Broken Music , page 20
The royal princes in the garden, swearing bitterly over the enormous difficulty of getting into black tights for their first scene—what would they say if they did not hear La Salvi? Perhaps, if he got her alone into the garden, he would dare to ask the boon. But no! La Salvi would not go into the garden.
“I daren’t, my dear man!” she said, puffing relentlessly on up the stairs. “I daren’t; there’s a feeling of damp in the air, and I think it’s going to rain! Does one, I ask you, carry one’s only child out into a storm? Do not then suggest that I should expose my one offspring—my poor little changeling of a voice! Ah, my little angel Gabrielle! so, there, you are all in blue and white, fresh from the Madonna, as it were! What a pleasure again! And what a drawing-room, Monsieur Flaubert! You don’t think it large enough to sing in? My good man, don’t sing! One cannot play every part at once. You make a perfect host! And those pink cakes over there; are they brought up on purpose for me? What an imagination! Aladdin himself never managed better with his lantern! Where do you keep your lantern, Monsieur Aladdin? Or do the Toriallis keep it for you? It’s just the kind of thing, now, that I see our dear Gabrielle collecting! Ah, here is the great Torialli himself!”
Madame Salvi sat down by the pink cakes and motioned Torialli to the seat next to her.
“Now I think,” he said with a good-natured smile, “that this is really capital of Flaubert, dear old man! he has such a head on his shoulders! I should never get on without him. Don’t you think he has done all this very well? I assure you I can’t think how he manages it—those flowers now—Gabrielle and I couldn’t run to orchids like this! I don’t believe Paris held them all; they tell me he wired to London; did you ever hear of such a man? You’ll sing for him to-night, won’t you, Salvi?”
La Salvi ate another pink cake before she answered. Flaubert was receiving Hester Lévi; for her, too, he went half way downstairs; she was the richest woman in Paris.
“No,” said Salvi at length. “I have a cold in my head, I think, or the bubonic plague, or perhaps the cholera; one never knows the beginning of those things. Why should I sing? I am not a gramophone to be turned on and off at everybody’s garden party! Why don’t you sing yourself, then, if you want so to please him?”
“I? Oh well, you know, I’m an old man now,” said Torialli, rather sadly. “When one has sung, as I have sung, one does not come up after the resurrection. It is better to stay dead, my dear Salvi—it’s better to stay dead!”
“Well, for my part,” said Salvi, taking up a green cake instead of a pink one, “I think it better not to die, so I take things very easily and in half an hour I go to bed. Is that the Duchesse de Richemont talking to your wife; because, if it is, bring her over to me; she’s a young woman, and she hasn’t eaten so many cakes, so she may as well do the moving! Thank you, Torialli, you’re a good fellow!”
Torialli was a very good fellow, and he proved it in more ways than one; when he had given his dear Salvi the young duchesse for her companion he did his best to brighten up the waiting soirée.
Still there it was! It would wait. It was waiting to hear La Salvi, and when the element of suspense has been introduced into pleasure the pleasure recedes before it like the ebb of a relentless tide. In vain Torialli moved everywhere with his friendly compliments to Flaubert and his good-tempered laughter; in vain Madame Torialli, always tactful, always serene, glided about among the guests, leaving behind her a wake of gratified smiles and purring amour propre. The evening dragged and people waited. The princes sent a message in from the theatre to ask when La Salvi was coming out, or were they to come in to hear her? because if they were, they would have to take off their tights, which would be really too many kinds of a picturesque nuisance; but at any rate something must be done promptly or they would be bored.
Flaubert took his courage in both hands and approached La Salvi. La Salvi went on talking to the Duchesse de Richemont and did not appear to see him coming. When he had reached her a hush came over the two drawing-rooms. Madame Salvi looked up and smiled.
“What!” she said. “Has Aladdin a new surprise for us?”
“My dear Madame,” said poor Flaubert, “do not talk as if I could work a miracle when I come to ask for one. You will take away the little courage I have if you do that!”
“You have enough,” interrupted Salvi softly. “Rest assured, Monsieur Flaubert, I think you have enough!”
