He found them just as united, living in the same atmosphere of rather sad, sorrowful tenderness, though it was even grayer than before, Arnaud was passing through a period of depression, brought on by the wear and tear of his life as a teacher,—a life of exhausting labor, in which one day is like unto another, and each day's work is like that of the next, like a wheel turning in one place, without ever stopping, or ever advancing. Though he was very patient, the good man was passing through a crisis of discouragement. He let certain acts of injustice prey upon him, and was inclined to think that all his zeal was futile. Madame Arnaud would comfort him with kind words: she seemed to be just as calm and peaceful as in the old days: but her face was thinner. In her presence Christophe would congratulate Arnaud on having such a sensible wife.
"Yes," Arnaud would say, "she is a good little creature; nothing ever puts her out. She is lucky: so am I. If she had suffered in this cursed life, I don't see how I could have got through."
Madame Arnaud would blush and say nothing. Then in her even tones she would talk of something else.—Christophe's visits had their usual good effect: they brought light in their train: and he, for his part, found it very pleasant to feel the warmth of their kind, honest hearts.
Another friend, a girl, came into his life. Or rather he sought her out: for though she longed to know him, she could not have made the effort to go and see him. She was a young woman of a little more than twenty-five, a musician, and she had taken the first prize at the Conservatoire: her name was Cécile Fleury. She was short and rather thick-set. She had heavy eyebrows, fine, large eyes, with a soft expression, a short, broad, turned-up nose, inclined to redness, like a duck's beak, thick lips, kind and tender, an energetic chin, heavy and solid, and her forehead was broad, but not high. Her hair was done up in a large bun at the back of her neck. She had strong arms and a pianist's hands, very long, with a splayed thumb and square finger-tips. The general impression she gave was one of a rather sluggish vitality and of rude rustic health. She lived with her mother, who was very dear to her: a good, kind woman, who took not the smallest interest in music though she used to talk about it, because she was always hearing about it, and knew everything that happened in Musicopolis. She had a dull, even life, gave lessons all day long, and sometimes concerts, of which nobody took any notice. She used to go home late at night, on foot or in an omnibus, worn out, but quite good-tempered: and she used to practise her scales bravely and trim her own hats, talking a great deal, laughing readily, and often singing for nothing.
She had not been spoiled by life. She knew the value of a little comfort when she had earned it by her own efforts,—the joy of a little pleasure, or a little scarcely perceptible advance in her position or her work. Indeed, if one month she could only earn five francs more than in the last, or if she could at length manage to play a certain passage of Chopin which she had been struggling with for weeks,—she would be quite happy. Her work, which was not excessive, exactly fitted her aptitude for it, and gave her a healthy satisfaction. Playing, singing, giving lessons gave her a pleasant feeling of satisfied activity, normal and regular, and at the same time a modest competence and a comfortable placid success. She had a healthy appetite, ate much, slept well, and was never ill.
She was clear-headed, sensible, modest, perfectly balanced, and never worried about anything: for she always lived in and for the present, without bothering her head about what had happened or what was going to happen in the future. And as she was always well, and as her life was comparatively secure from the sudden turns of fate, she was almost always satisfied. She took the same pleasure in practising her piano as in keeping house, or talking about things domestic, or doing nothing. She had the art of living, not from day to day—(she was economical and provident)—but from minute to minute. She was not possessed of any sort of idealism: the only ideal she had, if it could be called so, was bourgeois, and was unostentatiously expressed in her every action, and evenly distributed through every moment of the day: it consisted in peacefully loving everything she was doing, whatever it might be. She went to church on Sundays: but the feeling of religion had practically no place in her life. She admired enthusiasts, like Christophe, who had faith or genius: but she did not envy them: what could she have done with their uneasiness and their genius?
How came it, then, that she could feel their music? She would have found it hard to say. But it was very certain that she did feel it. She was superior to other virtuosi by reason of her sturdy quality of balance, physical and moral: in her abounding vitality, in the absence of personal passion, the passions of others found a rich soil in which to come to flower. She was not touched by them. She could translate in all their energy the terrible passions which had consumed the artist without being tainted by their poison: she only felt their force and the great weariness that came after its expression. When it was over, she would be all in a sweat, utterly exhausted: she would smile calmly and feel very happy.
Christophe heard her one evening, and was struck by her playing. He went and shook hands with her after the concert. She was grateful to him for it: there were very few people at the concert, and she was not so used to compliments as to take no delight in them. As she had never been clever enough to throw in her lot with any musical coterie, or cunning enough to surround herself with a group of worshipers, and as she never attempted to make herself particular, either by technical mannerisms or by a fantastic interpretation of the hallowed compositions, or by assuming an exclusive right to play some particular master, such as Johann Sebastian Bach, or Beethoven, and as she had no theories about what she played, but contented herself with playing simply what she felt—nobody paid any attention to her, and the critics ignored her: for nobody told them that she played well, and they were not likely to find it out for themselves.
Christophe saw a good deal of Cécile. Her strength and tranquillity attracted him as a mystery. She was vigorous and apathetic. In his indignation at her not being better known he proposed that he should get his friends of the Grand Journal to write about her. But although she would have liked to be praised, she begged him not to do anything to procure it. She did not want to have the struggle or the bother or the jealousies it would entail: she wanted to be left in peace. She was not talked about: so much the better! She was not envious, and she was the first to be enthusiastic about the technique of other virtuosi. She had no ambition, and no desire for anything. She was much too lazy in mind! When she had not any immediate and definite work to do, she did nothing, nothing; she did not even dream, not even at night, in bed: she either slept or thought of nothing. She had not the morbid preoccupation with marriage, which poisons the lives of girls who shiver at the thought of dying old maids. When she was asked if she would not like to have a husband, she would say:
"Why not throw in fifty thousand a year? One has to take what comes. If any one offers, so much the better! If not, one goes without. Because one can't have cake, I don't see why one shouldn't be glad of honest bread. Especially when one has had to eat stale bread for so long!"