Master Eustace (New York: Thomas Seltzer, 1920)/Théodolinde
THÉODOLINDE
THÉODOLINDE
I had invited the excellent fellow to dinner, and had begun to wonder, the stroke of half-past six having sounded, why he did not present himself. At last I stepped out upon the balcony and looked along the street in the direction from which, presumably, he would approach. A Parisian thoroughfare is always an entertaining spectacle, and I had still much of a stranger's alertness of attention. Before long, therefore, I quite forgot my unpunctual guest in my relish of the multifarious animation of the brilliant city. It was a perfect evening toward the end of April; there was a charming golden glow on the opposite housetops, which looked toward the west; there was a sort of vernal odor in the street, mingling with the emanations of the restaurant across the way, whose door now always stood open; with the delightful aroma of the chocolate-shop which occupied the ground floor of the house in whose entresol I was lodged; and, as I fancied, with certain luscious perfumes hovering about the brilliantly-polished window of the hairdresser's establishment adjacent to the restaurant. Then there was a woman in a minutely-fluted cap selling violets in a little handcart, which she gently pushed along over the smooth asphalt, and which, as she passed, left a sensible trace in the thick mild air. All this made a thoroughly Parisian mixture, and I envied Sanguinetti the privilege of spending his life in a city in which even the humblest of one's senses was the medium of poetic impressions. There was poetry in the warm, succulent exhalations of the opposite restaurant, where, among the lighted lamps, I could see the little tables glittering with their glass and silver, the tenderly-brown rolls nestling in the petals of the folded napkins, the waiters in their snowy aprons standing in the various attitudes of imminent empressement, the agreeable dame de comptoir sitting idle for the moment and rubbing her plump white hands. To a person so inordinately fond of chocolate as myself—there was literally a pretty little box half emptied of large soft globules of the compound standing at that moment on my table, for all the world as if I had been a sweet-toothed school-girl—there was of course something very agreeable in the faint upward gusts of the establishment in my rez-de-chaussée. Presently, too, it appeared to me that the savors peculiar to the hairdressing-shop had assumed an extraordinary intensity, and that my right-hand nostril was in the act of being titillated by what might fairly be called the very poetry of cosmetics. Glancing that way again, I perceived the source of this rich effluvium. The hairdresser's door was open, and a person whom I took to be his wife had come to inhale upon the threshold the lighter atmosphere of the street. She stood there for some moments looking up and down, and I had time to see that she was very pretty. She wore a plain black silk dress, and one needed to know no more of millinery than most men to observe that it was admirably fitted to a charming figure. She had a little knot of pink ribbon at her throat and a bunch of violets in her rounded bosom. Her face seemed to me at once beautiful and lively—two merits that are not always united; for smiles, I have observed, are infrequent with women who are either very ugly or very pretty. Her light-brown hair was, naturally enough, dressed with consummate art, and the character of her beauty being suggestive of purity and gentleness, she looked (her black silk dress apart) like a Madonna who should have been coiffée in the Rue de la Paix. What a delightful person for a barber's wife! I thought; and I saw her sitting in the little front shop at the desk and taking the money with a gracious smile from the gentlemen who had been having their whiskers trimmed in the inner sanctuary. I touched my own whiskers, and straightway decided that they needed trimming. In a few moments this lovely woman stepped out upon the pavement, and strolled along in front of the shop-window on a little tour of inspection. She stood there a moment, looking at the brilliant array of brightly-capped flaçons, of ivory toilet-implements, of detached human tresses disposed in every variety of fashionable convolution: she inclined her head to one side and gently stroked her chin. I was able to perceive that even with her back turned she was hardly less pretty than when seen in front—her back had, as they say, so much chic. The inclination of her head denoted contentment, even complacency; and, indeed, well it might, for the window was most artistically arranged. Its principal glory was conferred by two waxen heads of lovely ladies, such as are usually seen in hairdressers' windows; and these wig-wearing puppets, which maintained a constant rotary movement, seemed to be a triumph of the modeller's art. One of the revolving ladies was dark, and the other fair, and each tossed back her head and thrust out her waxen bosom and parted her rosy lips in the most stylish manner conceivable. Several persons passing by had stopped to admire them. In a few moments a second inmate came to the door of the shop, and said a word to the barber's pretty wife. This was not the barber himself, but a young woman apparently employed in the shop. She was a nice-looking young woman enough, but she had by no means the beauty of her companion, who, to my regret, on hearing her voice instantly went in.
