dialogue between Fate and a mortal, thus:—

_Fate_: Vous désirez quelque cho-o-o-se?

_Mortal_: La joie! la joie!

_Fate_: Voilà—_l’oubli_.

On she ran, careless of the surprise of the passers-by, over the
Pont-Neuf, already busy, and driving its motley trade, then along the
Quais on the other side, past the Louvre, and up the Rue de Richelieu,
where the Chevalier lived. She had naturally never been to his rooms, but
she knew where they were. She slipped in at the main doorway and up the
long stairs, her heart beating somewhere up in her throat. She knew he
lived on the second landing. She knocked many times before the door was
opened by a lackey in a night-cap. He gaped when he first saw her, and
then grinned broadly.

‘Mademoiselle must see Monsieur? Monsieur is abed, but Mademoiselle
doubtless will not mind that!’

‘Tell Monsieur that Mademoiselle Troqueville _must_ see him on urgent
business,’ Madeleine said severely.

The lackey grinned again, and led her through a great bare room,
surrounded by carved wooden chests, in which, doubtless, the Chevalier
kept his innumerable suits of clothes. They served also as beds, chairs,
and tables to the Chevalier’s army of lackeys and pages, for some were
lying full length on them snoring lustily, and others, more matinal, were
sitting on them cross-legged, and, wrapped in rugs, were playing at that
solace of the vulgar—Lasquinet. Madeleine felt a sudden longing to be one
of them, happy, lewd, soulless creatures!

She was shown into an elegant little waiting-room, full of small inlaid
tables and exquisite porcelain. The walls were hung with crayon sketches,
and large canvasses of well-known ladies by Mignard and Beaubrun. Some
of them were in allegorical postures—there was the celebrated Précieuse,
Madame de Buisson, holding a lyre and standing before a table covered
with books and astronomical instruments ... she was probably meant to
represent a Muse ... she was leering horribly ... was it the Comic Muse?

It must have been for about a quarter of an hour that Madeleine waited,
sitting rigid and expressionless.

At last the Chevalier arrived, fresh from his valet’s hands, in a
gorgeous Chinese dressing-gown, scented and combed. He held out both
his hands to her and his eyes were sparkling, to Madeleine it seemed
with a sinister light, and she found herself wondering, as she marked
the dressing-gown, if he were Descartes. Anything was possible in this
Goblin-world.

She suddenly realised that she must find the ‘urgent business’ that had
wrenched the Chevalier from his morning sleep. She could not very well
blurt put ‘Did Mademoiselle de Scudéry like me?’ but what _could_ she say?

‘Dear Rhodanthos, I cursed my valet for not being winged when I heard it
was you, and—as you see—my impatience was too great for a jerkin! What
brings you at this hour? That you should turn to me in your trouble, if
trouble it is, is a prettier compliment than all _les fleurettes_ of all
the polite Anthologies. What has metamorphosed the Grecian rose into a
French lily?’

Madeleine blushed, and stammered out that she did not know. Then the
Chevalier took matters into his own hands. This behaviour might smack of
the reign of Louis XIII., but it was very delicious for all that.

He took her in his arms. Madeleine lay there impassive. After all, it
saved her the trouble of finding a reason; for the one thing that was
left in this emotional ruin was the old shrinking from people knowing how
much it mattered. But as to what he might think of her present behaviour,
’twas a matter of no moment whatever. She held him at arm’s length from
her for a minute.

‘Tell me,’ she said archly, ‘did you find yesterday a pleasant
diversion?’ His cheeks were flushed, and there was the dull drunken
look in his eyes which is one of the ways passion expresses itself
in middle-aged men. ‘Come back to me!’ he muttered thickly, without
answering her question.

‘First tell me if you found it diverting!’ she cried gaily, and darted to
the opposite end of the room. He rushed after her.

‘Don’t madden me, child,’ he muttered, and took her in his arms again.
Again Madeleine broke away from him laughing.

‘I won’t come to you till—let me see—till you tell me if I took the fancy
of Mademoiselle de Scudéry.’ She was, when hard-driven, an excellent
actress, and the question tripped out, light and mocking, as if it had
just been an excuse for tormenting him. There she stood with laughing
lips and grave, wind-swept eyes, keeping him at bay with her upraised
hand. ‘In earnest,’ she cooed tormentingly, ‘you must first answer my
question.’ For a moment, the pedagogue broke through the lover.

‘Mademoiselle de Scudéry is an exquisitely correct lady, her sense of
social seemliness amounts to genius. She could hardly approve of a
hamadryad ... Madeleine!’ and he made a dash for her. But she ducked and
turned under his outstretched arms, and was once more at the opposite end
of the room. The flame of her wish to know began to burn up her flimsy
rôle.

‘I—promise you—anything—afterwards, but—pray tell me—_did Mademoiselle de
Scudéry make any mention to you of me_?’ she panted.

‘’Tis no matter and she did, I....’

‘Tell me!’ And somehow Madeleine’s voice compelled obedience.

‘What strange _vision_ is this? Well, then, as you are so desirous of
knowing ... Mademoiselle de Scudéry ... well, she is herself a lady, and
as such cannot be over sensible to the charms of her own sex——’

‘Well?’

