Chapter XIII: Agatha

"Yes, I am listening to you, Michel, I am listening attentively," Magnani replied, "and I am sad because I feel the force of your reasoning. You are not the first person with whom I have talked of these matters. I have known more than one young mechanic who aspired to drop his trade, to become a merchant, lawyer, priest or artist; and it is true enough that the number of these deserters increases every year. Whoever feels that he possesses intelligence instantly becomes conscious of ambition; and hitherto I have fought such tendencies vigorously in others and in myself. My parents, who are proud and obstinate like the prudent, hard-working old people that they are, taught me, as a religious precept, to remain true to family traditions--to the customs of my rank; and my heart approved of that strict and simple code of morals. That is why I have resolved not to seek success outside of my trade, though I sometimes have to crush my own impulses. That is why I have always roughly trampled upon the self-love of my young comrades as soon as I saw it sprouting; that is why my first words of sympathy and regard for you were warnings and reproaches. It seems to me now that, until I had you to deal with, I was in the right, because the others were really vain, and their vanity tended to make them selfish and ungrateful. So that I felt fully justified in rebuking them, laughing at them and preaching to them by turns. But with you I feel that I am weak, because you are stronger than I in theory. You depict art in such grand and beautiful colors, you feel so strongly the noble character of your mission, that I dare not oppose you any longer. It seems to me that you have a right to break down every obstacle in order to succeed, even your heart, as I broke mine in order to remain obscure. And yet my conscience is not satisfied with this solution. It does not seem to me to be a solution. Come, Michel, you are more learned than I; tell me which of us is wrong before God!"

"My friend, I believe that we are both right," replied Michel. "I believe that at this moment we represent between us what is taking place, contradictorily but simultaneously, in the minds of the common people in all civilized nations. You plead for sentiment. Your paternal feeling is holy and sacred. It is opposed to my idea; but my idea is grand and true; it is as sacred in its passion for combat, as your sentiment in its theory of renunciation and silence. You are following your duty, I am enforcing my right. Bear with me, Magnani, for I respect you, and each of our ideals is incomplete until it is completed by the other."

"Yes, you speak of abstract ideas," rejoined Magnani, thoughtfully, "and I think that I understand you; but in the concrete the question is not solved. The society of the present day is struggling between two reefs, resignation and resistance. Through love for my class I choose to suffer and protest with it. From the same motive, perhaps, you choose to fight and triumph in its name. These two methods of action seem to exclude and condemn each other. Before the divine tribunal which will prevail, sentiment or idea? You say, both. But on earth, where men are not governed by divine laws, how can we possibly make those two extremes harmonize? I seek in vain a means."

"But why seek it?" said Michel; "it does not exist on earth at this moment. The people may free themselves and make themselves famous as a whole by glorious battles, by good morals, by civic virtues, but each individual of the people has his individual destiny; the destiny of the man who feels that he was born to touch hearts is to live on fraternal terms with the simple; of him who feels that his calling is to enlighten men's minds, to seek light, though it be in solitude, though it be among the enemies of his race. The great masters of art worked, from a material standpoint, for wealth, but, from a moral standpoint, for all mankind; for the poorest of the poor can obtain from their works a revelation and appreciation of the beautiful. Let every man follow his inspiration therefore, and bow to the mysterious designs of Providence with respect to him! My father loves to sing rollicking ballads in taverns; he electrifies his companions with them; the stories that he tells sitting on a bench at a street corner, his cheery humor, and his ardor in singing or in the common toil inspire all those who see and hear him. Heaven has endowed him with the power of acting directly, by the simplest means, on the vital fibres of his brethren, zeal in labor, expansiveness in the hours of rest. For my part, I have a liking for solitary temples, sumptuous, dark old palaces, venerable masterpieces, studious reverie, the refined enjoyments of art. The society of patricians has no terrors for me. I consider them too degenerate to be feared; their names have for me a poesy which makes of them mere figures, ghosts, if you choose, and I love to walk smiling among those ghosts who do not frighten me. I love the dead; I live with the past; and from the past I acquire my idea of the future; but I confess that I have but little notion of the present, that the precise moment of my existence has no existence for me, because I am always delving in the past, and pushing all realities forward. In that way I transform them and idealize them. You see that I should not reach the same ends as my father and you, even if I used the same means. It is not in me to do it."

