CHAPTER XI.
As the _fiacre_ bore to Paris Savarin and Graham, the former said, "I
cannot conceive what rich simpleton could entertain so high an opinion of
Gustave Rameau as to select a man so young, and of reputation though
promising so undecided, for an enterprise which requires such a degree of
tact and judgment as the conduct of a new journal,--and a journal, too,
which is to address itself to the beau monde. However, it is not for me
to criticise a selection which brings a god-send to myself."
"To yourself? You jest; you have a journal of your own. It can only be
through an excess of good-nature that you lend your name and pen to the
service of M. Gustave Rameau."
"My good-nature does not go to that extent. It is Rameau who confers a
service upon me. _Peste! mon cher_, we French authors have not the rents
of you rich English milords. And though I am the most economical of our
tribe, yet that journal of mine has failed me of late; and this morning I
did not exactly see how I was to repay a sum I had been obliged to borrow
of a money-lender,--for I am too proud to borrow of friends, and too
sagacious to borrow of publishers,--when in walks _ce cher petit_ Gustave
with an offer, for a few trifles towards starting this new-born journal,
which makes a new man of me. Now I am in the undertaking, my _amour
propre_ and my reputation are concerned in its success; and I shall take
care that collaborateurs of whose company I am not ashamed are in the
same boat. But that charming girl, Isaura! What an enigma the gift of
the pen is! No one can ever guess who has it until tried."
"The young lady's manuscript, then, really merits the praise you bestowed
on it?"
"Much more praise, though a great deal of blame, which I did not bestow,
--for in a first work faults insure success as much as beauties.
Anything better than tame correctness. Yes, her first work, to judge by
what is written, must make a hit,--a great hit. And that will decide her
career. A singer, an actress, may retire,--often does when she marries
an author; but once an author always an author."
"Ah! is it so? If you had a beloved daughter, Savarin, would you
encourage her to be an author?"
"Frankly, no: principally because in that case the chances are that she
would marry an author; and French authors, at least in the imaginative
school, make very uncomfortable husbands."
"Ah! you think the Signorina will marry one of those uncomfortable
husbands,--M. Rameau, perhaps?"
"Rameau! Hein! nothing more likely. That beautiful face of his has
its fascination. And to tell you the truth, my wife, who is a striking
illustration of the truth that what woman wills heaven wills, is bent
upon that improvement in Gustave's moral life which she thinks a union
with Mademoiselle Cicogna would achieve. At all events, the fair Italian
would have in Rameau a husband who would not suffer her to bury her
talents under a bushel. If she succeeds as a writer (by succeeding I
mean making money), he will see that her ink-bottle is never empty; and
if she don't succeed as a writer, he will take care that the world shall
gain an actress or a singer. For Gustave Rameau has a great taste for
luxury and show; and whatever his wife can make, I will venture to say
that he will manage to spend."
"I thought you had an esteem and regard for Mademoiselle Cicogna. It is
Madame your wife, I suppose, who has a grudge against her?"
"On the contrary, my wife idolizes her."
"Savages sacrifice to their idols the things they deem of value;
civilized Parisians sacrifice their idols themselves, and to a thing that
is worthless."
"Rameau is not worthless; he has beauty and youth and talent. My wife
thinks more highly of him than I do; but I must respect a man who has
found admirers so sincere as to set him up in a journal, and give him
_carte blanche_ for terms to contributors. I know of no man in Paris
more valuable to me. His worth to me this morning is thirty thousand
francs. I own I do not think him likely to be a very safe husband; but
then French female authors and artists seldom take any husbands except
upon short leases. There are no vulgar connubial prejudices in the pure
atmosphere of art. Women of genius, like Madame de Grantmesnil, and
perhaps like our charming young friend, resemble canary-birds,--to sing
their best you must separate them from their mates."
The Englishman suppressed a groan, and turned the conversation.
When he had set down his lively companion, Vane dismissed his _fiacre_,
and walked to his lodgings musingly.
"No," he said inly; "I must wrench myself from the very memory of that
haunting face,--the friend and pupil of Madame de Grantmesnil, the
associate of Gustave Rameau, the rival of Julie Caumartin, the aspirant
to that pure atmosphere of art in which there are no vulgar connubial
prejudices! Could I--whether I be rich or poor--see in her the ideal of
an English wife? As it is--as it is--with this mystery which oppresses
me, which, till solved, leaves my own career insoluble,--as it is, how
fortunate that I did not find her alone; did not utter the words that
would fain have leaped from my heart; did not say, 'I may not be the rich
man I seem, but in that case I shall be yet more ambitious, because
struggle and labour are the sinews of ambition! Should I be rich, will
you adorn my station? Should I be poor, will you enrich poverty with
your smile? And can you, in either case, forego--really, painlessly
forego, as you led me to hope--the pride in your own art?' My ambition
were killed did I marry an actress, a singer. Better that than the
hungerer after excitements which are never allayed, the struggler in a
career which admits of no retirement,--the woman to whom marriage is no
goal, who remains to the last the property of the public, and glories to
dwell in a house of glass into which every bystander has a right to peer.
Is this the ideal of an Englishman's wife and home? No, no!--woe is me,
no!"
