A Prince of Bohemia | Page 7

the point home this
time), he added, 'There is the right thrust, monsieur!'
"His antagonist kept his bed for six months.
"This, still following on M. Sainte-Beuve's tracks, recalls the /raffines/,
the fine-edged raillery of the best days of the monarchy. In this speech
you discern an untrammeled but drifting life; a gaiety of imagination
that deserts us when our first youth is past. The prime of the blossom is
over, but there remains the dry compact seed with the germs of life in it,
ready against the coming winter. Do you not see that these things are
symptoms of something unsatisfied, of an unrest impossible to analyze,
still less to describe, yet not incomprehensible; a something ready to
break out if occasion calls into flying upleaping flame? It is the
/accidia/ of the cloister; a trace of sourness, of ferment engendered by
the enforced stagnation of youthful energies, a vague, obscure

melancholy."
"That will do," said the Marquise; "you are giving me a mental shower
bath."
"It is the early afternoon languor. If a man has nothing to do, he will
sooner get into mischief than do nothing at all; this invariably happens
in France. Youth at present day has two sides to it; the studious or
unappreciated, and the ardent or /passionne/."
"That will do!" repeated Mme. de Rochefide, with an authoritative
gesture. "You are setting my nerves on edge."
"To finish my portrait of La Palferine, I hasten to make the plunge into
the gallant regions of his character, or you will not understand the
peculiar genius of an admirable representative of a certain section of
mischievous youth--youth strong enough, be it said, to laugh at the
position in which it is put by those in power; shrewd enough to do no
work, since work profiteth nothing; yet so full of life that it fastens
upon pleasure--the one thing that cannot be taken away. And
meanwhile a bourgeois, mercantile, and bigoted policy continues to cut
off all the sluices through which so much aptitude and ability would
find an outlet. Poets and men of science are not wanted.
"To give you an idea of the stupidity of the new court, I will tell you of
something which happened to La Palferine. There is a sort of relieving
officer on the civil list. This functionary one day discovered that La
Palferine was in dire distress, drew up a report, no doubt, and brought
the descendant of the Rusticolis fifty francs by way of alms. La
Palferine received the visitor with perfect courtesy, and talked of
various persons at court.
" 'Is it true,' he asked, 'that Mlle. d'Orleans contributes such and such a
sum to this benevolent scheme started by her nephew? If so, it is very
gracious of her.'
"Now La Palferine had a servant, a little Savoyard, aged ten, who
waited on him without wages. La Palferine called him Father Anchises,
and used to say, 'I have never seen such a mixture of besotted
foolishness with great intelligence; he would go through fire and water
for me; he understands everything--and yet he cannot grasp the fact that
I can do nothing for him.'
"Anchises was despatched to a livery stable with instructions to hire a
handsome brougham with a man in livery behind it. By the time the

carriage arrived below, La Palferine had skilfully piloted the
conversation to the subject of the functions of his visitor, whom he has
since called 'the unmitigated misery man,' and learned the nature of his
duties and his stipend.
" 'Do they allow you a carriage to go about the town in this way?'
" 'Oh! no.'
"At that La Palferine and a friend who happened to be with him went
downstairs with the poor soul, and insisted on putting him into the
carriage. It was raining in torrents. La Palferine had thought of
everything. He offered to drive the official to the next house on his list;
and when the almoner came down again, he found the carriage waiting
for him at the door. The man in livery handed him a note written in
pencil:
" 'The carriage has been engaged for three days. Count Rusticoli de la
Palferine is too happy to associate himself with Court charities by
lending wings to Royal beneficence.'
"La Palferine now calls the civil list the uncivil list.
"He was once passionately loved by a lady of somewhat light conduct.
Antonia lived in the Rue du Helder; she had seen and been seen to
some extent, but at the time of her acquaintance with La Palferine she
had not yet 'an establishment.' Antonia was not wanting in the
insolence of old days, now degenerating into rudeness among women
of her class. After a fortnight of unmixed bliss, she was compelled, in
the interest of