If anyone had remarked a slim young noble, richly dressed, looking with earnest eyes at the river from this old bridge of St. Germain some three years ago, and had happened to pass this spot now, they would not have recognized that graceful figure in the prematurely aged man in the shabby clothes who leant heavily against the parapet, whose face was so disfigured and expressionless, who wore no sword, but helped himself with a black cane.
But Luc de Clapiers was happier than he had been when last he mused above the Seine. As his body fell into decay and painful feebleness his spirit seemed to mount more and more triumphantly. Sometimes he felt as if he held all the thought of all the world in the hollow of his hand; as if he soared above and beyond his age with the great immortals who rule over eternity. In his dreams he beheld most beautiful landscapes; when he lay down on his bed vistas opened up of strange and gorgeous countries, exquisite almost beyond bearing, and a path would run from the bare boards of his garret straight to the heart of some woodland that dipped to uncharted seas of delight.
Music came from a boat that passed beneath the bridge; the sound of it across the water was tremblingly sweet to Luc’s ears. He thought there was something sublime and sad in the notes; that there was a message in them that no human voice could convey.
He straightened himself against the parapet, then went on his way. At the corner of the bridge he met a beggar woman dragging a child. She cast an appealing glance at Luc, who paused, fumbled a silver coin from his pocket, and gave it her. The action reminded him that he had only a few gold pieces left in the world. He had planned his resources to last twice as long, but it had been easy to deny himself everything but charity. That it was not in his nature to forgo, nor were the instincts of a life at a moment to be altered. He never chaffered, and therefore paid double what every one else did in the Isle.
Last winter the man who lived in the room opposite his, a clarionet player at the Opera, had been ill, and Luc had paid to prevent the fellow being turned into the street, paid the expenses of his short illness, and finally his humble funeral.
For his book he had received nothing. For the next edition that he was revising, with the advice of M. de Voltaire, he also expected to receive nothing. He had friends,—Voltaire himself, Saint Vincent, and others,—but the noble blood in him prevented him from ever considering their possible assistance. He could only think of writing pamphlets, or doing translations; but he knew little Greek or Latin, and only a scanty Italian.
As he returned home through the sunny streets he recalled his father’s words: “Not a louis from me, if you are starving—as, in your folly and wickedness, you will starve.”
He thought of his parents, of Joseph, and Aix, with great tenderness. He was glad he had resisted the bookseller’s entreaty to put his name to his book, even though by his refusal he had probably lost a good chance of ensuring the success of his labour; for he had spared the proud old aristocrat the shame of seeing his name on the title-page of a work of philosophy; of hearing his name associated with Voltaire, with literature, with poverty, with the ignominy of writing and printing a book.
“He would say,” thought Luc, “how right he was—what an utter failure I am.”
He opened the door of his room, and entered with great weariness. The stairs, steep and dark, fatigued him immensely. The garret, being directly under the roof, was suffocatingly hot. He felt his head ache and his limbs tremble. The food placed for him on the table near the window he turned from, though the little girl who waited on him had arranged glass and plate, salad and meat, black bread, and thin wine in a tall bottle, neatly enough.