A PRESCRIPTION.
A week went by--a fortnight went by--and still Hortense prolonged her mysterious absence. Where could she be gone? Was she ill? Had any accident befallen her on the road? What if the wounded hand had failed to heal? What if inflammation had set in, and she were lying, even now, sick and helpless, among strangers? These terrors came back upon me at every moment, and drove me almost to despair. In vain I interrogated Madame Bouïsse. The good-natured concierge knew no more than myself, and the little she had to tell only increased my uneasiness.
Hortense, it appeared, had taken two such journeys before, and had, on both occasions, started apparently at a moment's notice, and with every indication of anxiety and haste. From the first she returned after an interval of more than three weeks; from the second after about four or five days. Each absence had been followed by a long season of despondency and lassitude, during which, said the concierge, Mademoiselle scarcely spoke, or ate, or slept, but, silent and pale as a ghost, sat up later than ever with her books and papers. As for this last journey, all she knew about it was that Mam'selle had had her passport regulated for foreign parts the afternoon of the day before she started.
"But can you not remember in what direction the diligence was going?" I asked, again and again.
"No, M'sieur--not in the least,"
"Nor the name of the town to which her place was taken?"
"I don't know that I ever heard it, M'sieur."
"But at least you must have seen the address on the portmanteau?"
"Not I, M'sieur--I never thought of looking at it."
"Did she say nothing to account for the suddenness of her departure?"
"Nothing at all."
"Nor about her return either. Madame Bouïsse? Just think a moment--surely she said something about when you might expect her back again?"
"Nothing, M'sieur, except, by the way--"
"Except what?"
"Dame! only this--as she was just going to step into the diligence, she turned back and shook hands with me--Mam'selle Hortense, proud as she is, is never above shaking hands with me, I can tell you, M'sieur."
"No, no--I can well believe it. Pray, go on!"
"Well, M'sieur," she shakes hands with me, and she says, "Thank you, good Madame Bouïsse, for all your kindness to me.... Hear that, M'sieur, 'good Madame Bouïsse,'--the dear child!"
"And then--?"
"Bah! how impatient you are! Well, then, she says (after thanking me, you observe)--'I have paid you my rent, Madame Bouïsse, up to the end of the present month, and if, when the time has expired, I have neither written nor returned, consider me still as your tenant. If, however, I do not come back at all, I will let you know further respecting the care of my books and other property."
If she did not come back at all! Oh, Heaven! I had never contemplated such a possibility. I left Madame Bouïsse without another word, and going up to my own rooms, flung myself upon my bed, as if I were stupefied.
All that night, all the next day, those words haunted me. They seemed to have burned themselves into my brain in letters of fire. Dreaming, I woke up with them upon my lips; reading, they started out upon me from the page. "If I never come back at all!"
At last, when the fifth day came round--the fifth day of the third week of her absence--I became so languid and desponding that I lost all power of application.
Even Dr. Chéron noticed it, and calling me in the afternoon to his private room, said:--
"Basil Arbuthnot, you look ill. Are you working too hard?"
"I don't think so, sir."
"Humph! Are you out much at night?"
"Out, sir?"
"Yes--don't echo my words--do you go into society: frequent balls, theatres, and so forth?"
"I have not done so, sir, for several months past."
"What is it, then? Do you read late?"
"Really, sir, I hardly know--up to about one or two o'clock; on the average, I believe."
"Let me feel your pulse."
I put out my wrist, and he held it for some seconds, looking keenly at me all the time.
"Got anything on your mind?" he asked, after he had dropped it again. "Want money, eh?"
"No, sir, thank you."
"Home-sick?"
"Not in the least."
"Hah! want amusement. Can't work perpetually--not reasonable to suppose it. There, mon garçon," (taking a folded paper from his pocket-book) "there's a prescription for you. Make the most of it."
It was a stall-ticket for the opera. Too restless and unhappy to reject any chance of relief, however temporary, I accepted it, and went.
I had not been to a theatre since that night with Josephine, nor to the Italian Opera since I used to go with Madame de Marignan. As I went in listlessly and took my place, the lights, the noise, the multitude of faces, confused and dazzled me. Presently the curtain rose, and the piece began. The opera was I Capuletti. I do not remember who the singers were, I am not sure that I ever knew. To me they were Romeo and Juliet, and I was a dweller in Verona. The story, the music, the scenery, took a vivid hold upon my imagination. From the moment the curtain rose, I saw only the stage, and, except that I in some sort established a dim comparison between Romeo's sorrows and my own disquietude of mind, I seemed to lose all recollection of time and place, and almost of my own identity.
It seemed quite natural that that ill-fated pair of lovers should go through life, love, wed, and die singing. And why not? Are they not airy nothings, "born of romance, cradled in poetry, thinking other thoughts, and doing other deeds than ours?" As they live in poetry, so may they not with perfect fitness speak in song?
I went home in a dream, with the melodies ringing in my ears and the story lying heavy at my heart. I passed upstairs in the dark, went over to the window, and saw, oh joy! the light--the dear, familiar, welcome, blessed light, streaming forth, as of old, from Hortense's chamber window!
To thank Heaven that she was safe was my first impulse--to step out on the balcony, and watch the light as though it were a part of herself, was the second. I had not been there many moments when it was obscured by a passing shadow. The window opened and she came out.
"Good-evening," she said, in her calm, clear voice. "I heard you out here, and thought you might like to know that, thanks to your treatment in the first instance, and such care as I have been able since to give it, my hand is once more in working order."
"You are kind to come out and tell me so," I said. "I had no hope of seeing you to-night. How long is it since you arrived?"
"About two hours," she replied, carelessly.
"And you have been nearly three weeks away!"
"Have I?" said she, leaning her cheek upon her hand, and looking up dreamily into the night. "I did not count the days."
"That proves you passed them happily," I said; not without some secret bitterness.
"Happily!" she echoed. "What is happiness?"
"A word that we all translate differently," I replied.
"And your own reading of it?" she said, interrogatively.
I hesitated.
"Do you inquire what is my need, individually?" I asked, "or do you want my general definition?"
"The latter."
"I think, then, that the first requirement of happiness is work; the second, success."
She sighed.
"I accept your definition," she said, "and hope that you may realize it to the full in your own experience. For myself, I have toiled and failed--sought, and found not. Judge, then, how I came to leave the days uncounted."
The sadness of her attitude, the melancholy import of her words, the abstraction of her manner, filled me with a vague uneasiness.
"Failure is often the forerunner of success," I replied, for want, perhaps, of something better to say.
She shook her head drearily, and stood looking up at the sky, where, every now and then, the moon shone out fitfully between the flying clouds.
"It is not the first time," she murmured, "nor will it be the last--and yet they say that God is merciful."
She had forgotten my presence. These words were not spoken to me, but in answer to her own thoughts. I said nothing, but watched her upturned face. It was pale as the wan moon overhead; thinner than before she went away; and sadder--oh, how much sadder!
She roused herself presently, and turning to me, said:--"I beg your pardon. I am very absent; but I am greatly fatigued. I have been travelling incessantly for two days and nights."
"Then I will wish you good-night at once," I said.
"Good-night," she replied; and went back into her room.
The next morning Dr. Chéron smiled one of his cold smiles, and said:--
"You look better to-day, my young friend. I knew how it was with you--no worse malady, after all, than ennui. I shall take care to repeat the medicine from time to time."