After this I fell to watching something else, I forget what: I had quite forgotten Sanguinetti. I think I was looking at a gentleman and lady who had come into the restaurant and placed themselves near the great sheet of plate glass which separated the interior from the street. The lady, who had the most wonderfully arched eyebrows, was evidently ordering the dinner, and I was struck with the profusion of its items. At last she began to eat her soup, with her little finger very much curled out, and then my gaze wandered toward the hairdresser's window again. This circumstance reminded me that I was really very good-natured to be waiting so placidly for that dilatory Sanguinetti. There he stood in front of the coiffeur's, staring as intently and serenely into the window as if he had the whole evening before him. I waited a few moments to give him a chance to move on, but he remained there rapt in contemplation. What in the world was he looking at? Had he spied something that could play a part in his collection? For Sanguinetti was a collector, and had a room full of old crockery and uncomfortable chairs. But he cared for nothing that was not a hundred years old, and the pretty things in the hairdresser's window all bore the stamp of the latest Parisian manufacture—were part and parcel of that modern rubbish which he so cordially despised. What, then, had so forcibly arrested his attention? Was the poor fellow thinking of buying a new chignon or a solitary pendent curl for the object of his affections? This could hardly be, for to my almost certain knowledge his affections had no object save the faded crockery and the singular chairs I have mentioned. I had, indeed, more than once thought it a pity that he should not interest himself in some attractive little woman, for he might end by marrying her; and that would be a blessing, inasmuch as she would probably take measures for his being punctual when he was asked out to dinner. I tapped on the edge of the little railing which served as my window-guard, but the noise of the street prevented this admonition from reaching his ear. He was decidedly quite too absorbed. Then I ventured to hiss at him in the manner of the Latin races—a mode of address to which I have always had a lively aversion, but which, it must be confessed, proceeding from Latin lips, reaches its destination in cases in which a nobler volume of sound will stop halfway. Still, like the warrior's widow in Tennyson's song, he neither spake nor moved. But here, suddenly, I comprehended the motive of his immobility: he was looking of course at the barber's beautiful wife, the pretty woman with the face of a Madonna and the coiffure of a duchess, whom I myself had just found so charming. This was really an excuse, and I felt disposed to allow him a few moments' grace. There was evidently an unobstructed space behind the window through which this attractive person could be perceived as she sat at her desk in some attitude of graceful diligence—adding up the items of a fine lady's little indebtedness for rouge-pots and rice-powder or braiding ever so neatly the long tresses of a fausse natte of the fashionable color. I promised myself to look out for this unobstructed space the very first time I should pass.
I gave my tarrying guest another five minutes grace, during which the lamps were lighted in the hairdresser's shop. The window now became extremely brilliant; the ivory brushes and the little silver mirrors glittered and flashed; the colored cosmetics in the little toilet-bottles acquired an almost appetizing radiance; and the beautiful waxen ladies, tossing back their heads more than ever from their dazzling busts, seemed to sniff up the agreeable atmosphere. Of course the hairdresser's wife had become even more vividly visible, and so, evidently, Sanguinetti was finding out. He moved no more than if he himself had been a barber's block. This was all very well, but now, seriously, I was hungry, and I felt extremely disposed to fling a flower-pot at him. I had an array of these ornaments in the balcony. Just then my servant came into the room; and beckoning to this functionary I pointed out to him the gentleman at the barber's window, and bade him go down into the street and interrupt Mr. Sanguinetti's contemplations. He departed, descended, and I presently saw him cross the way. Just as he drew near my friend, however, the latter turned round abruptly and looked at his watch. Then, with an obvious sense of alarm, he moved quickly forward, but he had not gone five steps before he paused again and cast back a supreme glance at the object of his admiration. He raised his hand to his lips, and, upon my word, he looked as if he was kissing it. My servant now accosted him with a bow, and motioned toward my balcony, but Sanguinetti, without looking up, simply passed quickly across to my door. He might well be shy about looking up—kissing his hand in the street to pretty dames de comptoir: for a modest little man, who was supposed to care for nothing but bric-à-brac, and not to be in the least what is called "enterprising" with women, this was certainly a very pretty jump. And the hairdresser's wife? Had she, on her side, been kissing her finger-tips to him? I thought it very possible, and remembered that I had always heard that Paris is the city of gallantry.
