“Baveno. Italy. From X—— Mad. N——, Hôtel de ——. Paul wants to build a house here for Marie. Send programme.”
Twenty hours afterwards the following telegram reached the château:—
“X——. From Baveno. To M. de Gandelau. Arrived this morning—all well. Paul has an excellent idea. Ground-floor—entrance-hall, drawing-room, dining-room, pantry, kitchen not underground, billiard-room, study. First-floor—two large bedrooms, two dressing-rooms; baths; small bedroom, dressing-room; linen-room, closets, attic-bedrooms; cupboards plenty; staircase not break-neck. Marie N——.”
Without doubting for a moment that his sister had taken in earnest the despatch addressed to her, and had replied accordingly, Paul set himself resolutely to work, and, installed in Eugène’s room, and making the best of his skill in drawing, endeavoured to realize on paper the programme given above. The difficulties of this undertaking were however serious enough to make it necessary to tell M. Paul twice that breakfast was on the table. The afternoon passed rapidly away, and on assembling for dinner, Paul presented a fine sheet of paper fairly covered with plans and elevations.
“A creditable piece of work,” said M. de Gandelau unrolling it; “but your cousin is coming to-morrow, and he will be able to criticize your plan better than I can.”
All the night Paul was in a state of excitement. He dreamed of a palace rising under his direction. But there was always some defect in his building. There were no windows; the staircase was only a shaky ladder, and his sister Marie would not venture to mount it. In one place the ceilings were so low that you could not stand upright; elsewhere they were of terrific height. Old Branchu was laughing and shaking the walls with his hand to show they were not firm. The chimney smoked horribly, and his little sister was impetuously demanding a room for her doll.
Paul had looked at his plan again as soon as he got up, and it appeared to him much less satisfactory than it had done the night before; in fact, he blushed at the thought of showing it to his cousin, who was coming to breakfast; he was hesitating, and thinking of destroying the painful labour of a whole day.
“Father, I think my cousin will laugh at me if I show him my drawing.”
“My dear boy,” replied M. de Gandelau, “when we have done what we can, i.e., the best we can, we must not shrink from criticism, which is the only means of ascertaining the insufficiency of our knowledge and supplying its defects. You would be very silly if you thought you could become an architect in a single morning; but if, after having made an effort to express an idea which you think good, either in drawing or otherwise, you should hesitate to submit your essay to some one more skilful than yourself, for fear of eliciting more criticism than applause—it would not be modesty, but a very reprehensible vanity, for it would deprive you of advice which cannot fail to be useful to you, at your age especially.”
When his cousin had come it was nevertheless necessary for M. de Gandelau to tell his son to bring his attempt, to induce our architectural tyro to unroll again the paper he had covered the day before with such painfully elaborate designs.