Je vous enseignerais un nid de tourterelles."
"These two lines have undergone a thousand variations under the pens of a thousand poets. Women were only commended for their eyes—very beautiful things when they are beautiful, but they should not be made the object of exclusive admiration. A beauty possessing no attraction but beautiful eyes would soon lose her sway over the hearts of men. Racine has used the words eye and eyes one hundred and sixty-five times in Andromache. Woman has been deprived of her divine crown of golden or chestnut hair; she has been dethroned by having it covered with white powder. We have avenged woman for her long neglect; we have preserved the eyes and added all the other charms. Thus women love us poets; and in our days Orpheus would not be torn to pieces by snowy hands on the shores of the Strymon."
"Ah! that is just like you, Edgar," you said, with a sad laugh and a would-be calm voice. "At dessert you always give us a dish of paradoxes. I myself greatly prefer Montmorency cherries."
Some minutes after Edgar said:
"The other day I paid a visit to Delacroix. He has commenced a picture that promises to be superb; my dear traveller, Roger, it will possess the sky you love—pure indigo, the celestial carpet of the blue god."
"I abhor blue," you said; "I dread ophthalmia. Surfeit of blue compels the use of green spectacles. I adore the skies of Hobbema and Backhuysen; one can look at them with the naked eye for twenty years, and yet never need an oculist in old age."
After some rambling conversation you uttered an eulogy on a sacred air of Palestrina that you heard sung at the Conservatory concert. When you had finished, Edgar rested his elbows on the table, his chin on his hand, and let fall from his lips the following words, warmed by the spiritual fire of his eyes.
"I have always abhorred church-music," said he. "Sacred music is proscribed in my house as opium is in China. I like none but sentimental music. All that does not resemble in some way the Amor possente nome of Rossini must remained buried in the catacombs of the piano. Music was only created for women and love. Doubtless simplicity is beautiful, but it so often only belongs to simple people.
"Art is the only passion of a true artist. The music of Palestrina resembles the music of Rossini about as much as the twitter of the swallow resembles the song of the nightingale."
It was evident to me, my young friend, that neither of you expressed your genuine convictions and true opinions. You were sitting opposite, and yet neither looked at the other while speaking. You both were handsome and charming, but handsome and charming like two English cocks before a fight. What particularly struck me was that neither of you ever said: "What is the matter with you to-day, my friend? you seem to delight in contradicting me." Edgar did not ask you this question, nor did you ask it of him. You thought it useless to inquire into the cause of these half-angry contradictions; you both knew what you were about. You and Edgar both love the same woman. It is the woman who suddenly retreated from the piano. Perhaps she left the house after some disagreeable scene between you two in her presence.