Sanguinetti came in, blushing a good deal, and saying that he was extremely sorry to have kept me waiting.
"Oh," I answered, "I understand it very well. I have been watching you from my window for the last quarter of an hour."
He smiled a little, blushing still. "Though I have lived in Paris for fifteen years," he said, "you know I always look at the shops. One never knows what one may pick up."
"You have a taste," I said, "for picking up pretty faces. That is certainly a very pretty one at the hairdresser's."
Poor Sanguinetti was really very modest: my "chaff" discomposed him, and he began to fidget and protest.
"Oh!" I went on, "your choice does great honor to your taste. She's a very lovely creature: I admire her myself."
He looked at me a moment with his soup-spoon poised. He was always a little afraid of me: he was sure I thought him a very flimsy fellow, with his passion for cracked teacups and scraps of old brocade. But now he seemed a trifle reassured: he would talk a little if he dared. "You know there are two of them," he said, "but one is much more beautiful than the other."
"Precisely," I answered—"the fair one."
"My dear friend," murmured my guest, "she is the most beautiful object I ever beheld."
"That, perhaps," I said, "is going a little too far. But she is uncommonly handsome."
"She is quite perfect," Sanguinetti declared, finishing his soup. And presently he added, "Shall I tell you what she looks like?"
"Like a fashionable angel," I said.
"Yes," he answered, smiling, "or like a Madonna who should have had her hair dressed—over there."
"My dear fellow," I said, "that is just the comparison I hit upon a while ago."
"That proves the truth of it. It is a real Madonna type."
"A little Parisianized," I rejoined, "about the corners of the mouth."
"Possibly," said Sanguinetti. "But the mouth is her loveliest feature."
"Could you see her well?" I inquired as I helped him to a sweetbread.
"Beautifully—especially after the gas was lighted."
"Had you never noticed her before?"
"Never, strangely enough. But though, as I say, I am very fond of shop-windows, I confess to …always having had a great prejudice against those of the hairdressers."
"You see," I said, "how wrong you were."
"No, not in general: this is an exception. The women are usually hideous. They have the most impossible complexions: they are always fearfully sallow. There is one of them in my street, three doors from my own house: you would say she was made of—" And he paused a moment for his comparison. "You would say she was made of tallow."
We finished our sweetbreads, and, I think, talked of something else, my companion presently drawing from his pocket and exhibiting with some elation a little purchase in the antiquarian line which he had made that morning. It was a small coffee-cup of the Sèvres manufacture and of the period of Louis XV., very delicately painted over with nosegays and garlands. I was far from being competent in such matters, but Sanguinetti assured me that it bore a certain little earmark which made it a precious acquisition. And he put it back into its little red morocco case, and fell a-musing with his eyes wandering toward the window. He was fond of old gimcracks and knickknacks of every order and epoch, but he had, I knew, a special tenderness for the productions of the baser period of the French monarchy. His collection of snuff-boxes and flowered screens was highly remarkable—might, I suppose, have been called celebrated. In spite of his very foreign name, he was a genuine compatriot of my own, and indeed our acquaintance had begun with our being, as very small boys, at school together. There was a tradition that Sanguinetti's grandfather had been an Italian image-vender in the days when those gentlemen might have claimed in America to be the only representatives of a care for the fine arts. In the early part of the century they were also less numerous than they have since become, and it was believed that the founder of the Transatlantic stock of the Sanguinettis had by virtue of his fine Italian eyes, his slouched hat, his earrings, his persuasive eloquence, his foreign idioms and his little tray of plaster effigies and busts been deemed a personage of sufficient importance to win the heart and hand of the daughter of a well-to-do attorney in the State of Vermont. This lady had brought her husband a property which he had invested in some less brittle department of the Italian trade, and, prospering as people, alas! prospered in those good old days, had bequeathed, much augmented, to the father of my guest. My companion, who had several sisters, was brought up like a little gentleman, and showed symptoms even at the earliest age of his mania for refuse furniture. At school he used to collect old slate-pencils and match-boxes: I suppose he inherited the taste from his grandfather, who had perambulated the country with a tray covered with the most useless ornaments (like a magnified chess-board) upon his head. When he was twenty years old Sanguinetti lost his father and got his share of the patrimony, with which he immediately came to Europe, where he had lived these seventeen years. When I first saw him on coming to Paris, I asked him if he meant never to go back to New York, and I very well remember his answer: "My dear fellow" (in a very mournful tone), "what can you get there? The things are all second-rate, and during the Louis Quinze period, you know, our poor dear country was really—really—" And he shook his head very slowly and expressively.