“Madame, will you do me the infinite honour, will, you make me the happiest of men, and sing for us to-night?” Flaubert persevered waveringly, though he felt the conviction ebbing out of his voice. Ah! he had said it at last; the perspiration broke out on his forehead, he felt, as he afterwards expressed it, as if white ants were eating his spine!
“But I am shocked! I am desolated!” cried Madame Salvi. “To disappoint you is a horror to me! But was it what you expected, that I should sing to-night?”
“I do not dare to say expected, Madame,” murmured the wretched Flaubert. “But I had humbly hoped——”
“Ah well! if you did not expect it,” said Salvi. “So much the better! Still I regret to have to take away your humble hopes. Wednesday, I sing for our dear Torialli; I must preserve my poor little efforts till then.”
“Ah, Madame!” pleaded Flaubert. “Just one song, your magnificent organ——”
“My dear good Flaubert, impossible!” said Salvi, slowly rising. “I have eaten six cakes, the duchesse is a witness, in the last ten minutes. I never eat before I sing, only afterwards. Consider, then, that I have sung. And now, my good friend, I must really go. My glass slipper has begun to pinch in such a manner that I am sure in five minutes it will be off. A thousand thanks for the entertainment of a life-time. I do not readily forget such attentions as yours, my dear Flaubert. Tell our good princes I would have given much to see their costumes and to hear them sing, of course! Their parts must be ravishing! So clever of you to have an entertainment in the garden.” And La Salvi was gone.
It was Madame Torialli who suggested to Louis that they should have supper at once instead of waiting until after the Revue. Flaubert was almost too crushed to accept the suggestion and to send out appropriate excuses to the princes.
The guests rallied a little under the approach of food. The princes came in rather sulkily, but as they found some particular friends in the dining-room they recovered enough to behave a little worse than anyone had quite expected, which was gratifying to Flaubert, for they only behaved well when they were bored. A famous danseuse who had just arrived was quite shocked; she was accustomed to quieter manners. Only Madame Torialli’s untroubled child-like blue eyes remained as serene as ever. She took the boisterously pronounced attention of Prince Ivan and his roars of laughter with an air of such perfect blandness and self-possession as to rob his behaviour of half its barbarism.
“Una and the Lion,” the Marquis de Trévaillant pointed out to Romain D’Ucelles. Romain lifted his eyebrows and looked at Madame Torialli.
“Ah, my dear Marquis,” he said. “Did Una first incite the Lion before she tamed him?”
“You see too much,” said his friend.
Romain laughed.
“That robs my speech of half its sting,” he murmured. “One need say so little, you know, if one has been fortunate enough to see too much!”
Jean overheard his uncle and hated him. He felt that he must speak or die.
“Madame Torialli is trying to save the situation, my uncle,” he said stiffly. Romain laughed.
“Ah! Is that you, my dear Jean?” he said. “Surely it must be, one cannot have two such ingenuous nephews! You must not think I underrate your clever friend. She is one of those kind-hearted women who are so fond of saving situations that they create them first. It is the true instinct of the reformer! Our charming ancestress Eve, now, I fancy, had the same motive in urging the fruit upon Adam. She had no opportunity, you see, to raise his nature until after the fall! Think of it! Eternity in a garden with a good man! What a horrible idea! It is enough to intrigue any woman!”
“Farceur!” laughed the Marquis de Trévaillant. “And now we have eaten, what happens next? It is another hour before the Revue can begin. What a tedious affair! And these artists of yours, when do they come, Monsieur D’Ucelles?”
“Flaubert has just sent a message to hurry them,” said Jean over his shoulder, as he hastened away to where Flaubert was beckoning him.
“What can I do? What can I do?” moaned the distracted Louis. “You must go and play, but I doubt if they will listen to you for an hour—if only you could sing comic songs!”
