The Deputy of Arcis [56]
This time he was shot in the fleshy part of the thigh, not a dangerous wound, but one which caused him to lose a great deal of blood. As they carried him to the carriage which brought him, Monsieur de Rhetore, who hastened to assist them, being close beside him, he said, aloud:--
"This does not prevent Marie-Gaston from being a man of honor and a heart of gold."
Then he fainted.
This duel, as you can well believe, has made a great commotion; Monsieur Dorlange has been the hero of the hour for the last two days; it is impossible to enter a single salon without finding him the one topic of conversation. I heard more, perhaps, in the salon of Madame de Montcornet than elsewhere. She receives, as you know, many artists and men of letters, and to give you an idea of the manner in which your friend is considered, I need only stenograph a conversation at which I was present in the countess's salon last evening.
The chief talkers were Emile Blondet of the "Debats," and Monsieur Bixiou, the caricaturist, one of the best-informed /ferrets/ of Paris. They are both, I think, acquaintances of yours, but, at any rate, I am certain of your intimacy with Joseph Bridau, our great painter, who shared in the talk, for I well remember that he and Daniel d'Arthez were the witnesses of your marriage.
"The first appearance of Dorlange in art," Joseph Bridau was saying, when I joined them, "was fine; the makings of a master were already so apparent in the work he did for his examinations that the Academy, under pressure of opinion, decided to crown him--though he laughed a good deal at its programme."
"True," said Bixiou, "and that 'Pandora' he exhibited in 1837, after his return from Rome, is also a very remarkable figure. But as she won him, at once, the cross and any number of commissions from the government and the municipality, together with scores of flourishing articles in the newspapers, I don't see how he can rise any higher after all that success."
"That," said Blondet, "is a regular Bixiou opinion."
"No doubt; and well-founded it is. Do you know the man?"
"No; he is never seen anywhere."
"Exactly; he is a bear, but a premeditated bear; a reflecting and determined bear."
"I don't see," said Joseph Bridau, "why this savage inclination for solitude should be so bad for an artist. What does a sculptor gain by frequenting salons where gentlemen and ladies have taken to a habit of wearing clothes?"
"Well, in the first place, a sculptor can amuse himself in a salon; and that will keep him from taking up a mania, or becoming a visionary; besides, he sees the world as it is, and learns that 1839 is not the fifteenth nor the sixteenth century."
"Has Dorlange any such delusions?" asked Emile Blondet.
"He? he will talk to you by the hour of returning to the life of the great artists of the middle ages with the universality of their studies and their knowledge, and that frightfully laborious life of theirs; which may help us to understand the habits and ways of a semi- barbarous society, but can never exist in ours. He does not see, the innocent dreamer, that civilization, by strangely complicating all social conditions, absorbs for business, for interests, for pleasures, thrice as much time as a less advanced society required for the same purposes. Look at the savage in his hut; he hasn't anything to do. Whereas we, with the Bourse, the opera, the newspapers, parliamentary discussions, salons, elections, railways, the Cafe de Paris and the National Guard--what time have we, if you please, to go to work?"
"Beautiful theory of a do-nothing!" cried Emile Blondet, laughing.
"No, my dear fellow, I am talking truth. The curfew no longer rings at nine o'clock. Only last night my concierge Ravenouillet gave a party; and I think I made a great mistake in not accepting the indirect invitation he gave me to be present."
"Nevertheless," said Joseph Bridau, "it is certain that if a man doesn't mingle in the business, the interests, and the pleasures of our epoch, he can make out of the time he thus saves