I answered that there were (as I had been told) very good spinning-wheels and kitchen-settles, but he rejoined that he cared only for that which was truly elegant. He was a most simple-minded and amiable little bachelor, and would have done anything possible to oblige a friend, but he made no secret of his conviction thaf "pretty things" were the only things in the world worth troubling one's self about. He was very near-sighted, and was always putting up his glass to look at something on your chimney-piece or your side-table. He had a lingering, solemn way of talking about the height of Madame de Pompadour's heels and the different shapes of old Dutch candlesticks; and though many of his fellow-country people thought him very "affected," he always seemed to me the least pretentious of men. He never read the newspapers for their politics, and didn't pretend to: he read them only for their lists of auction-sales. I had a great kindness for him, he seemed to me such a pure-minded mortal, sitting there in his innocent company of Dresden shepherdesses and beauties whose smiles were stippled on the lids of snuff-boxes. There is always something agreeable in a man who is a perfect example of a type; and Sanguinetti was all of one piece. He was the perfect authority upon pretty things.
He kept looking at the window, as I have said, and it required no great shrewdness to guess that his thoughts had stepped out of it and were hovering in front of the hairdresser's étalage. I was inclined to humor his enthusiasm, for it amused me to see a man who had hitherto found a pink-faced lady on a china plate a sufficiently substantial object of invocation, led captive by a charmer who would, as the phrase is, have something to say for herself.
"Shouldn't you like to have a closer view of her?" I asked with a sympathetic smile.
He glanced at me and blushed again: That lovely creature?"
"That lovely creature. Shouldn't you have liked to get nearer?"
"Indeed I should. That sheet of plate-glass is a great vexation."
"But why didn't you make a pretext for going into the shop? You might have bought a toothbrush."
"I don't know that I should have gained much," said Sanguinetti simply.
"You would have seen her move: her movement is charming."
"Her movement is—the poetry of motion. But I could see that outside."
"My dear fellow," I urged, "you are not enterprising enough. In your place I should get a footing in the shop."
He fixed his clear little near-sighted eyes upon me. "Yes, yes," he said, "it would certainly be delightful to be able to sit there and watch her: it would be more comfortable than standing outside."
"Je crois bien! But sitting there and watching her? You go rather far."
"I suppose I should be rather in the way. But every now and then she would turn her face toward me. And I don't know," he added, "but that she is as pretty behind as before."
"You make an observation that I made myself. She has so much chic."
Sanguinetti kissed his finger-tips with a movement that he had learned of his long Parisian sojourn. "The poetry of chic— But I shall go further," he presently pursued. "I don't despair, I don't despair." And he paused with his hands in his pockets, tilting himself back in his seat.
"You don't despair of what?"
"Of making her my own."
I burst out laughing: "Your own, my dear fellow! You are more enterprising than I thought. But what do you mean? I don't suppose that under the circumstances you can marry her?"
"No: under the circumstances, unfortunately, I can't. But I can have her always there."
"Always where?"
"At home, in my room. It's just the place for her."
"Ah, my good friend," I rejoined, laughing, but slightly scandalized, "that's a matter of opinion."
"It's a matter of taste. I think it would suit her."
A matter of taste, indeed, this question of common morality! Sanguinetti was more Parisianized than I had supposed, and I reflected that Paris was certainly a very dangerous place, since it had got the better of his inveterate propriety. But I was not too much shocked to be still a good deal amused.
"Of course I shall not go too fast," he went on. "I shall not be too abrupt."
