I left off saying that we were going to take tea at M. Villenave's house.
Every bird makes its own nest, whether of twigs or of different kinds of feathers; and each man makes his own home—when he possesses one at all—indicative of his character, his temperament and his idiosyncrasy. And so M. Villenave's house had its own characteristics, reflecting the taste of its occupant. It was built of stones which had once been white, but which time had coloured grey, and which were fast turning into black. It did not open out on the road; it was a severe and gloomy-looking house which did not lend itself to any such frivolous doings; a wall, ten feet high, faced the street, like a kind of outwork, ornamented at the top by a formidable fringe of jagged glass. This wall had in it two gates, a large one and a small one. Unless carriages wanted to enter, the large one was always kept shut, its hinges rusty, its lock broken; the small door, next to the porter's lodge, opened upon and gave access to the garden—a garden trodden hard into paths without flower-borders, possessing vines without grapes, and leafless trees that did not afford any shade. If, by any chance, a flower pushed its way up in some corner, it was a wild flower that had mistaken that damp enclosure for waste ground and had sprung up there unawares—a bindweed, a daisy or a buttercup. One day the poor flower would hear a cry of surprise and see a pretty, rosy-cheeked child, with curly golden hair, running to it in breathless haste and with eager feet, her eyes fixed on it, and then furtively grasp it as carefully as though it were a butterfly; when she had picked it, she would run with joyful surprise to her mother, crying—
"See, mamma! a flower!..."
The garden, which may have been fifteen mètres square, was bounded on the side of the house by a pathway of paving-stones, leading to a corridor tiled with square red bricks, a staircase at the end completing the vista. But before you reached this staircase, you first passed four doors. The one on the left belonged to the dining-room, the window of which looked out upon the tidiest part of the garden; on the right, opposite it, was a small room, not much used, where a table and three or four old arm-chairs were left to grow damp. In several places the wall paper was bulging out and falling off, without anybody taking any notice of it, and was becoming pitted with green and white damp spots. Then, on the left again, came the kitchen door, and, on the right, the larder and pantry. This dark and damp ground-floor was like a catacomb, and was only descended into at meal-times. The real dwelling-rooms, where we were entertained, were on the first floor. This floor contained a small and a large drawing-room, and the bedrooms belonging to Madame Villenave and Madame Waldor. We will leave the small drawing-room and the two bedrooms and give our whole attention to the large salon, which, after the attics (let us hasten to mention these here, before we have the right of entering them), was the strangest room in the house. Its shape was a long rectangle, having, at each of its angles, a console table supporting a bust. One of these busts was that of the master of the house. Between the two busts, at the bottom end, on a marble-topped table opposite the fireplace, was the most important piece of art and archæology in the room: this was the bronze urn that had once contained the heart of Bayard. A little bas-relief encircled the urn depicting the "chevalier sans peur et sans reproche" leaning against a tree and kissing his sword handle. Next came four large pictures—three of them portraits and the fourth a landscape. Let us begin with the landscape—honour to whom honour is due—the landscape was by Claude Lorraine. One of the portraits represented Anne Boleyn and was signed by Holbein. I forget by whom the two other paintings were: one was of Madame de Montespan and the other either Madame de Sévigné or de Grignan, I am not sure which. The walls were covered with one of those indefinite papers that leave no impression on the memory; the furniture was upholstered in Utrecht velvet; large couches with thin white arms, like the arms of a hunchback, invited friends of the family to be comfortable; while there were chairs and arm-chairs for more formal visitors. That storey had both its king and its vice-queen: the king was M. Villenave, the vice-queen was Madame Waldor. We purposely say "vice-queen," because immediately M. Villenave entered his salon he became the master of it, the king—more than king, the despot! M. Villenave was inclined to be tyrannical in character, and exercised this tyranny over strangers as well as over his own family. Like those petty princes of Italy whose principles people are obliged to adopt as soon as they have crossed the borders of their limited territories, so with M. Villenave, when you had stepped across the threshold of his salon, he would not allow you to hold a different opinion from his own on any subject. You became part of the being of the man, who had seen everything and studied everything, and, in fact, knew everything. Although this tyrannical spirit was tempered by the courtesy appertaining to the master of the house, it none the less had a depressing effect on the company generally. Although in the presence of M. Villenave the conversation was, as they used to express it, bien menée—i.e. skilfully managed—yet it was always less amusing, more fettered and less brilliant than when he was not present. It was just like the difference between a minuet and the game of puss-in-the-corner. It was exactly the reverse at Nodier's social evenings: Nodier liked people to make themselves as much at home as he was.
This recalls to my mind that I have not mentioned Nodier since I described him as helping me to gain entrance to the Théâtre-Français. Excellent and beloved Nodier!—one of my dearest friends! He shall not lose, you may be sure, by the postponement.
Happily, M. Villenave very rarely appeared in the salon, except on the Athénée nights. He spent the rest of his time on the second floor, only appearing among his family for dinner; then, after a few minutes' chat, after lecturing his son and scolding his wife, he would stretch himself out in an armchair, have his curls attended to by his daughter and return to his own apartments. The quarter of an hour during which the teeth of the comb gently scratched his head was the happiest time of the day to M. Villenave, the only rest he allowed himself from his unending absorption in scribbling.
"But why did he curl his hair?" someone asks.
That was the question I myself put.
Madame Waldor declared that it was purely an excuse for having his head scratched. M. Villenave must have been a parrot in one of the metamorphoses that preceded his life as a human being. Madame Villenave, who had known her husband longer than her daughter had, and who therefore could claim to know him better, averred that it was from vanity. And, indeed, M. Villenave, who was a good-looking old man, must have been splendidly handsome as a young man. His strongly marked features were wonderfully set off in their frame of flowing white hair, which showed up the fiery light of his fine black eyes. In fact, although M. Villenave was a learned man, he was also vain—a combination of virtue and fault rarely found together—but he was only vain about his head. As for the rest of his appearance, with the exception of his cravat, which was invariably white, he left it to his tailor and his bootmaker, or rather, to his daughter's care, who looked after these matters for her father. Whether his coat were blue or black, his trousers wide or narrow, the toes of his boots round or square, so long as M. Villenave's hair was well dressed, it was all he cared about. We have mentioned that when his daughter had combed and curled his locks, M. Villenave went upstairs to his own rooms—or home> as the English say. Good gracious! what a curious place it was, too!
Follow me, reader, if these minute details after the fashion of Balzac amuse you, and if you believe nature takes as much pains over the making of a hyssop as over the making of a cedar-tree. Besides, we may perhaps be able to unearth some curious anecdote from out the medley, concerning a charming pastel by Latour. But we have not got there yet; we shall come to it in the end, just as at last we have come to M. Villenave's sanctum.