To make the Revue a success Flaubert had obtained the consent of Prince Ivan and Prince Rudolph to appear in it. They were delighted with the idea, but they made several stipulations. They must have at least four changes of costume each, and no fatigue, and Flaubert must invite all the jolliest fellows to write them up. They did not wish to appear as royalties; that rôle was a bore and only suitable for republicans and rich canaille of all sorts; but they did wish to be thought great singers, and, of course, they knew as well as Flaubert did that a very little voice will go a very great way—in a Prince.
The Revue was written by a man of fashion. This was necessary, because nobody else would have understood how to construct each scene merely from the point of view of the actors who were to take part in it.
Naturally, no one wanted the play to interfere with the necessity for becoming attitudes or the costumes which suited them best. A critical observer might have suggested that the dramatic situation had no direct bearing upon the plot; but he would soon have been disarmed by the discovery that a plot was considered wholly superfluous.
“Nobody,” as the author remarked, “writes a plot nowadays; they go in for psychology and atmosphere.” It is true that the critical observer might still have wished to know if doing what you felt like to an irrelevant tune was psychology, and if “atmosphere” was most happily expressed by ladies who were under the impression that a few veils and half a dozen dancing lessons from a famous danseuse fitted them for the leading parts in a Russian ballet. But no doubt the critical observer would not have been of sufficient importance to receive an invitation.
The great artists were coming, but they weren’t coming to criticize, they were coming so that to-morrow they might see their names on the same page as the grand monde, and the grand monde was coming because it had to go somewhere and because it believed that it might behave rather worse at an affair of that sort than if it was simply by itself.
All Paris was coming; but they weren’t coming to consider Flaubert. They would laugh at him, perhaps, if they noticed him at all, but they would not even laugh for very long. And yet Flaubert believed that if they could be made to look in his direction they would compare him to his advantage with Torialli!
It is so difficult for some people to realize that very few people look in their direction at all!
Flaubert had spared no expense to conquer his world; it had wrung his heart, for he loved his money only less than himself; but he had built a theatre in the garden—a vast affair with a stage and a dressing-room at the back, and a tent to roof it over. The house was filled with orchids in the shape of doves. They hung in festoons from the walls of the dining-room downstairs, and lined the corridor, springing from baskets of ferns as if they were brooding over fairy nests; on the way that led to the garden cunningly arranged electric lamps shone on their weird hoverings. They were like doves; but they were like doves which had been long enough in Paris to lose their innocence.
The entrance hall was made as much as possible to equal Torialli’s. Louis had placed various busts of his master there; he had hated to do it, but he had not as yet seen his way to having his own bust taken. He was careful, however, to give the best light to a small charcoal drawing of himself playing the piano, and he had chosen one or two busts of Torialli which emphasized the mark of the years. Flaubert always spoke of Torialli as “Mon cher vieux maître” when Torialli wasn’t there.
Madame Torialli looked lovelier than ever on the great night, and yet she had worked all day long with Louis and Jean under a tension which might have overwhelmed a stronger woman. To Gabrielle it had only lent an air of extra softness and stillness. She wore a gown of the palest, vaguest blue—a blue which seemed to have lost itself in a white cloud; out of the cloud her bare neck and shoulders gleamed softly, as if they were powdered with pearls; the heavy black shadows under her eyes brought out afresh their startling azure innocence.