Artist and Model Part 21

"The young painter made the acquaintance of the princess at St. Petersburg. But what rather surprises the fas.h.i.+onable world of Russia is that the divorce has been p.r.o.nounced against the prince who, it is said, is a charming man, distinguished, and with the reputation, moreover, of having been a model husband.

There is some piquant, domestic mystery under the surface which it is not for us to seek after. We will content ourselves by applauding this marriage, for it wins back for us a countrywoman of our own, or pretty nearly so. The ex-princess is, in fact, the daughter of that beautiful Madame Froment who, after winning much applause at the Odeon in cla.s.sical pieces with Dumesnil, was engaged in St. Petersburg at the Michael Theatre, which she left only to become the Countess Barineff."

"Where has the 'Figaro' got all its information?" asked Paul, having read the paragraphs.

"From some good soul in St. Petersburg, no doubt," said the young woman, in whose mind the name of her mother's former friend did not seem to suggest any thought.

The painter made a shrewd guess that Sarah Lamber was no stranger to this t.i.ttle-tattle; but, careful not to recall the unpleasant memory of her, he said, affecting indifference:

"There is nothing offensive in the article."

"No; but it will provoke my mother more and more against us. Nothing is so disagreeable to her as to be reminded that she was once an actress."

"I confess I did not know it."

"She fancies always that n.o.body knows anything about it. I am not so proud. All I ask of the future is your eternal love."

Lise Barineff could not foresee what effect the coupling of her name with that of Dumesnil was to have upon the vain countess.

Certainly the author of the article knew more about the affair than he cared to tell.

To make an end of the matter, Paul held out his hands to his future wife, and they fixed forthwith the date of the marriage for a fortnight later.

All that was needful then to be done was for the artist to find suitable rooms, which he did at 112 Rue d'a.s.sas, one of them being fit for a studio, and to furnish them.

In the intervening fortnight Paul saw his mother and his brother several times, but not once his sister-in-law. Though Mme. Meyrin and Frantz had promised to be present at the marriage, Barbe was firm; she would stay at home.

Lise and Paul felt that the ceremony ought to be as quiet a one as possible. For that matter the chapel where it was to take place would scarcely have allowed it to be otherwise. It was a place of primitive simplicity and would not have held fifty people.

Few of our readers know, even by name, this little chapel of the Greek Church, which stands on the left bank of the Seine, in the Rue Racine, on the second floor.

In a set of very common rooms, the residence of the Patriarch of Constantinople, one had been turned into a chapel. Where the bed used to stand, an altar had been reared, with its Byzantine ornaments polished and s.h.i.+ning for the occasion.

When the bride and bridegroom arrived the priest was awaiting them, and, being in mourning, he wore a great black veil, which gave him almost a lugubrious look. The walls were covered with a grayish paper, and hung spa.r.s.ely with tawdry religious pictures in gold frames. The room had a wretched look, which struck Lise. This was very different from the splendor her mother had made a show of in the Church of Isaac at St. Petersburg.

In spite of herself she could not but recall that day. Representatives of the oldest Russian families, nearly all of them connected by blood or marriage one with the other, were present to do honor to Prince Olsdorf.

The arch-priest who officiated wore the richest of his sacerdotal ornaments; the air was heavy with perfumes; from amid women of the highest t.i.tle and most exclusive fas.h.i.+on in St. Petersburg, her mother smiled on her proudly. Now the scene was a furnished room, the priest, a priest of low grade, wrapped in black. There were a score or so of onlookers, acquaintances of her husband, artists, curious or indifferent, as the case might be, all of them, except Mme. Meyrin, the mother, Frantz, and the good and gentle Mme. Daubrel, who, bent in prayer over her chair, sent up to Heaven sincere supplications for the happiness of her friend, as she herself, too, cast a sad look backward upon the past.

The daughter of the Countess Barineff had noticed among the spectators a stout man, perhaps sixty years old, whom she had often seen at the Meyrins', and who now kept his eyes fixed on her, while his att.i.tude, his smile, and his muttered asides, indicated strange emotion as well as inexpressible vanity. By reason of his clean-shaven face, his pale complexion, the way in which he held his hat, resting it on his left hip and rounding his arm, his right hand thrust into the depths of his double-breasted and carefully b.u.t.toned coat, in the style of the portraits of the first Napoleon, he was unmistakably an actor.

It was none other than the old Dumesnil, one of the most faithful interpreters of stock roles at the Odeon, a very good sort of fellow at bottom, but rather ludicrous from his habit of always fancying himself on the stage, the buskins on his legs, the toga hanging from his shoulders. Lise had given him an affectionate smile.

In less than half an hour all was over, and the bride and bridegroom, having shaken hands with the witnesses of the marriage, got into their carriage and were driven to their apartments in the Rue d'a.s.sas, while Dumesnil, who had looked after them with tearful eyes, walked away muttering a verse which his memory of cla.s.sical roles supplied him with, or which was an indifferent impromptu for the occasion:

"A tout ce qui seduit, preferant le bonheur, Elle a quitte pour lui palais, gloire et splendeur."

The following day the ex-Princess Olsdorf began a calm, prosaic, middle-cla.s.s life. She wished to think she was quite ready to accept it, without revolt or regrets. She told herself that Paul, in compensating her for all she had abandoned, would make her forget it. She refused to think of the past, longing only to become a mother for the third time, to satisfy the heart-hunger that the absence of her children had roused in her.

