In the first place, he is very simple and very wily. Though he falls into excesses with the readiness of a courtesan, his powers of thought remain untouched. Yet his intellect, which is competent to criticise art, science, literature, and politics, is incompetent to guide his external life. Claude contemplates himself within the domain of his intellectual kingdom, and abandons his outer man with Diogenic indifference. Satisfied to penetrate all, to comprehend all by thought, he despises materialities; and yet, if it becomes a question of creating, doubt assails him; he sees obstacles, he is not inspired by beauties, and while he is debating means, he sits with his arms pendant, accomplishing nothing. He is the Turk of the intellect made somnolent by meditation. Criticism is his opium; his harem of books to read disgusts him with real work. Indifferent to small things as well as great things, he is sometimes compelled, by the very weight of his head, to fall into a debauch, and abdicate for a few hours the fatal power of omnipotent analysis. He is far too preoccupied with the wrong side of genius, and Camille Maupin's desire to put him back on the right side is easily conceivable. The task was an attractive one.
Claude Vignon thinks himself a great politician as well as a great writer; but this unpublished Machiavelli laughs within himself at all ambitions; he knows what he can do; he has instinctively taken the measure of his future on his faculties; he sees his greatness, but he also sees obstacles, grows alarmed or disgusted, lets the time roll by, and does not go to work. Like Etienne Lousteau the feuilletonist, like Nathan the dramatic author, like Blondet, another journalist, he came from the ranks of the bourgeoisie, to which we owe the greater number of our writers.
"Which way did you come?" asked Mademoiselle des Touches, coloring with either pleasure or surprise.'
"By the door," replied Claude Vignon, dryly.
"Oh," she cried, shrugging her shoulders, "I am aware that you are not a man to climb in by a window.""Scaling a window is a badge of honor for a beloved woman.""Enough!" said Felicite.
"Am I in the way?" asked Claude.
"Monsieur," said Calyste, artlessly, "this letter--""Pray keep it; I ask no questions; at our age we understand such affairs," he answered, interrupting Calyste with a sardonic air.
"But, monsieur," began Calyste, much provoked.
"Calm yourself, young man; I have the utmost indulgence for sentiments.""My dear Calyste," said Camille, wishing to speak.
"'Dear'?" said Vignon, interrupting her.
"Claude is joking," said Camille, continuing her remarks to Calyste.
"He is wrong to do it with you, who know nothing of Parisian ways.""I did not know that I was joking," said Claude Vignon, very gravely.
"Which way did you come?" asked Felicite again. "I have been watching the road to Croisic for the last two hours.""Not all the time," replied Vignon.
"You are too bad to jest in this way."
"Am I jesting?"
Calyste rose.
"Why should you go so soon? You are certainly at your ease here," said Vignon.
"Quite the contrary," replied the angry young Breton, to whom Camille Maupin stretched out a hand, which he took and kissed, dropping a tear upon it, after which he took his leave.
"I should like to be that little young man," said the critic, sitting down, and taking one end of the hookah. "How he will love!""Too much; for then he will not be loved in return," replied Mademoiselle des Touches. "Madame de Rochefide is coming here," she added.
"You don't say so!" exclaimed Claude. "With Conti?""She will stay here alone, but he accompanies her.""Have they quarrelled?"
"No."
"Play me a sonata of Beethoven's; I know nothing of the music he wrote for the piano."Claude began to fill the tube of the hookah with Turkish tobacco, all the while examining Camille much more attentively than she observed. Adreadful thought oppressed him; he fancied he was being used for a blind by this woman. The situation was a novel one.
Calyste went home thinking no longer of Beatrix de Rochefide and her letter; he was furious against Claude Vignon for what he considered the utmost indelicacy, and he pitied poor Felicite. How was it possible to be beloved by that sublime creature and not adore her on his knees, not believe her on the faith of a glance or a smile? He felt a desire to turn and rend that cold, pale spectre of a man.
Ignorant he might be, as Felicite had told him, of the tricks of thought of the jesters of the press, but one thing he knew--Love was the human religion.
When his mother saw him entering the court-yard she uttered an exclamation of joy, and Zephirine whistled for Mariotte.
"Mariotte, the boy is coming! cook the fish!""I see him, mademoiselle," replied the woman.
Fanny, uneasy at the sadness she saw on her son's brow, picked up her worsted-work; the old aunt took out her knitting. The baron gave his arm-chair to his son and walked about the room, as if to stretch his legs before going out to take a turn in the garden. No Flemish or Dutch picture ever presented an interior in tones more mellow, peopled with faces and forms so harmoniously blending. The handsome young man in his black velvet coat, the mother, still so beautiful, and the aged brother and sister framed by that ancient hall, were a moving domestic harmony.
Fanny would fain have questioned Calyste, but he had already pulled a letter from his pocket,--that letter of the Marquise Beatrix, which was, perhaps, destined to destroy the happiness of this noble family.
As he unfolded it, Calyste's awakened imagination showed him the marquise dressed as Camille Maupin had fancifully depicted her.
From the Marquise de Rochefide to Mademoiselle des Touches.
Genoa, July 2.
