The Red Lily | Page 5

mind."
Madame Marmet approved.
She pleased society by appearing to find pleasure in it. She listened a
great deal and talked little. Very affable, she gave value to her affability
by not squandering it. Either because she liked Madame Martin, or
because she knew how to give discreet marks of preference in every
house she went, she warmed herself contentedly, like a relative, in a
corner of the Louis XVI chimney, which suited her beauty. She lacked

only her dog.
"How is Toby?" asked Madame Martin. "Monsieur Vence, do you
know Toby? He has long silky hair and a lovely little black nose."
Madame Marmet was relishing the praise of Toby, when an old man,
pink and blond, with curly hair, short-sighted, almost blind under his
golden spectacles, rather short, striking against the furniture, bowing to
empty armchairs, blundering into the mirrors, pushed his crooked nose
before Madame Marmet, who looked at him indignantly.
It was M. Schmoll, member of the Academie des Inscriptions. He
smiled and turned a madrigal for the Countess Martin with that
hereditary harsh, coarse voice with which the Jews, his fathers, pressed
their creditors, the peasants of Alsace, of Poland, and of the Crimea. He
dragged his phrases heavily. This great philologist knew all languages
except French. And Madame Martin enjoyed his affable phrases, heavy
and rusty like the iron-work of brica-brac shops, among which fell
dried leaves of anthology. M. Schmoll liked poets and women, and had
wit.
Madame Marmet feigned not to know him, and went out without
returning his bow.
When he had exhausted his pretty madrigals, M. Schmoll became
sombre and pitiful. He complained piteously. He was not decorated
enough, not provided with sinecures enough, nor well fed enough by
the State--he, Madame Schmoll, and their five daughters. His
lamentations had some grandeur. Something of the soul of Ezekiel and
of Jeremiah was in them.
Unfortunately, turning his golden-spectacled eyes toward the table, he
discovered Vivian Bell's book.
"Oh, 'Yseult La Blonde'," he exclaimed, bitterly. "You are reading that
book, Madame? Well, learn that Mademoiselle Vivian Bell has stolen
an inscription from me, and that she has altered it, moreover, by putting
it into verse. You will find it on page 109 of her book: 'A shade may

weep over a shade.' You hear, Madame? 'A shade may weep over a
shade.' Well, those words are translated literally from a funeral
inscription which I was the first to publish and to illustrate. Last year,
one day, when I was dining at your house, being placed by the side of
Mademoiselle Bell, I quoted this phrase to her, and it pleased her a
great deal. At her request, the next day I translated into French the
entire inscription and sent it to her. And now I find it changed in this
volume of verses under this title: 'On the Sacred Way'--the sacred way,
that is I."
And he repeated, in his bad humor:
"I, Madame, am the sacred way."
He was annoyed that the poet had not spoken to him about this
inscription. He would have liked to see his name at the top of the poem,
in the verses, in the rhymes. He wished to see his name everywhere,
and always looked for it in the journals with which his pockets were
stuffed. But he had no rancor. He was not really angry with Miss Bell.
He admitted gracefully that she was a distinguished person, and a poet
that did great honor to England.
When he had gone, the Countess Martin asked ingenuously of Paul
Vence if he knew why that good Madame Marmet had looked at M.
Schmoll with such marked though silent anger. He was surprised that
she did not know.
"I never know anything," she said.
"But the quarrel between Schmoll and Marmet is famous. It ceased
only at the death of Marmet.
"The day that poor Marmet was buried, snow was falling. We were wet
and frozen to the bones. At the grave, in the wind, in the mud, Schmoll
read under his umbrella a speech full of jovial cruelty and triumphant
pity, which he took afterward to the newspapers in a mourning carriage.
An indiscreet friend let Madame Marmet hear of it, and she fainted. Is
it possible, Madame, that you have not heard of this learned and

ferocious quarrel?
"The Etruscan language was the cause of it. Marmet made it his unique
study. He was surnamed Marmet the Etruscan. Neither he nor any one
else knew a word of that language, the last vestige of which is lost.
Schmoll said continually to Marmet: 'You do not know Etruscan, my
dear colleague; that is the reason why you are an honorable savant and
a fair-minded man.' Piqued by his ironic praise, Marmet thought of
learning a little Etruscan. He