Madeleine walked up the petite rue du Paon, in at the baker’s door, and upstairs. She still felt numbed, but knew that before her were the pains of returning circulation; Madame Troqueville heard her come in and ran out from the kitchen, full of smiles and questions. Madeleine told her in a calm voice that it had all been delightful, praised the agreeable manners of the Rambouillets, and described the treasures of the salle bleue. She repeated the quaint sayings of the child, and Madame Troqueville cried ‘Quel amour! Oh, Madeleine, I would like you to have just such another little daughter!’
Madeleine smiled wearily.
‘And what of Mademoiselle de Scu-tary?’ her mother asked rather nervously.
‘De Scudéry,’ corrected Madeleine, true to habit. ‘She was furiously spirituelle and very ... civil. I am a trifle tired.... I think I will away and rest,’ and she dragged herself wearily off to her own room. Madame Troqueville, who had watched her very unhappily, made as if she would follow her, but thought better of it.
When Madeleine got into her room, she sat down on her bed, and clasped her head. She could not, she would not think. Then, like a wave of ecstasy there swept over her little points she had noticed about Mademoiselle de Scudéry, but which had not at the time thrilled her in the slightest. Her teeth were rather long; she had a mole on her left cheek; she was not as grandly dressed as the others; the child had snubbed her; Montausier had been very attentive to her; she was a great celebrity; Madame de Rambouillet had teased her. This medley of recollections, each and all of them made her feel quite faint with pleasure, so desirable did they make her love appear. But then ... she had not spoken to her ... she had been humiliated before her.... Oh! it was not to be faced! Her teeth were rather long. Montausier had been attentive to her ... oh, how thrilling! And yet ... she, Madeleine had not even been introduced to her. The supernal powers had seemed to have a scrupulous regard for her wishes. They had actually arranged that the first meeting should be at the Hôtel de Rambouillet ... and she had not even been introduced to her! Could it be possible that the Virgin had played her a trick? Should she turn and rend in mad fury the whole Heavenly Host? No; that would be accepting defeat once for all, and that must not be, for the past as well as the future was malleable, and it was only by emotionally accepting it that a thing became a fact. This strange undercurrent of thought translated itself thus in her consciousness: God and the Virgin must be trusted; they had only disclosed a tiny bit of their design, what madness then, to turn against them, thus smashing perhaps their perfect scheme for her happiness! Or perhaps her own co-operation had not been adequate—she had perhaps not been instant enough in dancing—but still ... but still ... the visit to the Hôtel de Rambouillet was over, she had seen Mademoiselle de Scudéry, and was still not one inch nearer to her heart’s desire. She could not face it.
She came down to supper. Her father was silent and gloomy, shaking his head and twisting his lips. His visit to his lady had been a failure. Was there ... could there be ... some mystical connection? And there was Jacques still limping ... and he had given her that horrid bead trimming.... No, no, no ... these were insane, goblin ideas that must be crushed.
Her mother was trying hard to be cheerful, and Jacques kept looking at her anxiously. When supper was over she went up to her room, half hoping, half fearing that he would follow.
Shortly there was a scratch at the door (with great difficulty she had persuaded him to adopt the fashionable scratch—to knock was bourgeois).
He came in, and gave her a look with his bright eyes, at once compassionate and whimsical. She felt herself dully hoping that he would not ask why she was not wearing the bead trimming. He did not, but began to tell her of his day, spent mostly at the Palais and a tavern. But all the time he watched her; she listened languidly. ‘How went the fête galante?’ he asked, after a pause.
‘It was furiously galante,’ she answered with a tragic smile. He walked slowly up to her, half smiling all the time, sat down on her bed, and put his arm around her.
‘You are cruelly unhappy, my poor one, I know. But ’twill pass, in time all caprices yield to graver things.’
‘But it is no caprice!’ she cried passionately. ‘Oh, Jacques, it is hard to make my meaning clear, but they be real live people with their own pursuits ... they are all square like little fat boxes ... oh, how can I make you understand?’
Jacques could not help laughing. ‘I’m sure, ’tis hateful of them to be like boxes; though, in truth, for my part, I am to seek ... oh, Madeleine, dear life, it’s dreadful to be miserable ... the cursed phantasia, what tricks it plays us ... ’tis a mountebank, don’t heed it but put your faith in the good old bourgeois intellect,’ but Madeleine, ignoring this comfort from Gassendi, moaned out,—
‘Oh! Jacques! I want to die ... you see, ’tis this way—they’ve got their own lives and memories, folded up all tight around them. Oh! can no one ever get to know any one else?’
He began to understand.
‘Indeed one can, but it takes time. One has to hew a path through the blood, through the humours, up to the brain, and, once there, create the Passion of Admiration. How can it be done at once?’
‘I can’t wait ... I can’t wait ... except things come at once I’ll have none of them ... at least that’s not quite my meaning,’ she added hurriedly, looking furtively round and crossing herself several times. ‘Oh! but I don’t feel that I am of a humour that can wait.... Oh! I feel something sick and weak in me somewhere.’
‘It’s but those knavish old animal spirits playing tricks on the will, but I think that it is only because one is young,’ and he would have launched out on a philosophical dissertation, only Madeleine felt that she could not stand it.
