The Complete Works: Short Stories, Novels, Plays, Poetry, Memoirs and more. Guy de MaupassantЧитать онлайн книгу.
countries undiscoverable though ever sought for, which make us look upon all others as commonplace.
He went on: “Yes, it is lovely, because it is lovely. Other horizons are more striking but less harmonious. Ah! Madame, beauty, harmonious beauty! There is nothing but that in the world. Nothing exists but beauty. But how few understand it! The line of a body, of a statue, or of a mountain, the color of a painting or of that plain, the inexpressible something of the ‘Joconde,’ a phrase that bites you to the soul, that — nothing more — which makes an artist a creator just like God, which, therefore, distinguishes him among men. Wait! I am going to recite for you two stanzas of Baudelaire.”
And he declaimed:
“Whether you come from heaven or hell I do not care,
O Beauty, monster of splendor and terror, yet sweet at the core,
As long as your eye, your smile, your feet lay the infinite bare,
Unveiling a world of love that I never have known before!
“From Satan or God, what matter, whether angel or siren you be,
What matter if you can give, enchanting, velvet-eyed fay,
Rhythm, perfume, and light, and be queen of the earth for me,
And make all things less hideous, and the sad moments fly away.”
Christiane now was gazing at him, struck with wonder by his lyricism, questioning him with her eyes, not comprehending well what extraordinary meaning might be embodied in this poetry. He divined her thoughts, and was irritated at not having communicated his own enthusiasm to her, for he had recited those verses very effectively, and he resumed, with a shade of disdain:
“I am a fool to wish to force you to relish a poet of such subtle inspiration. A day will come, I hope, when you will feel those things just as I do. Women, endowed rather with intuition than comprehension, do not seize the secret and veiled purposes of art in the same way as if a sympathetic appeal had first been made to their minds.”
And, with a bow, he added: “I will strive, Madame, to make this sympathetic appeal.”
She did not think him impertinent, but fantastic; and moreover she did not seek any longer to understand, suddenly struck by a circumstance which she had not previously noticed: he was very elegant, though he was a little too tall and too strongly-built, with a gait so virile that one could not immediately perceive the studied refinement of his attire. And then his head had a certain brutishness about it, an incompleteness, which gave to his entire person a somewhat heavy aspect at first glance. But when one had got accustomed to his features, one found in them some charm, a charm powerful and fierce, which at moments became very pleasant according to the inflections of his voice, which always seemed veiled.
Christiane said to herself, as she observed for the first time what attention he had paid to his external appearance from head to foot: “Decidedly this is a man whose qualities must be discovered one by one.”
But here Gontran came rushing toward them. He exclaimed: “Sister, I say, Christiane, waitl” And when he had overtaken them, he said to them, still laughing: “Oh! just come and listen to the younger Oriol girl! She is as droll as anything — she has wonderful wit. Papa has succeeded in putting her at her ease, and she has been telling us the most comical things in the world. Wait for them.”
And they awaited the Marquis, who presently appeared with the younger of the two girls, Charlotte Oriol. She was relating with a childlike, knowing liveliness some village tales, accounts of rustic simplicity and roguery. And she imitated them with their slow movements, their grave remarks, their “fouchtras,” their innumerable “bougrres,” mimicking, in a fashion that made her pretty, sprightly face look charming, all the changes of their physiognomies. Her bright eyes sparkled; her rather large mouth was opened wide, displaying her white teeth; her nose, a little tip-tilted, gave her a humorous look; and she was fresh, with a flower’s freshness that might make lips quiver with desire.
The Marquis, having spent nearly his entire life on his estate, in the family château where Christiane and Gontran had been brought up in the midst of rough, big Norman farmers who were occasionally invited to dine there, in accordance with custom, and whose children, companions of theirs from the period of their first communion, had been on terms of familiarity with them, knew how to talk to this little girl, already three-fourths a woman of the world, with a friendly candor which awakened at once in her a gay and self-confident assurance.
Andermatt and Louise returned after having walked as far as the village, which they did not care to enter. And they all sat down at the foot of a tree, on the grassy edge of a ditch. There they remained for a long time pleasantly chatting about everything and nothing in a torpor of languid ease. Now and then, a wagon would roll past, always drawn by the two cows whose heads were bent and twisted by the yoke, and always driven by a peasant with a shrunken frame and a big black hat on his head, guiding the animals with the end of his thin switch in the swaying style of the conductor of an orchestra.
The man would take off his hat, bowing to the Oriol girls, and they would reply with a familiar, “Good day,” flung out by their fresh young voices.
Then, as the hour was growing late, they went back. As they drew near the park, Charlotte Oriol exclaimed: “Oh! the boree! the boree!” In fact, the boree was being danced to an old air well known in Auvergne.
There they were, male and female peasants stepping out, hopping, making courtesies, — turning and bowing to each other, — the women taking hold of their petticoats and lifting them up with two fingers of each hand, the men swinging their arms or holding them akimbo. The pleasant monotonous air was also dancing in the fresh evening wind; it was always the same refrain played in a very high note by the violin, and taken up in concert by the other instruments, giving a more rattling pace to the dance. And it was not unpleasant, this simple rustic music, lively and artless, keeping time as it did with this shambling country minuet.
The bathers, too, made an attempt to dance. Petrus Martel went skipping in front of little Odelin, who affected the style of a danseuse walking through a ballet, and the comic Lapalme mimicked a fantastic step round the attendant at the Casino, who seemed agitated by recollections of Bullier.
But suddenly Gontran saw Doctor Honorat dancing away with all his heart and all his limbs, and executing the classical boree like a true-blue native of Auvergne.
The orchestra became silent. All stopped. The doctor came over and bowed to the Marquis. He was wiping his forehead and puffing.
“’Tis good,” said he, “to be young sometimes.” Gontran laid his hand on the doctor’s shoulder, and smiling with a mischievous air: “You never told me you were married.”
The physician stopped wiping his face, and gravely responded: “Yes, I am, and marred.”
“What do you say?”
“I say, married and marred. Never commit that folly, young man.”
“Why?”
“Why! See here! I have been married now for twenty years, and haven’t got used to it yet. Every evening, when I reach home, I say to myself, ‘Hold hard! this old woman is still in my house! So then she’ll never go away?”’ Everyone began to laugh, so serious and convinced was his tone.
But the bells of the hotel were ringing for dinner. The fête was over. Louise and Charlotte were accompanied back to their father’s house; and when their new friends had left them, they commenced talking about them. Everyone thought them charming, Andermatt alone preferred the elder girl.
The Marquis said: “How pliant the feminine nature is! The mere vicinity of the paternal gold, of which they do not even know the use, has made ladies of these country girls.”
Christiane, having asked Paul Bretigny: “And you, which of them do you prefer?” he murmured:
“Oh! I? I have not even looked at them. It is not they whom I prefer.”
He had spoken in a very