Luc caught the young man’s hand, and drew him gently into the sunlight, straining his half-blind eyes to make out the person of his visitor.
For Jean François Marmontel was the favourite of Paris, petted, caressed, extolled; the incarnation of success; one young, vigorous, and in the seat of glory; one physically what Luc had been before the Bohemia war, and from the worldly point of view in that position Luc had so yearned and longed for, so confidently hoped to attain.
Luc had failed in arms, in politics, in letters. He had lost love, and health, and all hope of material triumph. He had even won hate from those nearest to him in blood. He was dying, slowly, and in a fashion humiliating. He was disfigured, feeble, half blind, bowed with weakness and great pain.
M. de Voltaire thought of this as he watched him looking so earnestly at the young man who was so crowned with gifts, with success, strength, and vigour.
M. Marmontel wore roses like the women who had passed to and fro the Pont St. Germain—sweet-smelling red roses, thrust into the black velvet ribbon that fastened the long lace ends of his cravat. His bright, sparkling brown hair was tied with a blue velvet knot; his white waistcoat was flourished with wreaths of flowers in many colours; his face was slightly flushed under the eyes that were fixed on the man before him, with a look of mingled humility, apprehension, and self-confidence, only to be seen in the faces of the very youthful and very happy.
Luc, with painful, laboured searching, made out these details. His grasp tightened on the straight young fingers.
“I congratulate M. Marmontel from the depths of my heart,” he said. And his voice was so soft, so sweet, so sincere that the man to whom he spoke gave a slight start. He was expecting another voice from this frail, ill creature.
“What does it feel like,” continued Luc, in the same warm tones, “to be young and famous? To have achieved so soon?”
“Monseigneur, you overwhelm me,” answered the young author frankly.
Luc smiled. His scarred face—the delicate traits of which had been so for ever ruined—changed with this smile in such a fashion—inexpressible, but not to be ignored—that M. Marmontel, with a sense of shock, knew he was in the presence of something very rare and beautiful, and his own achievement seemed a crude thing.