The Immortal, Alphonse Daudet [books you have to read .txt] 📗

height she has raised the man of her choice! And already she is making plans for removing her own establishment to St. Petersburg, to a mansion not too far from the Embassy; while the Prince, with his pale sunk cheeks and rapt look--the look whose penetration Bismarck could never sustain--checks upon his contemptuous lips the smile at once mysterious and dogmatic, compounded of diplomacy and learning, and thinks to himself: 'Now Colette must make up her mind. She could come out there, we could be married quietly at the Chapelle des Pages, and all would be done and past recall before the Duchess heard of it.'
And thus many a reflection ludicrously inappropriate to the occasion passes from guest to guest under the same safe wrapper. Here you have the pleased beatitude of Leonard Astier, who has this very morning received the order of Stanislas (second class), as a return for presenting to His Highness a copy of his speech with the autograph letter of Catherine pinned to the first page and very ingeniously worked into the complimentary address. This letter was the great thing at the meeting, had been mentioned in the papers two days running, and heard of all over Europe, giving to the name of Astier, to his collection, and to his work, that astounding and disproportionate echo with which the Press now multiplies any passing event. Now Baron Huchenard might do his best to bite, might mumble as he pleased in his insinuating tones, 'I ask you, my dear colleague, to observe.' But no one would listen. And the 'first collector in France' was perfectly aware of it. See what a savage look he casts at his dear colleague in the pauses of his scientific harangue! What venom is in every deeply graven hollow of his porous, pumice-stone face!
Handsome Danjou is also furious, but for other reasons than the Baron. The Duchess has not asked his wife. The exclusion is painful to his feelings as a husband, a part of a man no less sensitive than the original _ego_; and in spite of his wish to shine before the Grand-Duke, the witticisms as good as new, which he was prepared with, will not go off. Another who does not feel comfortable is Delpech the chemist, whom His Highness, when he was presented, congratulated on his interpretation of the cuneiform character, confounding him with his colleague of the Academie des Inscriptions. It should be said that, with the exception of Danjou, whose comedies are popular abroad, the Grand-Duke has never heard of any of the Academic celebrities introduced to him at this dinner. Lavaux this very morning, in concert with the Aide-de-camp, arranged a set of cards bearing each the name of a guest with the titles of his principal works. The fact that His Highness did not get more confused among the list than he did proves much presence of mind and an Imperial memory. But the evening is not over, and other stars of learning are about to appear. Already may be heard the muffled rolling of wheels and the slamming of carriages putting down at the door. The Prince will have more chances yet.
Meanwhile, in a weak, slow voice, seeking for words and losing half of them in his nose, His Highness is discussing with Astier-Rehu a point of history suggested by the letter of Catherine II. The ewers have long completed the round, no one is eating or drinking any more, no one is even breathing, for fear of interrupting the conversation; all the company are in a hypnotic trance, and--a remarkable effect of levitation--are literally hanging upon the Imperial lips. Suddenly the august nose is silent, and Leonard Astier, who has made a show of resistance in order to improve the effect of his opponent's victory, throws up his arms like broken foils and says with an air of surrender, 'Ah, Your Highness has mated me!' The charm is broken, the company feel the ground under them again, everyone rises in a slight flutter of applause, the doors are thrown open, the Duchess takes the arm of the Grand-Duke, Mourad Bey that of the Baroness, and while, with a sound of sweeping-dresses and chairs pushed Lack, the assembly files out, Firmin, the _maitre d'hotel_, solemn and dignified, is privately doing a sum. 'In any other house this dinner would have been worth to me forty pounds: with her, I'll warrant, it won't be a dozen;' to which he adds aloud, as if he would spit his anger upon Her Grace's train, 'Grr! you hag!'
'With Your Highness's permission--my grandfather, M. Jean Rehu, the oldest member in the whole Institute.'
The high notes of Madame Astier's voice ring in the great drawing-room, not nearly filled, though the guests invited to the reception have already arrived.
She speaks very loud to make grandpapa understand to whom he is being introduced and answer accordingly. Old Rehu looks grand, drawing up his tall figure and still carrying high his little Creole face darkened and cracked with age. Paul, graceful and pleasing, supports him on one side, his granddaughter on the other; Astier-Rehu is behind. The family makes a sentimental group in the style of Greuze. It would look well on one of the pale-coloured tapestries with which the room is decorated, tapestries--a strange thing to think of--scarcely older than Rehu himself. The Grand-Duke, much affected, tries to say something happy, but the author of the Letters to Urania is not upon his cards. He gets out of it by a few vague complimentary phrases, in answer to which old Rehu, supposing that he is being asked as usual about his age, says, 'Ninety-eight years in a fortnight, Sir.' His next attempt does not fit much better with His Highness's gracious congratulations. 'Not since 1803, Sir; the town must be much changed.' During the progress of this singular dialogue, Paul is whispering to his mother, 'You may see him home if you like; I won't have anything more to do with him; he's in an awful temper. In the carriage he was kicking me all the time in the legs, to work off his fidgets, he said.' The young man himself had an unpleasant ring in his voice this evening, and in his charming face something set and hard, which his mother knew well, and noticed immediately on coming into the room. What is the matter? She watched him, trying to read the meaning in his light eyes, which, however, harder and keener than usual, revealed nothing.