"Pray don't."
"I shall approach the matter gradually. I shall go into the shop several times to buy certain things. First a pot of cold cream, then a piece of soap, then a bottle of glycerine. I shall go into a great many ecstasies and express no end of admiration. Meanwhile, she will slowly move around, and every now and then she will look at me. And so, little by little, I will come to the great point."
"Perhaps you will not be listened to."
"I will make a very handsome offer."
"What sort of an offer do you mean?"
"I am ashamed to tell you: you will call it throwing away money."
An offer of money! He was really very crude. Should I too come to this if I continued to live in Paris? "Oh," I said, "if you think that money simply will do it—"
"Why, you don't suppose," he exclaimed, "that I expect to have her for nothing?" He was actually cynical, and I remained silent. "But I shall not be happy again—at least for a long time"—he went on, "unless I succeed. I have always dreamed of just such a woman as that; and now at last, when I behold her perfect image and embodiment, why I simply can't do without her." He was evidently very sincere.
"You are simply in love," I said.
He looked at me a moment, and blushed: "Yes, I honestly believe I am. It's very absurd."
"From some point of view or other," I said, "love is always absurd;" and I decided that the matter was none of my business.
We talked of other things for an hour, but before he took leave of me Sanguinetti reverted to the Beautiful Being at the hairdresser's. "I am sure you will think me a great donkey," he said, "for taking that—that creature so seriously;" and he nodded in the direction of the other side of the street.
"I was always taught in Boston," I answered, "that it is our duty to take things seriously."
I made a point, of course, the next day of stopping at the hairdresser's window for the purpose of obtaining another glimpse of the remarkable woman who had made such an impression upon my friend. I found, in fact, that there was a large aperture in the back of the window—it came just between the two beautiful dolls—through which it was very possible to see what was going on in a considerable part of the shop. Just then, however, the object of Sanguinetti's admiration was not within the range of vision of a passer-by, and I waited some time without her appearing. At last, having improvised a purchase, I entered the aromatic precinct. To my vexation, the attendant who came forward to serve me was not the charming woman whom I had seen the evening before on the pavement, but the young person of inferior attractions who had come to the door to call her. This young person also wore a black silk dress and had a very neat figure: she was beautifully coiffée and very polite. But she was a very different affair from Sanguinetti's friend, and I rather grudged the five francs that I paid her for the little bottle of lavender water that I didn't want. What should I do with a bottle of lavender water? I would give it to Sanguinetti. I lingered in the shop under half a dozen pretexts, but still saw no sign of its lovelier inmate. The other young woman stood smiling and rubbing her hands, answering my questions and giving explanations with high-pitched urbanity. At last I took up my little bottle and laid my hand upon the door-knob. At that moment a velvet curtain was raised at the back of the shop, and the hairdresser's wife presented herself. She stood there a moment with the curtain lifted, looking out and smiling: on her beautiful head was poised a crisp little morning-cap. Yes, she was lovely, and I really understood Sanguinetti's sudden passion. But I could not stand there staring at her, and I had exhausted my expedients: I was obliged to withdraw. I came and stood in front of the shop, however, and presently she approached the window. She looked into it to see if it was in proper order. She was still smiling—she seemed always to be smiling—but she gave no sign of seeing me, and I felt that if there had been a dozen men standing there, she would have worn that same sweetly unconscious mask. She glanced about her a moment, and then, extending a plump little white hand, she gave a touch to the back hair of one of the waxen ladies—the right-hand one, the blond.
A couple of hours later, rising from breakfast, I repaired to my little balcony, from which post of observation I instantly espied a figure stationed at the hairdresser's window. If I had not recognized it otherwise, the absorbed, contemplative droop of its head would at once have proved it to be Sanguinetti. "Why does he not go inside?" I asked myself. "He can't look at her properly out there." At this conclusion he appeared himself to have arrived, for he suddenly straightened himself up and entered the establishment. He remained within a long time. I grew tired of waiting for him to reappear, and went back to my armchair to finish reading the Débats. I had just accomplished this somewhat arduous feat when I heard the lame tinkle of my door-bell, a few moments after which Sanguinetti was ushered in.
He really looked love-sick: he was pale and eyed. "My too-susceptible friend," I said, "you are very far gone."