‘Well, do not take it ill, but also she always finds it hard to pardon
a ... well ... a ... er ... a certain lack of decorum. I told her she
erred grievously in her judgment of you, but, it seems, you did not
take her fancy, and she maintained’—(The Chevalier was rather glad of
the opportunity of repeating the following words, for not being _in
propria persona_, they escaped incivility and might be beneficial.) ‘She
maintained that your manners were _grossier_, your wit _de province_, and
that even if you lived to be as old as the Sybil, “you would never be an
_honnête femme_”.... Maintenant, ma petite Reine——’

But Madeleine was out of the room—pushing her way through the lackeys
... then down the staircase ... then out into the street ... running,
running, running.

Then she stood still and began to tremble from head to foot with awful,
silent laughter. Fool that she was not to have seen it before! Why, the
Sapphic Ode was but another statement of the Law she had so dreaded—that
the spurner of love must in his turn inevitably be spurned! _Who flees,
she shall pursue; who spurns gifts, she shall offer them; who loves
not, willy-nilly she shall love._ As the words stood, the ‘she’ did not
necessarily refer to the object of Sappho’s desire. Fool, fool, she had
read as a promise what was intended as a warning. _She was being punished
for spurning the love of Jacques._

What a strange irony, that just by her effort to escape this Law she
had brought down on herself the full weight of its action! To avoid its
punishment of her _amour-propre_ she had pretended to be in love with
Jacques, thereby entangling herself in a mass of contradictions, deceit,
and nervous terrors from which the only means of extricating herself was
by breaking the law anew and spurning love. Verily, it was a fine example
of Até—the blindness sent by the gods on those they mean to destroy.

Well, now the end had come, and of the many possibilities and realities
life had held for her, nothing was left but the _adamant of desire which
neither the tools of earth can break, nor the chemistry of Hell resolve_.




CHAPTER XXXIV

OUT INTO THE VOID


So it was all over.

Had she been the dupe of malicious gods? Yes, if within that malign
pantheon there was a throne for her old enemy, _Amour-Propre_. For it was
_Amour-Propre_ that had played her this scurvy trick and had upset her
poor little boat ‘drifting oarless on a full sea’—not of Grace but of
Chance. After all, Jansenism, Cartesianism, her mother’s philosophy of
indifference, had all the same aim—to give a touch of sea-craft to the
poor human sailor, and to flatter him with the belief that some harbour
lies before him. But they lie, they lie! There is no port, no rudder, no
stars, and the frail fleet of human souls is at the mercy of every wind
that blows.

She laughed bitterly when she remembered her certainty of her own
election, her anger against the mighty hands slowly, surely, torturing
her life into salvation. She laughed still more at her faith in a kind,
heavenly Father, a rock in a weary land, a certain caterer of lovely
gifts. How had she ever been fool enough to believe in this? Had she no
eyes for the countless proofs all round her that any awful thing might
happen to any one? People, just as real and alive as she was herself,
were disfigured by smallpox, or died of plague, or starved in the
streets, or loved without being loved in return; and yet, she had wrapped
herself round in an imaginary ghostly tenderness, certain in her foolish
heart that it was against the order of the universe that such things
should happen to _her_.

And as to Mademoiselle de Scudéry, she knew that the whole business had
been a foolish _vision_, a little seed growing to grotesque dimensions
in a sick brain, and yet this knowledge was powerless to stem the mad
impetus of her misery.

How she longed for Jacques during these days, for his comforting
hands, his _allégresse_, his half-mocking patience. She saw him, pale
and chestnut-haired with his light, mysterious, beckoning eyes—so
strangely like the picture by Da Vinci in the Louvre of Saint John the
Baptist—marching head erect to his bright destiny down the long white
roads of France, and he would never come back.

And yet, she had hinted to Madame Pilou that the fable of the dog and the
shadow is the epitome of all tragedy. Somewhere inside her had she always
known what must happen?

First, this time of faultless vision. And then, because—though hope was
dead—there still remained ‘the adamant of desire,’ she began once more to
dance. But with hope were cut the cables binding her to reality, and it
was out into the void that she danced now.




EPILOGUE

THE RAPE TO THE LOVE OF INVISIBLE THINGS

    αἵ σε μαινόμεναι πάννυχοι χορεύουσι τὸν ταμίαν Ἴακχον.

                                           SOPH. AN. 1151.

    ‘_Art springs straight out of the rite, and her first outward
    leap is the image of the god._’—JANE HARRISON.


_Some years later a troupe of wits, in quest of the ‘crotesque,’ were
visiting the well-known lunatic asylum—‘les petites maisons.’_

_‘And now for the Pseudo-Sappho!’ cried one. ‘She, all said, is by far
the most delicious.’_

_They made their way to where a woman sat smiling affably. She greeted
them as a queen her courtiers._

_‘Well, Alcinthe. Mignonne has been drooping since you were here, and
cooing that all the doves have left the Royaume de Tendre. Where is dear
Théodite? Ma chère, I protest that he is the king of les honnêtes gens.’_

_The wits laughed delightedly. Suddenly one had an idea._

_‘Did not the ancients hold that in time the worshipper became the god?
Surely we have here a proof that their belief was well founded. And if
the worshipper becomes the god then should not also the metamorphosis of
the lover into his mistress—Céladon into Astrée, Cyrus into Mandane—be
the truly gallant ending of a “roman”?’_

_He drew out his tablets_,—

_‘I must make a note of that, and fashion it into an epigram for Sappho.’_

[Illustration]




FOOTNOTES


[1] _Les petites maisons_, a group of buildings, used among other things
as a lunatic asylum.

[2] As only Duchesses were privileged to sit in the Queen’s presence, to
say that some one had _le tabouret chez la reine_ meant that they were a
Duchess.

[3] Neuf-germain was notorious as the worst poet of his day.

[4] The great seventeenth century herald.


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