The Parisians — Complete by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton (good book club books .txt) 📗

eternal ormolu clock flanked by the two eternal ormolu candelabra on the dreary mantelpiece. Some of this garniture had been removed, others softened into cheeriness and comfort. The room somehow or other—thanks partly to a very moderate expenditure in pretty twills with pretty borders, gracefully simple table-covers, with one or two additional small tables and easy-chairs, two simple vases filled with flowers; thanks still more to a nameless skill in re-arrangement, and the disposal of the slight knick-knacks and well-bound volumes, which, even in travelling, women who have cultivated the pleasures of taste carry about them—had been coaxed into that quiet harmony, that tone of consistent subdued colour, which corresponded with the characteristics of the inmate. Most people might have been puzzled where to place the piano, a semi-grand, so as not to take up too much space in the little room; but where it was placed it seemed so at home that you might have supposed the room had been built for it.

There are two kinds of neatness,—one is too evident, and makes everything about it seem trite and cold and stiff; and another kind of neatness disappears from our sight in a satisfied sense of completeness,—like some exquisite, simple, finished style of writing, an Addison’s or a St. Pierre’s.

This last sort of neatness belonged to Isaura, and brought to mind the well-known line of Catullus when on recrossing his threshold he invokes its welcome,—a line thus not inelegantly translated by Leigh Hunt,

“Smile every dimple on the cheek of Home.”

I entreat the reader’s pardon for this long descriptive digression; but Isaura is one of those characters which are called many-sided, and therefore not very easy to comprehend. She gives us one side of her character in her correspondence with Madame de Grantmesnil, and another side of it in her own home with her Italian companion,—half nurse, half chaperon.

“Monsieur Louvier is indeed very courteous,” said Isaura, looking up from the flowers with the dimpled smile we have noticed. “But I think, Madre, that we should do well to stay at home on Saturday,—not peacefully, for I owe you your revenge at Euchre.”

“You can’t mean it, Piecola!” exclaimed the Signora, in evident consternation. “Stay at home!—why stay at home? Euchre is very well when there is nothing else to do: but change is pleasant; le bon Dieu likes it,

“‘Ne caldo ne gelo Resta mai in cielo.’

“And such beautiful ices one gets at M. Louvier’s! Did you taste the pistachio ice? What fine rooms, and so well lit up! I adore light. And the ladies so beautifully dressed: one sees the fashions. Stay at home! play at Euchre indeed! Piccola, you cannot be so cruel to yourself: you are young.”

“But, dear Madre, just consider; we are invited because we are considered professional singers: your reputation as such is of course established,—mine is not; but still I shall be asked to sing, as I was asked before; and you know Dr. C. forbids me to do so except to a very small audience; and it is so ungracious always to say ‘No;’ and besides, did you not yourself say, when we came away last time from M. Louvier’s, that it was very dull, that you knew nobody, and that the ladies had such superb toilets that you felt mortified—and—”

“Zitto! zitto! you talk idly, Piccola,—very idly. I was mortified then in my old black Lyons silk; but have I not bought since then my beautiful Greek jacket,—scarlet and gold lace? and why should I buy it if I am not to show it?”

“But, dear Madre, the jacket is certainly very handsome, and will make an effect in a little dinner at the Savarins or Mrs. Morley’s; but in a great formal reception like M. Louvier’s will it not look—”

“Splendid!” interrupted the Signora.

“But singolare.”

“So much the better; did not that great English Lady wear such a jacket, and did not every one admire her, piu tosto invidia the compassione?”

Isaura sighed. Now the jacket of the Signora was a subject of disquietude to her friend. It so happened that a young English lady of the highest rank and the rarest beauty had appeared at M. Louvier’s, and indeed generally in the beau monde of Paris, in a Greek jacket that became her very much. The jacket had fascinated, at M. Louvier’s, the eyes of the Signora. But of this Isaura was unaware. The Signora, on returning home from M. Louvier’s, had certainly lamented much over the mesquin appearance of her old-fashioned Italian habiliments compared with the brilliant toilette of the gay Parisiennes; and Isaura—quite woman enough to sympathize with woman in such womanly vanities—proposed the next day to go with the Signora to one of the principal couturieres of Paris, and adapt the Signora’s costume to the fashions of the place. But the Signora having predetermined on a Greek jacket, and knowing by instinct that Isaura would be disposed to thwart that splendid predilection, had artfully suggested that it would be better to go to the couturiere with Madame Savarin, as being a more experienced adviser,—and the coupe only held two.

As Madame Savarin was about the same age as the Signora, and dressed as became her years and in excellent taste, Isaura thought this an admirable suggestion; and pressing into her chaperon’s hand a billet de banque sufficient to re-equip her cap-a pie, dismissed the subject from her mind. But the Signora was much too cunning to submit her passion for the Greek jacket to the discouraging comments of Madame Savarin. Monopolizing the coupe, she became absolute mistress of the situation. She went to no fashionable couturiere’s. She went to a magasin that she had seen advertised in the Petites Afiches as supplying superb costumes for fancy-balls and amateur performers in private theatricals. She returned home triumphant, with a jacket still more dazzling to the eye than that of the English lady.

When Isaura first beheld it, she drew back in a sort of superstitious terror, as of a comet or other blazing portent.

“Cosa stupenda!” (stupendous thing!) She might well be dismayed when the Signora proposed to appear thus attired in M. Louvier’s salon. What might be admired as coquetry of dress in a young beauty of rank so great that even a vulgarity in her would be called distinguee, was certainly an audacious challenge of ridicule in the elderly ci-devant music-teacher.

But how could Isaura, how can any one of common humanity, say to a woman resolved upon wearing a certain dress, “You are not young and handsome enough for that?” Isaura could only murmur, “For many reasons I would rather stay at home, dear Madre.”

“Ah! I see you are ashamed of me,” said the Signora, in softened tones: “very natural. When the nightingale sings no more, she is only an ugly brown bird;” and therewith the Signora Venosta seated herself submissively, and began to cry.

On this Isaura sprang up, wound her arms round the Signora’s neck, soothed her with coaxing, kissed and petted her, and ended by saying, “Of course we will go;” and, “but let me choose you another dress,—a dark-green velvet trimmed with blonde: blonde becomes you so well.”

“No, no: I hate green velvet; anybody can wear that. Piccola, I am not clever like thee; I cannot amuse myself like thee with books. I am in a foreign land. I have a poor head, but