Alice, or the Mysteries — Complete
voice, till she felt her hand seized, and turned round to see Lord
Doltimore, and smile upon the happy lover, persuaded that he was adored!
BOOK VI.
"I will bring fire to thee--I reek not of the place."
--EURIPIDES: _Andromache_, 214.
CHAPTER I.
... THIS ancient city, How wanton sits she amidst Nature's smiles!
... Various nations meet, As in the sea, yet not confined in space,
But streaming freely through the spacious streets.--YOUNG.
... His teeth he still did grind,
And grimly gnash, threatening revenge in vain.--SPENSER.
"PARIS is a delightful place,--that is allowed by all. It is delightful
to the young, to the gay, to the idle; to the literary lion, who likes
to be petted; to the wiser epicure, who indulges a more justifiable
appetite. It is delightful to ladies, who wish to live at their ease,
and buy beautiful caps; delightful to philanthropists, who wish for
listeners to schemes of colonizing the moon; delightful to the haunters
of balls and ballets, and little theatres and superb _cafes_, where men
with beards of all sizes and shapes scowl at the English, and involve
their intellects in the fascinating game of dominos. For these, and for
many others, Paris is delightful. I say nothing against it. But, for my
own part, I would rather live in a garret in London than in a palace in
the Chaussee d'Antin.--'Chacun a son mauvais gout.'
"I don't like the streets, in which I cannot walk but in the kennel; I
don't like the shops, that contain nothing except what's at the window;
I don't like the houses, like prisons which look upon a courtyard; I
don't like the _beaux jardins_, which grow no plants save a Cupid in
plaster; I don't like the wood fires, which demand as many _petits
soins_ as the women, and which warm no part of one but one's eyelids,
I don't like the language, with its strong phrases about nothing, and
vibrating like a pendulum between 'rapture' and 'desolation;' I don't
like the accent, which one cannot get, without speaking through one's
nose; I don't like the eternal fuss and jabber about books without
nature, and revolutions without fruit; I have no sympathy with tales
that turn on a dead jackass, nor with constitutions that give the ballot
to the representatives, and withhold the suffrage from the people;
neither have I much faith in that enthusiasm for the _beaux arts_, which
shows its produce in execrable music, detestable pictures, abominable
sculpture, and a droll something that I believe the _French_ call
POETRY. Dancing and cookery,--these are the arts the French excel in, I
grant it; and excellent things they are; but oh, England! oh, Germany!
you need not be jealous of your rival!"
These are not the author's remarks,--he disowns them; they were Mr.
Cleveland's. He was a prejudiced man; Maltravers was more liberal, but
then Maltravers did not pretend to be a wit.
Maltravers had been several weeks in the city of cities, and now he had
his apartments in the gloomy but interesting Faubourg St. Germain, all
to himself. For Cleveland, having attended eight days at a sale, and
having moreover ransacked all the curiosity shops, and shipped off
bronzes and cabinets, and Genoese silks and _objets de vertu_, enough to
have half furnished Fonthill, had fulfilled his mission, and returned
to his villa. Before the old gentleman went, he flattered himself that
change of air and scene had already been serviceable to his friend;
and that time would work a complete cure upon that commonest of all
maladies,--an unrequited passion, or an ill-placed caprice.
Maltravers, indeed, in the habit of conquering, as well as of concealing
emotion, vigorously and earnestly strove to dethrone the image that had
usurped his heart. Still vain of his self-command, and still worshipping
his favourite virtue of Fortitude and his delusive philosophy of the
calm Golden Mean, he would not weakly indulge the passion, while he so
sternly fled from its object.
But yet the image of Evelyn pursued,--it haunted him; it came on him
unawares, in solitude, in crowds. That smile so cheering, yet so
soft, that ever had power to chase away the shadow from his soul; that
youthful and luxurious bloom of pure and eloquent thoughts, which was
as the blossom of genius before its fruit, bitter as well as sweet, is
born; that rare union of quick feeling and serene temper, which forms
the very ideal of what we dream of in the mistress, and exact from
the wife,--all, even more, far more, than the exquisite form and the
delicate graces of the less durable beauty, returned to him, after every
struggle with himself; and time only seemed to grave, in deeper if more
latent folds of his heart, the ineradicable impression.
Maltravers renewed his acquaintance with some persons not unfamiliar to
the reader.
Valerie de Ventadour--how many recollections of the fairer days of life
were connected with that name! Precisely as she had never reached to
his love, but only excited his fancy (the fancy of twenty-two), had her
image always retained a pleasant and grateful hue; it was blended with
no deep sorrow, no stern regret, no dark remorse, no haunting shame.
They met again. Madame de Ventadour was still beautiful, and still
admired,--perhaps more admired than ever; for to the great, fashion and
celebrity bring a second and yet more popular youth. But Maltravers, if
rejoiced to see how gently Time had dealt with the fair Frenchwoman,
was yet more pleased to read in her fine features a more serene and
contented expression than they had formerly worn. Valerie de Ventadour
had preceded her younger admirer through the "MYSTERIES of LIFE;" she
had learned the real objects of being; she distinguished between the
Actual and the Visionary, the Shadow and the Substance; she had acquired
content for the present, and looked with quiet hope towards the future.