That nothing might recall the past to her, and perhaps also because her pride made her dread their ironical smiles, she discharged her former servants, being satisfied for the time, until she could organize her household, with a cook and a lady's-maid, engaged in haste and almost without inquiry.

The first evening of her new life, tired out by the events of the day, and waiting for Paul, who was putting things straight in his studio, Lise sunk into a chair, and, in spite of herself, her mind turned to the past, now left so far behind.

In her waking dream she smiled sadly on Alexander and Tekla; she saw again the chateau of Pampeln and its shady park, her companions in the chase, urged on by the horns of the huntsmen, her drosky drawn at lightning speed by its three horses flecked with foam; and, standing at the door of the banqueting hall, with its elaborate wood carvings, she saw the butler, clothed in strictly correct black, appearing to announce in his sonorous voice, "Madame la Princess is served," when, suddenly startled from her thoughts by the entrance of her maid, she came back to the reality indeed as the girl said:

"Madame, the soup is on the table."

With a slight involuntary s.h.i.+ver, the ex-Princess Olsdorf could not, however, help smiling; and as her husband appeared at this moment, she rose quickly and hurried toward him, saying in an almost pa.s.sionate voice, a sort of echo of the feelings called to aid in completely burying the past:

"Come, love, your arm for Madame Paul Meyrin."

PART II.

MADAME PAUL MEYRIN.

CHAPTER I.

VERA SOUBLAIEFF.

Vera's journey back to Pampeln was in no respect, it may well be imagined, like the journey she had made to France. Three months ago, when her first grief at leaving her father and giving up the daily round of her life, so sweet and placid, amid people who adored her, had pa.s.sed, an eager curiosity had seized upon her. Notwithstanding her purity and ignorance of life, she felt, like a true daughter of Eve, the pleasure of being carried off to Paris and of living a life so different from that which she had hitherto known.

With the delight of a woman in such surroundings, she nestled in a corner of the well-cus.h.i.+oned and padded compartment in which the prince had placed her; and there, alone with her thoughts, under the physical charm of the rapid course of the train, which frightened her too, a little, had she fallen asleep as the night wore on, not much regretting her virginal bed at the Elva farm.

Next day, when Pierre Olsdorf, beginning with the part he intended to play toward the daughter of Soublaieff, came to ask her how she had pa.s.sed the night, Vera was a good deal surprised for the moment; and her master had to insist before he could make her take her place at table beside him at the refreshment-room at Konigsberg; but, ascribing the honor that was done her to the necessities of the journey, she felt some little innocent vanity about it, and nothing more.

So it was all the way, and the pretty young Russian girl, thanks to her simplicity, arrived in Paris ready to be surprised at all the events that were to follow each other day by day, awakening only her imagination, until the moment came when her heart was moved so deeply.

How far behind were these things now! So far that she sometimes wondered if she had not merely dreamed them.

And then she would close her eyes, trying to dream still. She went over again the most trifling events of her stay in Paris--her surprise when Yvan summoned her to the luncheon-table of the prince; her emotions day by day as her master, growing kinder and more attentive with each succeeding one, had made their lives almost one; until that hour, the thought of which still made her s.h.i.+ver, when fate had cast her into his arms.

Though the daughter of the farmer of Elva had come a virgin from that embrace, the momentary abandoning of herself to it had made of her a woman; it had taught her that she loved, and had raised in her an ardent desire to be beloved.

What would be the end of this pa.s.sion? She scarcely dared think of that.

Understanding now the part she had played, she asked herself, trembling at the thought, if the prince would not look upon her as the blind instrument he had used, and whether, when they were once again in Pampeln, she would not be parted from him forever.

The dread of it caused her bitter grief; and yet, when she put the idea aside as impossible, she then feared to think of what would inevitably happen if it were, on the contrary, Pierre Olsdorf's will to keep her by his side. a.s.suredly her father knew of the divorce and the change in the life of his master. The decree was an event which the whole n.o.bility of St. Petersburg must have discussed, making every possible conjecture to explain how it had come about that the decree was against the prince and not against his wife, whose sin everybody knew. Why, then, had Pierre Olsdorf chosen to seem guilty--guilty instead of her--if he did not love her? Vera could not guess the reason, in her ignorance of the law and the consequences that had followed upon the action of the man to whom her whole heart was given.

All these reflections troubled strangely the poor girl, whom the bearing of her master did not calm, for as they drew nearer the end of their journey Pierre seemed more and more preoccupied and silent. At each important station he did indeed come to a.s.sure himself that Vera wanted for nothing in the reserved compartment that she was in, together with a nurse and the little Tekla; but he seemed to avoid being alone with her, and Soublaieff's daughter had looked vainly into his eyes for the reason. Plainly the prince was warding off an explanation. What would become of her? How dared she appear again before her father, so jealous of his honor? Was not death itself better than the agony and the reproaches she was threatened with?

Again and again during the last night of the journey the unhappy girl thought of throwing herself from the carriage. But death! And if she were indeed loved? Then her tears fell, and she gave herself to G.o.d's care.

In this frame of mind Vera left the train at Mittau, where the prince's carriages, telegraphed for from Paris, were in waiting for the travelers, to take them to Pampeln.