"Yes," he answered: "I am really in love. It is too ridiculous. Please don't tell anyone."
"I shall certainly tell no one," I declared. "But it does not seem to me exactly ridiculous."
He gave me a grateful stare: "Ah, if you don't find it so, tant mieux."
"Regrettable, rather: that's what I should call it."
He gave me another stare: "You think I can't afford it?"
"It is not so much that."
"You think it won't look well? I will arrange it so that the harshest critic will be disarmed. This morning," he added in a moment, "she looks lovelier than ever."
"Yes, I have had a glimpse of her myself," I said. "And you have been in the shop?"
"I have spent half an hour there. I thought it best to go straight to the point."
"What did you say?'
"I said the simple truth—that I have an intense desire to possess her."
"And the hairdresser's wife? how did she take it?"
"She seemed a good deal amused."
"Amused, simply? Nothing more?"
"I think she was a little flattered."
"I hope so."
"Yes," my companion rejoined, "for, after all, her own exquisite taste is half the business." To this proposition I cordially assented, and Sanguinetti went on: "But, after all, too, the dear creature won't lose that in coming to me. I shall make arrangements to have her hair dressed regularly."
"I see that you mean to do things en prince. Who is it that dresses her hair?'
"The coiffeur himself."
"The husband?"
"Exactly. They say he is the best in Paris."
"The best husband?" I asked.
"My dear fellow, be serious—the best coiffeur."
"It will certainly be very obliging of him."
"Of course," said Sanguinetti, "I shall pay him for his visits, as—if—as if—" And he paused a moment.
"As if what?"
"As if she were one of his fine ladies. His wife tells me that he goes to all the duchesses."
"Of course," I replied, "that will be something. But still—"
"You mean," said my companion, "that I live so far away? I know that, but I will pay him his cab-fare."
I looked at him, and—I couldn't help it—I began to laugh. I had never seen such a strange mixture of ardor and coolness.
"Ah," he exclaimed, blushing, "you do think it ridiculous?"
"Yes," I said, "coming to this point, I confess it makes me laugh."
"I don't care," Sanguinetti declared with amiable doggedness: "I mean to keep her to myself."
Just at this time my attention was much taken up by the arrival in Paris of some relatives who had no great talent for assimilating their habits to foreign customs, and who carried me about in their train as cicerone and interpreter. For three or four weeks I was constantly in their company, and I saw much less of Sanguinetti that I had done before. He used to appear, however, at odd moments in my rooms, being, as may be imagined, very often in the neighborhood. I always asked him for the latest tidings of his grand passion, which had begun to glow with a fervor that made him perfectly indifferent to the judgment of others. The poor fellow was most sincerely in love. "Je suis tout à ma passion," he would say when I asked him the news. "Until that matter is settled I can think of nothing else. I have always been so when I have wanted a thing intensely. It has become a monomania, a fixed idea; and naturally this case is not an exception."
He was always going into the shop. "We talk it over," he said. "She can't make up her mind."
"I can imagine the difficulty," I answered.
"She says it's a great change."
"I can also imagine that."
"I never see the husband," said Sanguinetti. "He is always away with his duchesses. But she talks it over with him. At first he wouldn't listen to it."
"Naturally."
"He said it would be an irreparable loss. But I am in hopes he will come round. He can get on very well with the other."
"The other?—the little dark one? She is not nearly so pretty."
"Of course not. But she isn't bad in her way. I really think," said Sanguinetti, "that he will come round. If he does not, we will do without his consent, and take the consequences. He will not be sorry, after all, to have the money."
You may be sure that I felt plenty of surprise at the business-like tone in which Sanguinetti discussed this unscrupulous project of becoming the "possessor" of another man's wife. There was certainly no hypocrisy about it: he had quite passed beyond the stage at which it is deemed needful to throw a sop to propriety. But I said to myself that this was doubtless the Parisian tone, and that since it had made its mark upon so perfect a little model of social orthodoxy as my estimable friend, nothing was more possible than that I too should become equally perverted. Whenever, after this, Sanguinetti came in, he had something to say at first about the lovely creature across the way. "Have you noticed her this morning?" he would demand. "She is really enchanting. I thought of asking leave to kiss her."
