A few seconds more and the Baroness had gone, but not without having personally repeated the invitation which my companion had already brought me a little earlier in the afternoon.
The girlish appearance and baby face of the Baroness, who must have been at least twenty-five years of age, surprised me. She looked like a school-girl; her little face was framed by roguish curls, golden as a cornfield on which the sun is shining; she had the shoulders of a princess and a supple, willowy figure; the way in which she bowed her head expressed at the same time candour, respect and superiority.
And this delicious, girlish mother had read my play without hurt or injury? Was it possible?
She had married a captain of the Guards, was the mother of a little girl of three, and took a passionate interest in the theatre, without, however, having the slightest prospect of ever being able to enter the profession herself; a sacrifice demanded from her by the rank and position not only of her husband, but also of her father-in-law, who had recently received the appointment of a gentleman-in-waiting.
This was the position of affairs when my love-dream melted away. A steamer was bearing my lady-love into the presence of her mummer. He would vindicate his rights now and take a delight in making fun of my letters to her: just retribution for having laughed at his letters in the company of his inamorata while she was staying here.
On the landing-stage, at the very moment of our affectionate farewell, she made me promise to call on the Baroness without delay. These were the last words we exchanged.
The innocent daydreams, so different from the coarse orgies of learned Bohemia, left a void in my heart which craved to be filled. The friendly, seemingly harmless intercourse with a gentlewoman, this intercourse between two people of opposite sexes, had been sweet to me after my long solitude, for I had quarrelled with my family and was, therefore, very lonely. The love of home life, which my Bohemian existence had deadened for a while, was reawakened by my relations with a very ordinary but respectable member of the other sex. And, therefore, one evening at six o'clock, I found myself at the entrance gate of a house in North Avenue.
How ominous! It was the old house which had belonged to my father, the house in which I had spent the most miserable years of my childhood, where I had fought through the troubles and storms of adolescence, where I had been confirmed, where my mother had died, and where a stepmother had taken her place. I suddenly felt ill at ease, and my first impulse was one of flight. I was afraid to stir up the memories of the misery of my youth and early manhood. There was the courtyard with its tall ash trees; how impatiently I used to wait for the tender young green on the return of spring; there was the gloomy house, built against a sand-quarry, the unavoidable collapse of which had lowered the rents.
But in spite of the feeling of depression caused by so many melancholy memories, I pulled myself together, entered, walked upstairs and rang the bell. As I stood listening to the sound echoing through the house, I had a feeling that my father would presently come and open the door to me. But a servant appeared and disappeared again to announce me. A few seconds afterwards I stood face to face with the Baron, who gave me a hearty welcome. He was a man of about thirty years of age, tall and strong, with a noble carriage and the perfect manners of a gentleman. His full, slightly swollen face was animated by a pair of intensely sad blue eyes. The smile on his lips was for ever giving way to an expression of extraordinary bitterness, which spoke of disappointments, plans miscarried, illusions fled.
The drawing-room, once upon a time our dining-room, was not furnished in any particular style. The Baron, who bore the name of a famous general, a Turenne or Condé of our country, had filled it with the portraits of his ancestors, dating back to the Thirty Years' War; heroes in white cuirasses with wigs of the time of Louis XIV. Amongst them hung landscapes of the Düsseldorf school of painting. Pieces of old furniture, restored and gilded, stood side by side with chairs and easy-chairs of a more modern date. The whole room seemed to breathe an atmosphere of peace and domestic love.