Jean glanced round the decorated dining-room, the tables loaded with delicate foods, the rich and exquisite dresses of the women, the carefully valeted men with their well-cut evening clothes, and the weary, hard, cruel faces! It seemed to him as if these over-civilized and pampered creatures had reverted in heart to the lowest level of nature, and as if their life had become the mere struggle of wild beasts for temporary desires—creatures all teeth and claws for their particular morsel of prey! Fortunately at this moment the artists were announced and good-naturedly offered to postpone their own suppers until after the Revue.
The Revue began in the most brilliant manner; everybody on the stage was anxious, self-conscious, and jealous; every one in the audience was amused. These were their best friends making themselves ridiculous under the impression that they were appearing particularly attractive; what more could an audience want? Prince Ivan and Prince Rudolph fulfilled every one’s expectation of the absurd. Prince Ivan managed to fall over a footstool which had been most carefully placed out of his way as far as possible, and swore audibly in the middle of his song. Prince Rudolph forgot his stage directions, and turned his back to the audience so that his voice floated away into somebody else’s garden. Still, considering they were royalty, they managed very well and were immensely applauded.
The femmes du monde danced beautifully; at least they wore practically nothing and moved about the stage very gracefully while some one was playing the piano.
The famous danseuse was overheard remarking that as far as she could see they might just as well have executed that kind of dance in the bathroom to the noise of a hot-water tap; but that was put down to professional jealousy.
The real artists went through their parts perfunctorily and tried to flirt with the society ladies; only they became a little frightened because the society ladies went so far.
Just as every one was beginning to warm to the work, and the author had received his first call for saying something wholly disgraceful about a thinly veiled identity whom everybody guessed, Salvi’s prophecy came to pass. The gathered grey clouds came down with unequivocal ardour; no light unmethodical showers which might be trusted to trickle through the tent unobtrusively, but the unhurried obstinacy of a thorough soak. It was in vain that Jean rushed madly to and fro with rugs and waterproofs to cover the thin roofing. It was in vain that Flaubert expostulated and implored. Every one was desolated, every one had been charmed and delighted; but couldn’t under any circumstances stay and risk a wetting.
Flaubert stood disconsolately in his grand new hall and the crowd of his hastily departing guests swayed all around him. They passed away with the relieved celerity of those who have borne enough. Their perfunctory thin thanks hardly lasted till they reached the door. The fable had ended. The poor frog had puffed his longest and his loudest. Now he had burst, and nobody for a single moment had mistaken him for the ox!
Jean was honestly distressed for Louis, and as for Madame Torialli, she remained there to the very end with such grave and sympathetic eyes, as to make Jean feel almost more sorry for her than for Flaubert. He thought that she looked more than ever like an angel as she stood there among the drooping flowers that looked so curiously like doves; and he did not think that the angel—like the flowers, perhaps—had been rather too long a time in Paris.
CHAPTER XXIV
Table of Contents
A WONDERFUL thing had happened to Jean. Gabrielle had smiled at him. Her eyes, serene and secret, had for one swift moment met his with sudden tenderness.
It made Jean, on his way home to Rue Lalo, almost too happy to breathe.
The May night swept his blood with hurrying magic, and in his heart a tiny thread of golden melody was born.
It was the hour when Paris awoke; rich, expensive, passionate Paris, and launched itself into swift, tireless motors, racing to and fro through the transient pleasure of the night. The Champs Élysées stretched before him like a coil of swiftly flashing jewels. Fire and speed, and the gay faculty of easy living, flamed its message home to the world. It was to this great stream that Madame Torialli belonged—belonged, that is, by birth, by position, by success; but Jean no longer believed that she shared its life; the gay world was such a small affair. The music in his brain sang a different story to him. Gabrielle was a child at heart, she was like the soft unfolding of the spring.
It was easy to think of her on a night full of stars. He knew that Paris could not count for her any more than for him. It was a mere glittering screen between them and their joy.
Jean flew up his steep, dark stairs in the Rue Lalo, and found Margot tidying up his things. The most fatal mistake a woman can make, in the eyes of a young man, is to be present when he is thinking of somebody else. Margot had made it and she saw by Jean’s eyes that she had made it, and she did not feel as if she could ever see anything else.