But the chill, the ceremonious chill, prevailed here no less than at the dinner-table. The guests kept apart in groups, the few ladies in a circle upon low chairs, the gentlemen standing or walking about with a pretence of serious conversation, but obviously engaged in attracting His Highness's attention. It was for His Highness that Landry the musician stood pensive by the chimney-piece, gazing upward with his inspired brow and his apostolic beard; for him that on the other side Delpech the chemist stood meditative with his chin upon his hand, poring intently with gathered brows as if watching the precipitation of a compound.
Laniboire the philosopher, famous for his likeness to Pascal, was wandering round, perpetually passing before the sofa, where, unable to escape from Jean Rehu, sat the Prince. The hostess had forgotten to present him, and his fine nose looked longer than usual and seemed to be making a desperate appeal: 'Cannot you see that this is the nose of Pascal?'
At the same sofa Madame Eviza was shooting between her scarcely parted eyelids a look which asked His Highness to name his own price if he would but be seen at her reception next Monday. Ah! change the scene as you will, it is always the same performance--pretension, meanness, readiness to bow down, the courtier's appetite for self-humiliation and self-abasement. We need not decline the visits of majesty; we are provided with all the properties required for the occasion.
'General.'
'Your Highness.'
'I shall never be in time for the ballet.'
'But why are we staying, Sir?'
'I don't know; there's to be a surprise when the Nuncio is gone.'
While these few words passed in an undertone between the pair, they neither looked at each other nor changed a muscle of their ceremonial countenances. The Aide-de-camp had copied from his master the nasal intonation, the absence of gesture, the fixed attitude on the edge of the seat with the bowed arm against the side. He was rigid as on parade or in the Imperial box at the Theatre Michel. Old Rehu stood before them, he would not sit down; he was still talking, still exhibiting the dusty stores of his memory, the people he had known, the many fashions in which he had dressed. The more distant the time, the clearer his recollection. 'That is a thing I have seen,' says he, as he pauses at the end of a story, with his eyes fixed, as it were, upon the flying past, and then off upon a fresh subject. He had been with Talma at Brunoy, he had been in the drawing-room of Josephine, full of musical boxes and artificial humming-birds covered with jewels, which sang and clapped their wings.
Out of doors on the terrace, in the warm darkness of the garden, was heard low conversation and stifled laughter, coming from the place where the cigars were visible as a ring of red dots. Lavaux was amusing himself by getting the young Guardsman to tell Danjou and Paul Astier the story of the Cardinal's hat. 'And the lady, Count--the lady at the station.' 'Cristo, qu'elle etait bella!' said the Italian in a low voice, and added correctively, 'sim-patica, surtout, simpatica.' Charming and responsive--this was his general idea of the ladies of Paris. He only wished he need not go back. The French wine had loosed his tongue, and he began describing his life in the Guards, the advantages of the profession, the hope which they all had on entering it that they might find a rich wife--that at one of His Holiness's audiences they would dazzle some wealthy English Catholic or a fanatical Spaniard from South America come to bring her offering to the Vatican. 'L'ouniforme est zouli, comprenez; et pouis les en-fortounes del Saint Pere, cela nous donne a nous autres ses soldats oun prestigio roumanesque, cava-leresque, qualque sose qui plait aux dames zenerale-mente.' It must be allowed that with his youthful manly face, his gold braid shining softly in the moonlight, and his white leather breeches, he did recall the heroes of Artosto or Tasso.
'Well, my dear Pepino,' said fat Lavaux, in his mocking and disagreeable tone, 'if you want a good match, here it is at your elbow.'
'How so? Where?'
Paul Astier started and became attentive. The mention of a good match always made him fear that some one was stealing his.
'The Duchess, of course. Old Padovani can't stand another stroke.'
'But the Prince d'Athis?'
'He'll never marry her.'
Lavaux was a good authority, being the friend of the Prince, and of the Duchess, too, for that matter; though, seeing that the establishment must shortly split, he stood on the side which he thought the safest 'Go in boldly, my dear Count; there's money, lots of it, and a fine connection, and a lady still well enough.'
'Cristo, qu'elle est bella!' said the Italian, with a sigh.
'E simpatica,' said Danjou, with a sneer. At which the Guardsman after a moment's amazement, delighted to find an Academician with so much perception, exclaimed: 'Si, simpatica, precisamente!'
'And then,' continued Lavaux, 'if you are fond of dyes, and enamel, and padding, you'll get it. I believe she's a marvel of construction, the best customer that Charriere has.'
He spoke out loud and quite freely, right in front of the dining-room. The garden door was slightly open, and through the crack the light fell upon the broad red impudent