"I wonder you should ask leave," I answered. "I should suppose you would do it without leave, and count upon being forgiven."
"I am afraid of hurting her," he said. "And then if I should be seen from the street, it would look rather absurd."
I could only say that he seemed to me a very odd mixture of audacity and discretion, but he went on without heeding my comments: "You may laugh at the idea, but, upon my word, to me she is different every day: she has never the same expression. Sometimes she's a little melancholy—sometimes she's in high spirits."
"I should say she was always smiling."
"Superficially, yes," said Sanguinetti. "That's all the vulgar see. But there's something beneath it—the most delicious little pensive look. At bottom she's sad. She's weary of her position there, it's so public."
"Yesterday she was very pale," he would say at another time. "I'm sure she wants rest. That constant movement can't be good for her. It's true," he added, "that she moves very slowly."
"Yes," said I, "she seemed to me to move very slowly."
"And so beautifully! Still, with me," Sanguinetti went on, "she shall be perfectly quiet: I will see how that suits her."
"I should think," I objected, "that she would need a little exercise."
He stared a moment, and then accused me, as he often did, of "making game of him." "There is something in your tone in saying that," he declared; but he very shortly afterward forgot my sarcastic tendencies, and came to announce to me a change in the lady's coiffure: "Have you noticed that she has her hair dressed differently? I don't know that I like it: it covers up her forehead. But it's beautifully done, it's entirely new, and you will see that it will set the fashion for all Paris."
"Do they take the fashion from her?" I asked.
"Always. All the knowing people keep a note of her successive coiffures."
"And when you have carried her off, what will the knowing people do?"
"They will go by the other, the dark one—Mademoiselle Clémentine."
"Is that her name? And the name of your sweetheart?"
Sanguinetti looked at me an instant with his usual helplessly mistrustful little blush, and then he answered, "Théodolinde."
When I asked him how his suit was prospering, he usually replied that he believed it to be merely a question of time. "We keep talking it over, and in that way, at any rate, I can see her. The poor woman can't get used to the idea."
"I should think not."
"She says it would change everything—that the shop would be a different place without her. She is so well known, so universally admired. I tell her that it will not be impossible to get a clever substitute; and she answers that, clever as the substitute may be, she will never have the peculiar charm of Théodolinde."
"Ah! she herself is aware then of this peculiar charm?"
"Perfectly, and it delights her to have me talk about it."
A part of the charm's peculiarity, I reflected, was that it was not spoiled by the absence of modesty; yet I also remembered the coiffeur's handsome wife had looked extremely modest. Sanguinetti, however, appeared bent upon ministering to her vanity: I learned that he was making her presents. "I have given her a pair of earrings," he announced, "and she is wearing them now. Do notice them as you pass. They are great big amethysts, and are extremely becoming."
I looked out for our beautiful friend the next time I left the house, but she was not visible through the hairdresser's window. Her plainer companion was waiting upon a fine lady, presumably one of the duchesses, while Madame Théodolinde herself, I supposed, was posturing before one of the mirrors in the inner apartment with Sanguinetti's big amethysts in her ears.
One day he told me that he had determined to buy her a parure, and he greatly wished I would come and help him choose it. I called him an extravagant dog, but I good-naturedly consented to accompany him to the jeweler's. He led me to the Palais Royal, and there, somewhat to my surprise, introduced me into one of those dazzling little shops which wear upon their front in neat gilt letters the candid announcement, "Imitation." Here you may purchase any number of glittering gems for the most trifling sum, and indulge at a moderate expense a pardonable taste for splendor. And the splendor is most effective, the glitter of the counterfeit jewels most natural. It is only the sentiment of the thing, you say to yourself, that prevents you from making all your purchases of jewelry in one of these convenient establishments; though, indeed, as their proprietors very aptly remark, five thousand dollars more is a good deal to pay for sentiment. Of this expensive superstition, however, I should have expected Sanguinetti to be guilty.
"You are not going to get a real set?" I asked.
He seemed a little annoyed: "Wouldn't you in that case blow me up for my extravagance?"
"It is highly probable. And yet a present of false jewelry! The handsomer it is, you know, the more ridiculous it is."
