He was heard up-stairs—pushing back his chair, or moving his table. He had laid a sheet of paper before him; on this paper was written the title of his book, but not another word. And yet he now had all that formerly he had said would enable him to make a reputation,—leisure, sufficient means, freedom from interruption, a pleasant study, and country air. When he had had enough of the forest, he had but to turn his chair, and from another window he obtained an admirable view of sky and water. All the aroma of the woods, all the freshness of the river, came directly to him. Nothing could disturb him, unless it might be the cooing and fluttering of the pigeons on the roof above.
“Now to work!” cried the poet. He opened his portfolio, and seized his pen, but not one line could he write. Think of it! To live in a pavilion of the time of Louis XV., on the edge of a forest in that beautiful country about Etiolles, to which the memory of the Pompadour is attached by knots of rose-colored ribbons and diamond buckles. To have around him every essential for poetry,—a charming woman named in memory of Goethe’s heroine, a Henri II. chair in which to write, a small white goat to follow him from place to place, and an antique clock to mark the hours and to connect the prosaic Present with the romance of the Past! All these were very imposing, but the brain was as sterile as when D’Argenton had given lessons all day and retired to his garret at night, worn out in body and mind.
When Charlotte’s step was heard on the stairs, he assumed an expression of profound absorption. “Come in,” he said, in reply to her knock, timidly repeated. She entered fresh and gay, her beautiful arms bared to the elbows, and with so rustic an air that the rice-powder on her face seemed to be the flour from some theatrical mill in an opéra bouffe.
“I have come to see my poet,” she said, as she came in. She had a way of drawling out the word poet that exasperated him. “How are you getting on?” she continued. “Are you pleased?”
“Pleased? Can one ever be pleased or satisfied in this terrible profession, which is a perpetual strain on every nerve!”
“That is true enough, my friend; and yet I would like to know—”
“To know what? Have you any idea how long it took Goethe to write his Faust? And yet he lived in a thoroughly artistic atmosphere. He was not condemned, as I am, to absolute solitude—mental solitude, I mean.”
The poor woman listened in silence. From having so often listened to similar complaints from D’Argenton, she had at last learned to understand the reproaches conveyed in his words.
The poet’s tone signified, “It is not you who can fill the blank around me.” In fact, he found her stupid, and was bored to death when alone with her.
Without really being conscious of it, the thing that had fascinated him in this woman was the frame in which she was set. He adored the luxury by which she was surrounded. Now that he had her all to himself—transformed and rechristened her, she had lost half her charm in his eyes, and yet she was more lovely than ever. It was amusing to witness the air of business with which he opened each morning the three or four journals to which he subscribed. He broke the seals as if he expected to find in their columns something of absorbing personal interest; as, for example, a critique of his unwritten poem, or a resume of the book that he meant some day to write. He read these journals without missing one word, and always found something to arouse his contempt or anger. Other people were so fortunate: their pieces were played; and what pieces they were! Their books were printed; and such books! As for himself, his ideas were stolen before he could write them down.