Sacred and Profane Love - Arnold Bennett (digital e reader .TXT) 📗

his hand lightly on my shoulder, and I glanced at him.

'Well?' he murmured, and gave me a box of bonbons elaborately tied with rich ribbons.

And I murmured, 'Well?'

The glory of his triumph was upon him. But he understood why my eyes were wet, and his fingers moved soothingly on my shoulder.

'You won't come round?' he asked. 'Both Villedo and Morenita are dying to meet you.'

I shook my head, smiling.

'You're satisfied?'

'More than satisfied,' I answered. 'The thing is wonderful.'

'I think it's rather charming,' he said. 'By the way, I've just had an offer from New York for it, and another from Rome.'

I nodded my appreciation.

'You don't want anything?'

'Nothing, thanks,' I said, opening the box of bonbons, 'except these. Thanks so much for thinking of them.'

'Well--'

And he left me again.

In the second act the legend--has not the tale of La Valliere acquired almost the quality of a legend?--grew in persuasiveness and in magnificence. It was the hour of La Valliere's unwilling ascendancy, and it foreboded also her fall. The situations seemed to me to be poignantly beautiful, especially that in which La Valliere and Montespan and the Queen found themselves together. And Morenita had perceived my meaning with such a sure intuition. I might say that she showed me what I had meant. Diaz, too, had given to my verse a voice than which it appeared impossible that anything could be more appropriate. The whole effect was astonishing, ravishing. And within me--far, far within the recesses of my glowing heart--a thin, clear whisper spoke and said that I, and I alone, was the cause of that beauty of sight and sound. Not Morenita, and not Montferiot, not Diaz himself, but Magda, the self-constituted odalisque, was its author. I had thought of it; I had schemed it; I had fashioned it; I had evoked the emotion in it. The others had but exquisitely embroidered my theme. Without me they must have been dumb and futile. On my shoulders lay the burden and the glory. And though I was amazed, perhaps naively, to see what I had done, nevertheless I had done it--I! The entire opera-house, that complicated and various machine, was simply a means to express me. And it was to my touch on their heartstrings that the audience vibrated. With all my humility, how proud I was--coldly and arrogantly proud, as only the artist can be! I wore my humility as I wore my black gown. Even Diaz could not penetrate to the inviolable place in my heart, where the indestructible egoism defied the efforts of love to silence it. And yet people say there is nothing stronger than love.

At the close of the act, while the ringing applause, much more enthusiastic than before, gave certainty of a genuine and extraordinary success, I could not help blushing. It was as if I was in danger of being discovered as the primal author of all that fleeting loveliness, as if my secret was bound to get about, and I to be forced from my seclusion in order to receive the acclamations of Paris. I played nervously and self-consciously with my fan, and I wrapped my humility closer round me, until at length the tumult died away, and the hum of charming, eager chatter reassured my ears again.

Diaz did not come. The entr'acte stretched out long, and the chatter lost some of its eagerness, and he did not come. Perhaps he could not come. Perhaps he was too much engaged, too much preoccupied, to think of the gallantry which he owed to his mistress. A man cannot always be dreaming of his mistress. A mistress must be reconciled to occasional neglect; she must console herself with chocolates. And they were chocolates from Marquis's, in the Passage des Panoramas....

Then he came, accompanied.

A whirl of high-seasoned, laughing personalities invaded my privacy. Diaz, smiling humorously, was followed by a man and a cloaked woman.

'Dear lady,' he said, with an intimate formality, 'I present Mademoiselle Morenita and Monsieur Villedo. They insisted on seeing you. Mademoiselle, Monsieur--Mademoiselle Peel.'

I stood up.

'All our excuses,' said Villedo, in a low, discreet voice, as he carefully shut the door. 'All our excuses, madame. But it was necessary that I should pay my respects--it was stronger than I.'

And he came forward, took my hand, and raised it to his lips. He is a little finicking man, with a little gray beard, and the red rosette in his button-hole, and a most consummate ease of manner.

'Monsieur,' I replied, 'you are too amiable. And you, madame. I cannot sufficiently thank you both.'

Morenita rushed at me with a swift, surprising movement, her cloak dropping from her shoulders, and taking both my hands, she kissed me impulsively.

'You have genius,' she said; 'and I am proud. I am ashamed that I cannot read English; but I have the intention to learn in order to read your books. Our Diaz says wonderful things of them.'

She is a tall, splendidly-made, opulent creature, of my own age, born for the footlights, with an extremely sweet and thrilling voice, and that slight coarseness or exaggeration of gesture and beauty which is the penalty of the stage. She did not in the least resemble a La Valliere as she stood there gazing at me, with her gleaming, pencilled eyes and heavy, scarlet lips. It seemed impossible that she could refine herself to a La Valliere. But that woman is the drama itself. She would act no matter what. She has always the qualities necessary to a role. And the gods have given her green eyes, so that she may be La Valliere to the very life.