"I have thought of that," said my friend, "and I confess I am rather ashamed of myself. I should like to give her a real set. But, you see, I want diamonds and sapphires, and a real set such as I desire would cost about twenty thousand dollars. That's a good deal for—for—" And he paused a moment.
"For a barber's wife," I said to myself.
"Besides," my companion added, "she won't know the difference." I thought he rather under-estimated her intelligence: a pretty Parisienne was, by instinct, a judge of parures. I remembered, however, that he had rarely spoken of this lady's intellectual qualities: he had dwelt exclusively upon her beauty and sweetness. So I stood by him while he purchased for two hundred francs a gorgeous necklace and coronet of the stones of Golconda. His passion was an odd affair altogether, and an oddity the more or the less hardly mattered. He remarked, moreover, that he had at home a curious collection of artificial gems, and that these things would be an interesting addition to his stock. "I shall make her wear them all," he exclaimed; and I wondered how she would like it.
He told me afterwards that his offering had been most gratefully received, that she was now wearing the wonderful necklace, and that she looked lovelier than ever.
That evening, however, I stopped before the shop to catch a glimpse, if possible, of the barber's lady thus splendidly adorned. I had seldom been fortunate enough to espy her, and on this occasion I turned away disappointed. Just as I was doing so I perceived something which suggested that she was making a fool of my amiable friend. On the radiant bosom of one of the great waxen dolls in her window glittered a necklace of brilliants which bore a striking resemblance to the article I had helped Sanguinetti to select. She had made over her lover's tribute to this rosy effigy, to whom, it must be confessed, it was very becoming.
Yet, for all this, I was out in my calculation. A week later Sanguinetti came into my rooms with a radiant countenance, and announced to me the consummation of his dream. "She is mine! she is mine! mine only!" he cried, dropping into a chair.
"She has left the shop?" I demanded.
"Last night—at eleven o clock. We went off in a cab."
"You have her at home?"
"For ever and ever!" he declared ecstatically.
"My dear fellow, my compliments!"
"It was not an easy matter," he went on. "But I held her in my arms."
I renewed my compliments, and said I hoped she was happy; and he declared that she was smiling more than ever. Positively! And he added that I must immediately come and see her: he was impatient to present me. Nothing, I answered, would give me greater pleasure, but meanwhile what did the husband say?
"He grumbles a bit," said Sanguinetti, "but I gave him five hundred francs."
"You have got off easily," I said; and I promised that at my first moment of leisure I would call upon my friend's new companion. I saw him three or four times before this moment arrived, and he assured me that she had made a happy man of him. "Whenever I have greatly wanted a thing, waited for it, and at last got it, I have always been in bliss for a month afterward," he said. "But I think that this time my pleasure will really last."
"It will last as long, I hope, as she does herself," I answered.
"I am sure it will. This is the sort of thing—yes, smile away—in which I get my happiness."
"Vous n'êtes pas difficile," I rejoined.
"Of course she's perishable," he added in a moment.
"Ah!" said I, "you must take good care of her."
And a day or two later, on his coming for me, I went with him to his apartment. His rooms were charming, and lined from ceiling to floor with the "pretty things" of the occupant—tapestries and bronzes, terra-cotta medallions and precious specimens of porcelain. There were cabinets and tables charged with similar treasures: the place was a perfect little museum. Sanguinetti led me through two or three rooms, and then stopped near a window, close to which, half hidden by the curtain, stood a lady, with her head turned away from us, looking out. In spite of our approach, she stood motionless until my friend went up to her and with a gallant, affectionate movement placed his arm round her waist. Hereupon she slowly turned and gazed at me with a beautiful brilliant face and large quiet eyes.
"It is a pity she creaks," said my companion as I was making my bow. And then, as I made it, I perceived with amazement—and amusement—the cause of her creaking. She existed only from the waist upward, and the skirt of her dress was a very neat pedestal covered with red velvet. Sanguinetti gave another loving twist, and she slowly revolved again, making a little gentle squeal. She exhibited the back of her head, with its beautifully braided tresses resting upon her sloping waxen shoulders. She was the right-hand effigy of the coiffeur's window—the blond! Her movement, as Sanguinetti had claimed, was particularly commendable, and of all his pretty things she was certainly the prettiest.