CHAPTER XVII
PRIMA-SERA
Before starting for the Hôtel de Pënâfiel, I compared my present state of anxiety and distrust with the careless abandonment of my former life, and the days I spent with Hélène, when, no matter at what time I entered the old salon at Serval, I was sure of being received with pleasant smiles from every one.
Without dreading this interview with Madame de Pënâfiel, I knew that, although by common consent she was abused and calumniated, her salon was held in high consideration. It had great importance in the fact that its judgment was not to be impeached; right or wrong, its stamp was the valuation that would henceforth be accepted by the world.
The number of such salons, whose influence is so great that it irrevocably decides the rank of each individual in good society, is already restricted, and grows less every year. The reason is this, there are no longer any men who are willing to submit to its restrictions. The life of the club and the representative chamber, that other great political club, has swept away the life of the salon. Between to-day's speech and that of yesterday, between a game of whist or a revenge of two or three thousand louis, the anxious and absorbing interest in a race in which a favourite horse is entered for an enormous sum, there remains very little time for that intimate, flowery, and elegant conversation, which has no "echo in the country," as the monomaniacs of the tribune say, and helps you neither to win nor lose at whist or on the turf. And then the life of the salon is a constraint. You must appear in evening dress to go and smother in a heated reception, and then be frozen while waiting for your carriage; whereas it is so much easier and pleasanter to stretch out in a soft armchair at the club, where you take a comfortable nap after dinner, from which you awake refreshed, and ready for an exciting game of whist, with no interruption but that of your cigar.
However, at the period of which I write, there were still a few houses where people conversed, and the Hôtel de Pënâfiel was one of these eccentricities.
Madame de Pënâfiel, among all her defects, was not what was called a bluestocking, but she was something worse, for she was a woman of real erudition, and a linguist, speaking three or four languages well, and having high scientific attainments, they said. If I had no better ground for believing all this than the word of a savant such as De Cernay, I should have had my doubts as to its truth, but I recalled a strange circumstance which was a proof of Madame de Pënâfiel's learning. Having been fortunate enough when in London to meet the celebrated Arthur Young, he had spoken to me with great admiration of a young compatriot of mine who was remarkably well read, although very pretty and in the best society. He said she had complimented him in the most intelligent and scientific manner on his famous theory of Interferences, but had attacked him on the subject of the syllabic or dissyllabic value he applied to hieroglyphics, in which his system was entirely at variance with that of Champollion.
This had struck me as very singular, especially when told me by such a great savant, and I had even made a note of it in my diary.
It was only on my return to Paris, and some time after having seen and heard of Madame de Pënâfiel, that I confusedly recalled the conversation of Arthur Young. I then got out my note-book, and found these details, as well as the name of the marquise.
All that I had heard of Madame de Pënâfiel was far from creating a pleasant impression. Her strange caprices, her artistic and perpetual desire to attract attention, her poses, which they said were constantly studied to the end of making a beautiful portrait of herself, her fantastic disposition, her scientific studies, were all unbecoming in a woman of her standing, and were all thoroughly distasteful to me.