‘Don’t, Jacques!’ she screamed. ‘Talk about me, or I shall go mad!’
‘Well, then, recount to me the whole matter.’
‘Oh! there is nothing worth the telling, but they would make dædal pleasantries—pleasantries one fails to understand, except one have a clue—and they would talk about people with whom I was not acquainted.... Oh! it seems past human compassing to make friends with a person except one has known them all one’s life! How could I utter my conceit if they would converse of matters I did not understand?’ she repeated furiously. Jacques smiled.
‘I admit,’ he said dryly, ‘to be show man of a troupe of marionettes is an agreeable profession.’ She looked at him suspiciously for a second, and then catching his hands, cried desperately:—
‘Is it beyond our powers ever to make a new friend?’
‘That it is not, but it can’t be effected at once. I am sure that those Messieurs de Port-Royal would tell you that even Jesus Christ finds ’tis but a slow business worming His way into a person’s heart. There He stands, knocking and knocking, and then——’ Madeleine saw that he was on the point of becoming profane, and as her gods did not like profanity, she crossed herself and cut in with:—
‘But even admitting one can’t come to any degree of intimacy with a person at once, the beginning of the intimacy must happen at once, and I’m at a loss to know how the beginning can happen at once any more than the whole thing.’
She had got into one of her tight knots of nerves, when she craved to be reasoned with, if only for the satisfaction of confounding the reasons offered her. Jacques clasped his head and laughed.
‘You put me in mind of the philosophy class and old Zeno! It’s this way, two people meet, nothing takes place perhaps. They meet again, and one gives a little look, it may be, that sets the bells of the other’s memory pleasantly ringing, or says some little thing that tickles the humours of the other, and thus a current is set up between them ... a fluid, which gradually reaches the heart and solidifies into friendship.’
‘But then, there might never be the “little look,” or the “little word,” and then ... there would be no friendship’ (she crossed herself) ‘ ... it all seems at the mercy of Chance.’
‘Of chance ... and of harmony. ’Tis a matter beyond dispute that we are more in sympathy with some souls than with others—
‘Il est des nœuds secrets, il est des sympathies,
Dont par le doux rapport les âmes assorties ...
you know these lines in Rodogune?’
‘And do you hold that sympathy can push its way past ... obstacles ... such as bashfulness, for example?’
Jacques smiled.
‘In good earnest it can.’ Suddenly her nerves relaxed.
‘Then it is not contrary to natural laws to make a new friend?’ she cried joyfully.
‘That it is not. And who knows, the rôles may be reversed ere long and we shall see old Mother Scudéry on her knees, while Chop plays the proud spurner! What said that rude, harsh, untaught Grecian poetess whose naked numbers brought a modest blush to your “precious” taste?
‘Who flees—she shall pursue;
Who spurns gifts—she shall offer them;
Who loves not—willy-nilly, she shall love.’
Madeleine gave a little sob of joy and flung her arms round Jacques’s neck. Oh, he was right, he was right! Had she not herself feared that immediate success would be bourgeois? ’Twould be breaking every law of galanterie were Sappho to yield without a struggle. It took Céladon twelve stout volumes before he won his Astrée, and, as Jacques had pointed out, Christ Himself, with all the armaments of Heaven at His disposal, does not at once break through the ramparts of a Christian’s heart. But yet ... but yet ... her relationship with Mademoiselle de Scudéry that afternoon could not, with the most elastic poetic licence, be described as that of ‘the nymph that flees, the faun that pursues!’ Also ... she was not made of stuff stern enough to endure repeated rebuffs and disappointments. Already, her nerves were worn to breaking-point. A one-volumed romance was all her fortitude could face.... God grant the course of true love to run smooth from now.
Jacques shortly left her, and she went to bed.
Outside Jacques ran into Madame Troqueville, who said she wished to speak to him. They went into her room.
‘Jacques,’ she began, ‘I am uneasy about Madeleine. I greatly fear things fell not out as she had hoped. Did she tell you aught of what took place?’
‘I think she is somewhat unhappy because they didn’t all call her tu right away ... oh, I had forgotten, she holds it bourgeois to tutoier,’ he answered, smiling. Madame Troqueville smiled a little too.
‘My poor child, she is of so impatient a humour, and expects so much,’ and she sighed. ‘Jacques, tell me about your uncle. Are you of opinion he will make his way in Paris?’ She looked at him searchingly. Her eyes were clear and cold like Madeleine’s.
Jacques blushed and frowned; he felt angry with her for asking him. But her eyes were still fixed on his face.
‘How can I tell, aunt? It hangs on all ... on all these presidents and people.’
Madame Troqueville gave a little shrug, and her lips curled into a tiny, bitter smile. ‘I wonder why men always hold women to be blind, when in reality their eyes are so exceeding sharp. Jacques, for my sake, and for Madeleine’s, for the child’s future doth so depend on it, won’t you endeavour to keep your uncle from ... from all these places.... I know you take your pleasure together, and I am of opinion you have some influence with him.’ Jacques was very embarrassed and very angry; it was really, he felt, expecting too much of a young man to try and make him responsible for his middle-aged uncle.
‘I fear I can do nothing, aunt. ’Tis no business of mine,’ he said coldly, and they parted for the night.