Her character was still spotless; or rather, every year of temptation
and trial had given it a fairer lustre. Love, that might have ruined,
being once subdued, preserved her from all after danger. The first
meeting between Maltravers and Valerie was, it is true, one of some
embarrassment and reserve: not so the second. They did but once, and
that slightly, recur to the past, and from that moment, as by a
tacit understanding, true friendship between them dated. Neither felt
mortified to see that an illusion had passed away,--they were no longer
the same in each other's eyes. Both might be improved, and were so;
but the Valerie and the Ernest of Naples were as things dead and gone!
Perhaps Valerie's heart was even more reconciled to the cure of its soft
and luxurious malady by the renewal of their acquaintance. The mature
and experienced reasoner, in whom enthusiasm had undergone its usual
change, with the calm brow and commanding aspect of sober manhood, was
a being so different from the romantic boy, new to the actual world
of civilized toils and pleasures, fresh from the adventures of Eastern
wanderings, and full of golden dreams of poetry before it settles
into authorship or action! She missed the brilliant errors, the daring
aspirations,--even the animated gestures and eager eloquence,--that had
interested and enamoured her in the loiterer by the shores of Baiae, or
amidst the tomb-like chambers of Pompeii. For the Maltravers now before
her--wiser, better, nobler, even handsomer than of yore (for he was one
whom manhood became better than youth)--the Frenchwoman could at any
period have felt friendship without danger. It seemed to her, not as it
really was, the natural _development_, but the very _contrast_, of the
ardent, variable, imaginative boy, by whose side she had gazed at night
on the moonlit waters and rosy skies of the soft Parthenope! How does
time, after long absence, bring to us such contrasts between the one we
remember and the one we see! And what a melancholy mockery does it seem
of our own vain hearts, dreaming of impressions never to be changed, and
affections that never can grow cool!
And now, as they conversed with all the ease of cordial and guileless
friendship, how did Valerie rejoice in secret that upon that friendship
there rested no blot of shame! and that she had not forfeited those
consolations for a home without love, which had at last settled into
cheerful nor unhallowed resignation,--consolations only to be found in
the conscience and the pride!
M. de Ventadour had not altered, except that his nose was longer, and
that he now wore a peruque in full curl instead of his own straight
hair. But somehow or other--perhaps by the mere charm of custom--he had
grown more pleasing in Valerie's eyes; habit had reconciled her to his
foibles, deficiencies, and faults; and, by comparison with others,
she could better appreciate his good qualities, such as they
were,--generosity, good-temper, good-nature, and unbounded indulgence
to herself. Husband and wife have so many interests in common, that when
they have jogged on through the ups and downs of life a sufficient
time, the leash which at first galled often grows easy and familiar; and
unless the _temper_, or rather the disposition and the heart, of
either be insufferable, what was once a grievous yoke becomes but a
companionable tie. And for the rest, Valerie, now that sentiment and
fancy were sobered down, could take pleasure in a thousand things which
her pining affections once, as it were, overlooked and overshot. She
could feel grateful for all the advantages her station and wealth
procured her; she could cull the roses in her reach, without sighing for
the amaranths of Elysium.
If the great have more temptations than those of middle life, and if
their senses of enjoyment become more easily pampered into a sickly
apathy, so at least (if they can once outlive satiety) they have many
more resources at their command. There is a great deal of justice in
the old line, displeasing though it be to those who think of love in
a cottage, "'Tis best repenting in a coach and six!" If among the
Eupatrids, the Well Born, there is less love in wedlock, less quiet
happiness at home, still they are less chained each to each,--they have
more independence, both the woman and the man, and occupations and
the solace without can be so easily obtained! Madame de Ventadour, in
retiring from the mere frivolities of society--from crowded rooms, and
the inane talk and hollow smiles of mere acquaintanceship--became more
sensible of the pleasures that her refined and elegant intellect could
derive from art and talent, and the communion of friendship. She drew
around her the most cultivated minds of her time and country. Her
abilities, her wit, and her conversational graces enabled her not only
to mix on equal terms with the most eminent, but to amalgamate and
blend the varieties of talent into harmony. The same persons, when met
elsewhere, seemed to have lost their charm; under Valerie's roof every
one breathed a congenial atmosphere. And music and letters, and all that
can refine and embellish civilized life, contributed their resources to
this gifted and beautiful woman. And thus she found that the _mind_ has
excitement and occupation, as well as the heart; and, unlike the latter,
the culture we bestow upon the first ever yields us its return. We talk
of education for the poor, but we forget how much it is needed by
the rich. Valerie was a living instance of the advantages to women
of knowledge and intellectual resources. By them she had purified her
fancy, by them she had conquered discontent, by them she had grown
reconciled to life and to her lot! When the heavy heart weighed down the
one scale, it was the mind that restored the balance.
The spells of Madame de Ventadour drew Maltravers into this charmed
circle of all that was highest, purest, and most gifted in the society