The Cross of Berny | Page 8

voices sang.
Once she appeared in the full blaze of the gas as she leaned forward
from her box, and it seemed as if an apparition by some theatro-optical
delusion approached and dazzled me.
The rapt attention of the audience, the mellow tones of the singer, the
orchestral accompaniment full of mysterious harmony, seemed to
awaken the ineffable joy that love implants in the human heart. How
much weakness there is in the strength of man!
To travel for years over oceans, through deserts, among all varieties of
peoples and sects; shipwrecked, to cling with bleeding hands to
sea-beaten rocks; to laugh at the storm and brave the tiger in his lair; to
be bronzed in torrid climes; to subject one's digestion to the baleful
influences of the salt seas; to study wisdom before the ruins of every
portico where rhetoricians have for three thousand years paraphrased in
ten tongues the words of Solomon, "All is vanity;" to return to one's
native shores a used-up man, persuaded of the emptiness of all things
save the overhanging firmament and the never-fading stars; to scatter

the fancies of too credulous youth by a contemptuous smile, or a lesson
of bitter experience, and yet, while boasting a victory over all human
fallacies and weaknesses, to be enslaved by the melody of a song, the
smile of a woman.
Life is full of hidden mysteries. I looked upon the stranger's face with a
sense of danger, so antagonistic to my previous tranquillity that I felt
humiliated.
By the side of the beautiful unknown, I saw a large fan open and shut
with a certain affectation, but not until its tenth movement did I glance
at its possessor. She was my nearest relative, the Duchess de Langeac.
The situation now began to be interesting. In a moment the interlude
would procure for me a position to be envied by every one in the house.
At the end of the act I left my box and made a rapid tour of the lobby
before presenting myself. The Duchess dispelled my embarrassment by
a cordial welcome. Women have a keen and supernatural perception
about everything concerning love, that is alarming.
The Duchess carelessly pronounced Mlle. de Chateaudun's name and
mine, as if to be rid of the ceremonies of introduction as soon as
possible, and touching a sofa with the end of her fan, said:
"My dear Roger, it is quite evident that you have come from
everywhere except from the civilized world. I bowed to you twenty
times, and you declined me the honor of a recognition. Absorbed in the
music, I suppose. La Favorita is not performed among the savages, so
they remain savages. How do you like our barytone? He has sung his
aria with delicious feeling."
While the Duchess was indulging her unmeaning questions and
comments, a rapid and careless glance at Mlle. de Chateaudun
explained the admiration that she commanded from the crowded house.
Were I to tell you that this young creature was a pretty, a beautiful
woman, I would feebly express my meaning, such phrases mean
nothing. It would require a master hand to paint a peerless woman, and
I could not make the attempt when the bright image of Irene is now

surrounded by the gloomy shadows of an afflicted heart.
After the first exchange of insignificant words, the skirmish of a
conversation, we talk as all talk who are anxious to appear ignorant of
the fact that they are gazed upon by a whole assembly.
Concealing my agitation under a strain of light conversation,
"Mademoiselle," I said, in answer to a question, "music is to-day the
necessity of the universe. France is commissioned to amuse the world.
Suppress our theatre, opera, Paris, and a settled melancholy pervades
the human family. You have no idea of the ennui that desolates the
hemispheres.
"Occasionally Paris enlivens the two Indias by dethroning a king. Once
Calcutta was in extremis, it was dying of the blues; the East India
company was rich but not amusing; with all its treasure it could not buy
one smile for Calcutta, so Paris sent Robert le Diable, La Muette de
Portici, a drama or two of Hugo and Dumas. Calcutta became
convalescent and recovered. Its neighbor, Chandernagore, scarcely
existed then, but in 1842, when I left the Isle de Bourbon, La Favorita
was announced; it planted roses in the cheeks of the jaundiced
inhabitants, and Madras, possessed by the spleen, was exorcised by
William Tell.
"Whenever a tropical city is conscious of approaching decline, she
always stretches her hands beseechingly to Paris, who responds with
music, books, newspapers; and her patient springs into new life.
"Paris does not seem to be aware of her influences. She detracts from
herself; says she is not the Paris of yesterday, the