The Nabob [78]
in Paris; it recalled to him others of a like sort very far away, lulled by the same innocent laughter, the peaceful sound produced by scissors as they are put down on the table, by a needle as it pierces through linen, or the rustle of a page turned over, and dear faces, disappeared for ever, gathered also around the family lamp, alas! so abruptly extinguished.
Having been admitted to this charming intimacy, he remained in it, took his lessons in the presence of the girls and was encouraged to chat with them when the good old man closed his big book. Here everything rested him after the whirl of that life into which he was thrown by the luxurious social existence of the Nabob; he come to renew his strength in this atmosphere of honesty, of simplicity, tried, too, to find healing there for the wounds with which a hand more indifferent than cruel stabbed his heart mercilessly.
"Some women have hated me, other women have loved me. She who has hurt me most never either loved or hated me." Paul had met that woman of whom Henri Heine speaks. Felicia was full of welcome and cordiality for him. There was no one whom she treated with more favour. She used to reserve for him a special smile wherein one felt the kindliness of an artist's eye arrested by and dwelling on a pleasing type, and the satisfaction of a jaded mind amused by anything new, however simple in appearance it may be. She liked that reserve, suggestive in a southerner, the honesty of that judgment, independent of every artistic or social formula and enlivened by a touch of provincial accent. These things were a change for her from the zigzag stroke of the thumb illustrating a eulogy with its gesture of the studio, from the compliments of comrades on the way in which she would snub some old fellow, or again from those affected admirations, from the "char-ar-ming, very nice indeed's" with which young men about town, sucking the knobs of their canes, were accustomed to regale her. This young man at any rate did not say such things as that to her. She had nicknamed him Minerva, on account of his apparent tranquility and the regularity of his profile; and the moment she saw him, however far- off, she would call:
"Ah, here comes Minerva. Hail, beautiful Minerva! Put down your helmet and let us have a chat."
But this familiar, almost fraternal, tone convinced the young man that he would make no further advance into that feminine comradeship in which tenderness was wanting, and that he lost each day something of his charm--the charm of the unforeseen--in the eyes of that woman born weary, who seemed to have already lived her life and found in all that she heard or saw the insipidity of a repetition. Felicia was bored. Her art alone could distract her, carry her away, transport her into a dazzling fairyland, whence she would fall back worn out, surprised each time by this awakening like a physical fall. She used to draw a comparison between herself and those jelly-fish whose transparent brilliancy, so much alive in the cool movements of the waves, drift to their death on the shore in little gelatinous pools. During those times devoid of inspiration, when the artist's hand was heavy on his instrument, Felicia, deprived of the one moral support of her intellectual being, became unsociable, unapproachable, a tormenting mocker--the revenge taken of human weakness on the tired brains of genius. After having brought tears to the eyes of every one who cared for her, raking up painful recollections or enervating anxieties, she reached the lowest depths of her fatigue, and as there was always some fun in her, even in her /ennui/ in a kind of caged wild-beast's howl, which she called "the cry of the jackal in the desert," and which used to make the good Crenmitz turn pale.
Poor Felicia! That life of hers was indeed a frightful desert when art did not beguile it with its illusions; a desert mournful and flat, where everything was lost, reduced to one level, beneath the same monotonous immensity, the naive love of a child of twenty, a passionate duke's caprice, in which
Having been admitted to this charming intimacy, he remained in it, took his lessons in the presence of the girls and was encouraged to chat with them when the good old man closed his big book. Here everything rested him after the whirl of that life into which he was thrown by the luxurious social existence of the Nabob; he come to renew his strength in this atmosphere of honesty, of simplicity, tried, too, to find healing there for the wounds with which a hand more indifferent than cruel stabbed his heart mercilessly.
"Some women have hated me, other women have loved me. She who has hurt me most never either loved or hated me." Paul had met that woman of whom Henri Heine speaks. Felicia was full of welcome and cordiality for him. There was no one whom she treated with more favour. She used to reserve for him a special smile wherein one felt the kindliness of an artist's eye arrested by and dwelling on a pleasing type, and the satisfaction of a jaded mind amused by anything new, however simple in appearance it may be. She liked that reserve, suggestive in a southerner, the honesty of that judgment, independent of every artistic or social formula and enlivened by a touch of provincial accent. These things were a change for her from the zigzag stroke of the thumb illustrating a eulogy with its gesture of the studio, from the compliments of comrades on the way in which she would snub some old fellow, or again from those affected admirations, from the "char-ar-ming, very nice indeed's" with which young men about town, sucking the knobs of their canes, were accustomed to regale her. This young man at any rate did not say such things as that to her. She had nicknamed him Minerva, on account of his apparent tranquility and the regularity of his profile; and the moment she saw him, however far- off, she would call:
"Ah, here comes Minerva. Hail, beautiful Minerva! Put down your helmet and let us have a chat."
But this familiar, almost fraternal, tone convinced the young man that he would make no further advance into that feminine comradeship in which tenderness was wanting, and that he lost each day something of his charm--the charm of the unforeseen--in the eyes of that woman born weary, who seemed to have already lived her life and found in all that she heard or saw the insipidity of a repetition. Felicia was bored. Her art alone could distract her, carry her away, transport her into a dazzling fairyland, whence she would fall back worn out, surprised each time by this awakening like a physical fall. She used to draw a comparison between herself and those jelly-fish whose transparent brilliancy, so much alive in the cool movements of the waves, drift to their death on the shore in little gelatinous pools. During those times devoid of inspiration, when the artist's hand was heavy on his instrument, Felicia, deprived of the one moral support of her intellectual being, became unsociable, unapproachable, a tormenting mocker--the revenge taken of human weakness on the tired brains of genius. After having brought tears to the eyes of every one who cared for her, raking up painful recollections or enervating anxieties, she reached the lowest depths of her fatigue, and as there was always some fun in her, even in her /ennui/ in a kind of caged wild-beast's howl, which she called "the cry of the jackal in the desert," and which used to make the good Crenmitz turn pale.
Poor Felicia! That life of hers was indeed a frightful desert when art did not beguile it with its illusions; a desert mournful and flat, where everything was lost, reduced to one level, beneath the same monotonous immensity, the naive love of a child of twenty, a passionate duke's caprice, in which