Jean recognized that Margot was unhappy, and this angered him—he was by nature sympathetic—but there are moments in life when even to the sympathetic the sorrows of others bear a grotesque insignificance. Jean hoped that Margot would not tell him why she was unhappy. It seemed to him frankly incredible that anyone need be unhappy who lived in the same world as Gabrielle’s smile.
And Margot had come there to tell him—still she, too, for the moment saw the wisdom of putting it off.
They fell back on her music. Jean threw himself on the music-stool and suggested that Margot should sing first this and then that. Never had Jean given her such a comprehensive and variable singing lesson or paid less attention to what she sang. At last the music came to an abrupt end; there was no more music Margot could sing, and it appeared that there was nothing more for either of them to say. Jean lit a cigarette and sat there, shaking his foot to and fro in an agony of suppressed impatience. He could not very well turn Margot out of his room, and yet her very presence made the music that was within him less—the melody seemed dwindling like a tiny stream choked by a fall of sand.
And then Margot spoke.
“Jean,” she said very simply, “you’ve been for six months at the Toriallis’ now; do you like it there?”
It was an unfortunate choice of subjects—the last thing that Jean wished to discuss with Margot or with anyone else was the Toriallis; one of them he wished to forget, the other was too sacred for him to dare to remember. He dropped his eyes and shrugged his shoulders.
“Yes, I like it there well enough,” he said. “It has drawbacks—one cannot have the flower without the root—music...” He stopped, the words choked him. To speak of music was to hear the sound of Gabrielle’s voice.
“Music?” echoed Margot, and really a candid judge might have thought Margot’s voice as satisfactory as Madame Torialli’s. However, a young lover is not a candid judge; Margot’s little echo irritated Jean.
“What do you mean, Margot?” he asked impatiently, although he did not really want to know what Margot meant.
“I somehow thought,” she answered, “that you hadn’t had much lately—not real music, I mean. Everything at the Boulevard Malesherbes seems so—so mixed up with other things. They are of the great world, aren’t they—the Toriallis—she goes out so much—and they entertain a great deal. I wondered if you ever got enough time and freedom for your real work?”
“It’s very good of you,” said Jean, “to bother about me....”
“Oh, Jean!” said Margot.
Jean bit his lips—he knew he mustn’t talk like this to Margot—he made a great effort, an effort so great that it showed.
“Honestly, I get time enough,” he said. “And you? Flaubert is all right, isn’t he? Your voice has improved greatly.”
Margot rose to go—and Jean thought that he had succeeded in hiding his relief; still he felt a little ashamed of being relieved.
“One thing I do want you to remember, Margot,” he said, helping her on with her jacket. “Nobody’s voice will ever mean what yours does to me, and if I ever can—we are friends, aren’t we? Here are your gloves—and you’ll come again sometimes on Sunday evening, won’t you? Are you sure you can get home alone all right?”
Margot nodded—she was quite sure she could get home alone all right; the difficulty would be if she were not alone. The door closed after her.
Jean returned to the piano—but the joy was gone now—the mysterious Ariadne thread of Gabrielle’s smile had broken—instead he could see only the little cloud in Margot’s eyes—he could hear the break in her voice when she said, “Oh, Jean!” She used to say that so differently when he was ill and she was nursing him.
He flung over the music-stool and rushed downstairs—they were long stairs and he caught Margot up before she had reached the bottom. He seized her hands and turned her round so that he could see her face.
Margot was crying.
He made an exclamation of regret and self-reproach and dragged her upstairs again without a word. Margot expostulated faintly—but she followed.
“Now,” he said, drawing her into his one armchair and seating himself beside her. “What is it—I know I’ve been a beast—but it can’t be helped now—I won’t be any more. Tell me, Margot.”
“If I tell you you’ll be so angry, Jean,” whispered Margot.
“Well, I’m angry now,” said Jean; “I’m angry with myself—I can’t be angrier—what have you done?”
“It isn’t me,” said Margot, wiping away her tears. “It’s just Paris, I suppose—it’s just everything—but I can’t help it, Jean. I don’t like the Toriallis.”
