Harper's New Monthly Magazine Vol. IV, No. 19, Dec 1851

by Various

In spite of these reflections, he was at his post at the hour appointed, and felt quite overjoyed when Alfonso made his appearance. The old man said that a plan had suggested itself by which he might be introduced into the house—namely, that he should pretend to be a professor of drawing, and offer his services. Ernest did not inquire how Alfonso came to know that he was an amateur artist, but eagerly complied with the plan, and was instructed to call on the following morning, and to say that he had heard that a drawing-master was wanted.

He went accordingly, not very boldly, it is true, and looking very much in reality like a poor professor anxious to obtain employment. The contessa, who was yet young and beautiful, received him politely, listened to his proposals, and made no difficulty in accepting them. The preliminaries arranged, Clara was called, and, to Ernest's astonishment, came bouncing into the room like a great school-girl, looked him very hard in the face, and among the first things she said, asked him if he was not the man she had seen two mornings following sitting opposite the house on the bench under the platane tree.

Now Ernest had imagined to himself something so refined, so delicate, so fairy-like, instead of this plain reality, that he all at once began to feel disgusted, and to wish he had acted more prudently. And yet there was Clara, exactly as he had seen her, except that she had exchanged the demure, conventional step adopted by ladies in the street for the free motions of youth; and except that, instead of casting her eyes to the earth, or glancing at him sideways, she now looked toward him with a frank and free gaze, and spoke what came uppermost in her mind. Certes, most men would have chosen that moment to fall in love with so charming a creature; for charming she was beyond all doubt, with large, rich, black eyes, pouting ruby lips, fine oval cheeks, and a mass of ebony hair; but Ernest's first impression was disappointment, and he began to criticise both her and every thing by which she was surrounded.

He saw at once that there was poverty in the house. The furniture was neat, but scanty; and the door had been opened by a female servant, who had evidently been disturbed from some domestic avocations. The contessa and her daughter were dressed very plainly—far differently from what they had been in the street; and it was an easy matter to see that this plainness was not adopted from choice but from necessity. Had Clara come into the room with a slow, creeping step, keeping her eyes modestly fixed on the chipped marble floor, not one of these observations would have been made: the large, dreary house would have been a palace in Ernest's eyes; but his taste was a morbid one, and in five minutes after he had begun to give his lesson, he began to fear that the conquest he had so ardently desired would be only too easy.

There was something, however, so cheerful and fascinating in Clara's manner that he could not but soon learn to feel pleasure in her society: and when he went away he determined, instead of starting off for Sicily, as he had at first thought of doing, to pay at least one more visit to the house in the character of drawing master. Alfonso joined him as he walked slowly homeward, and asked him how things had passed. He related frankly his first impressions, to which the old man listened very attentively without making any remark. At parting, however, he shook his head, saying that young men were of all animals the most difficult to content.

Next day, when Ernest went to give his lesson, he was told by Alfonso that the contessa, being indisposed, had remained in bed, but that he should find Clara in the garden. There was something romantic in the sound of this, so he hurried to the spot indicated, impatient to have the commonplace impressions of the previous day effaced. This time his disgust was complete. He found Clara engaged in assisting the servant maid to wring and hang out some clothes they had just finished washing. She seemed not at all put out by being caught thus humbly employed; but begging him to wait a little, finished her work, ran away, dressed somewhat carefully, and returning begged he would return to the house. He followed with cheeks burning with shame: he felt the utmost contempt for himself because he had fallen in love with this little housewife, and the greatest indignation against her for having presumed, very innocently, to excite so poetical a sentiment; and, in the stupidity of his offended self-love, resolved to avenge himself by making some spiteful remark ere he escaped from a house into which he considered that he had been regularly entrapped. Accordingly, when she took the pencil in hand, he observed that probably she imagined that contact with soap-suds would improve the delicacy of her touch. Clara did not reply, but began to sketch in a manner that proved she had listened to the pedantic rules he had laid down on occasion of the previous lesson more from modesty than because she was in want of them. Then suddenly rising without attending to some cavil he thought it his duty to make, she went to the piano, and beginning to play, drew forth such ravishing notes, that Ernest, who was himself no contemptible musician, could not refrain from applauding enthusiastically. She received his compliments with a slight shrug of the shoulders, and commenced a song that enabled her to display with full effect the capabilities of her magnificent voice. The soap-suds were forgotten; and Ernest's romance was coming back upon him: he began to chide himself for his foolish prejudices; and thought that, after all, with a little training, Clara might be made quite a lady. Suddenly, however, she broke off her song, and turning toward him with an ironical smile, said: "Not bad for a housemaid, Mr. Professor—is it?"

He attempted to excuse himself, but he was evidently judged; and, what was more—not as an obscure drawing-master, but as M. Ernest Leroy. His identity was evidently no secret; and she even called him by his name. He endeavored in vain to make a fine speech to apologize for his ill-behavior; but she interrupted him keenly, though good-humoredly, and the entrance of Alfonso was fatal to a fine scene of despair he was about to enact. Clara upon this retired with a profound salute; and Alfonso spoke with more of dignity than usual in his manner, and said: "My young friend, you must excuse a little deception which has been practiced on you, or rather which you have practiced upon yourself. I am going to be very free and frank with you to-day. I am not what you take me for. I am the Count Corsini, a Roman; and because I have not the means of keeping a man-servant, when the women of my family go to church I follow them, as you saw. This is not unusual among my countrymen. It is a foolish pride I know; but so it is. However, the matter interests you not. You saw my daughter Clara, and thought you loved her. I was willing, as on inquiry I found you to be a respectable person, to see how you could agree together; but your pride—I managed and overheard all—has destroyed your chance. My daughter will seek another husband."

There was a cold friendliness in Alfonso's tone which roused the pride of Ernest. He affected to laugh, called himself a foolish madcap, but hinted that a splendid marriage awaited him, if he chose, on his return to Paris; and went away endeavoring to look unconcerned. The following morning he was on board a vessel bound for Palermo, very sea-sick it is true, but thinking at the same time a great deal more of Clara than he could have thought possible had it been predicted.

Some few years afterward Ernest Leroy was in one of the salons of the Fauxbourg St. Germain. Still a bachelor, he no longer felt those sudden emotions to which he had been subject in his earlier youth. He was beginning to talk less of sentiments present and more of sentiments passed. In confidential moods he would lay his hand upon his waistcoat—curved out at its lower extremity, by the by, by a notable increase of substance—and allude to a certain divine Clara who had illuminated a moment of his existence. But he was too discreet to enter into details.

Well, being in that salon, as we have said, pretending to amuse himself, his attention was suddenly drawn by the announcement of Lady D——. He turned round, probably to quiz la belle Anglaise he expected to behold. What was his astonishment on recognizing in the superb woman who leaned on the arm of a tall, military-looking Englishman, the identical Clara Corsini of his youthful memories. He felt at first sick at heart; but, taking courage, soon went up and spoke to her. She remembered him with some little difficulty, smiled, and holding out her alabaster hand, said gently: "Do you see any trace of the soap-suds?" She never imagined he had any feeling in him, and only knew the truth when a large, round tear fell on the diamond of her ring. "Charles," said Ernest awhile afterward to a friend, "it is stifling hot and dreadfully stupid here. Let us go and have a game of billiards."