I began to thank her for her superb performance.

'It is I who should thank you,' she answered. 'It will be my greatest part. Never have I had so many glorious situations in a part. Do you like my limp?'

She smiled, her head on one side. Success glittered in those orbs.

'You limp adorably,' I said.

'It is my profession to make compliments,' Villedo broke in; and then, turning to Morenita, 'N'est-ce pas, ma belle creature? But really'--he turned to me again--'but very sincerely, all that there is of most sincerely, dear madame, your libretto is made with a virtuosity astonishing. It is du theatre. And with that a charm, an emotion...! One would say--'

And so it continued, the flattering stream, while Diaz listened, touched, and full of pride.

'Ah!' I said. 'It is not I who deserve praise.'

An electric bell trembled in the theatre.

Morenita picked up her cloak.

'Mon ami,' she warned Villedo. 'I must go. Diaz, mon petit! you will persuade Mademoiselle Peel to come to the room of the Directeur later. Madame, a few of us will meet there--is it not so, Villedo? We shall count on you, madame. You have hidden yourself too long.'

I glanced at Diaz, and he nodded. As a fact, I wished to refuse; but I could not withstand the seduction of Morenita. She had a physical influence which was unique in my experience.

'I accept,' I said.

'A tout a l'heure, then,' she twittered gaily; and they left as they had come, Villedo affectionately toying with Morenita's hand.

Diaz remained behind a moment.

'I am so glad you didn't decline,' he said. 'You see, here in this theatre Morenita is a queen. I wager she has never before in all her life put herself out of the way as she has done for you to-night.'

'Really!' I faltered.

And, indeed, as I pondered over it, the politeness of these people appeared to be marvellous, and so perfectly accomplished. Villedo, who has made a European reputation and rejuvenated his theatre in a dozen years, is doubtless, as he said, a professional maker of compliments. In his position a man must be. But, nevertheless, last night's triumph is officially and very genuinely Villedo's. While as for Morenita and Diaz, the mere idea of these golden stars waiting on me, the librettist, effacing themselves, rendering themselves subordinate at such a moment, was fantastic. It passed the credible.... A Diaz standing silent and deferential, while an idolized prima donna stepped down from her throne to flatter me in her own temple! All that I had previously achieved of renown seemed provincial, insular.

But Diaz took his own right place in the spacious salon of Villedo afterwards, after all the applause had ceased, and the success had been consecrated, and the enraptured audience had gone, and the lights were extinguished in the silent auditorium. It is a room that seems to be furnished with nothing but a grand piano and a large, flat writing-table and a few chairs. On the walls are numberless signed portraits of singers and composers, and antique playbills of the Opera Comique, together with strange sinister souvenirs of the great fires which have destroyed the house and its patrons in the past. When Diaz led me in, only Villedo and the principal artists and Pouvillon, the conductor, were present. Pouvillon, astonishingly fat, was sitting on the table, idly swinging the electric pendant over his head; while Morenita occupied Villedo's armchair, and Villedo talked to Montferiot and another man in a corner. But a crowd of officials of the theatre ventured on Diaz' heels. And then came Monticelli, the premiere danseuse, in a coat and skirt, and then some of her rivals. And as the terrible Director did not protest, the room continued to fill until it was full to the doors, where stood a semicircle of soiled, ragged scene-shifters and a few fat old women, who were probably dressers. Who could protest on such a night? The democracy of a concerted triumph reigned. Everybody was joyous, madly happy. Everybody had done something; everybody shared the prestige, and the rank and file might safely take generals by the hand.

Diaz was then the centre of attraction. It was recognised that he had entered that sphere from a wider one, bringing with him a radiance brighter than he found there. He was divine last night. All felt that he was divine. He spoke to everyone with an admirable modesty, gaily, his eyes laughing. Several women kissed him, including Morenita. Not that I minded. In the theatre the code is different, coarser, more banal. He alone raised this crowd above its usual level and gave it distinction.

Someone suggested that, as the piano was there, he should play, and the demand ran from mouth to mouth. Villedo, appreciating its audacity, made a gesture to indicate that such a thing could not be asked. But Diaz instantly said that, if it would give pleasure, he would play with pleasure.

And he sat down to the piano, and looked round, smiling, and the room was hushed in a moment, and each face was turned towards him.

'What?' he ejaculated. And then, as no definite recommendation was offered, he said: 'Do you wish that I improvise?'

The idea was accepted with passionate, noisy enthusiasm.

A cold perspiration broke out over my whole body. I must have turned very pale.

'You are not ill, madame?' asked that ridiculous fop, Montferiot, who had been presented to me, and was whispering the most fatuous compliments.

'No, I thank you.'

The fact was that Diaz, since his retirement, had not yet played to anyone except myself. This was his first appearance. I was afraid for him. I trembled for him. I need not have done. He was absolutely master of his powers. His fingers announced, quite simply, one of the most successful airs from La Valliere, and