"Michel," said Magnani, striking his forehead, "you have won! I must absolve you and spare you my remonstrances henceforth! But I am suffering, I am suffering terribly! Your words cause me very great pain!"

"How so, my dear Magnani?"

"That is my secret, and yet I tell it to you without betraying its sanctity. Can you possibly suppose that I have not some legitimate ambition, some secret, deep-rooted desire to set myself free from the servitude in which I live? Don't you know that all men have at the bottom of their hearts the desire to be happy? And do you suppose that the consciousness of a joyless duty causes me to wallow in delight?

"Listen and judge of my martyrdom. I have loved madly for five years a woman whose rank in society places her as far above me as heaven is above the earth. Having always considered it impossible that she should ever bestow so much as a compassionate glance upon me, I cultivated a sort of gloomy satisfaction in my suffering, my poverty, my forced nullity among my fellowmen. With a bitter feeling at my heart, I determined not to imitate those who are determined to succeed and who expose themselves to the risk of being scoffed at from above and from below. If I were one of them, I thought, perhaps the day would come when I might gallantly raise to my lips the hand of her whom I adore. But as soon as I opened my mouth to reveal the mystery of my passion, I should undoubtedly be spurned, laughed at, trampled under foot; I prefer to remain lost in the dust of my trade, and never to carry my insane presumption so far as her feet. I prefer that she should continue to believe it impossible that I could ever dream of aspiring to her. At all events, while I wear the livery of the mechanic, she will respect the suffering of which she knows nothing; she will not intensify it by discovering it, by blushing because she inspired it, by deeming it necessary to protect herself from it. Now, she passes me as she passes anything which is of no consequence to her, but which she does not consider that she has the right to spurn and crush. She bows to me, smiles at me, and speaks to me as to a being of a different nature from her own: that instinct is not manifest, but it is in her; I feel it and I understand it. At all events, she does not think of humiliating me, she would not do it; and the less reason I have for priding myself upon the possibility of pleasing her, the less do I fear that she will insult me by her pity. All this would change if I were a painter or a poet, if I could present her with her portrait done by my trembling hand, or with a sonnet indited by me in her honor; she would smile differently, she would speak differently. There would be reserve, mockery, or compassion in her kindness, according as I should have succeeded or failed in my artistic efforts. Oh! how far that would remove me from her, how much lower it would leave me than I now am! I prefer to be the mechanic who renders her a service by selling her the use of his arms, rather than the beginner in art to be patronized as a weakling or pitied as a madman!"

"I approve what you have done," said Michel, who had become pensive in his turn. "I like your pride, and I think that it would be a good example to follow even in my position and with the projects which I entertain, if I were tempted to seek love beyond certain obstacles, which, though absurd, are enormous!"

"Oh! it is very different with you, Michel. The obstacles which would exist between you and a great lady to-day will quickly be surmounted, and, as you yourself have said, the day will come when those women will make advances to you. Those words, which escaped from your heart, seemed to me presumptuous and absurd at first. Now that I understand you they seem perfectly natural and legitimate to me. Yes, you will win the favor of women of the most exalted rank, because you are in the bloom of youth, because your beauty is of a refined and somewhat effeminate type, which gives you a resemblance to the men who are born to a life of idleness; because you are accustomed to fashionable society, because you have the instinct of good manners and seem perfectly at home in the clothes you wear; for all these things, added to genius and success, are essential to induce proud women to overlook the artist's plebeian origin. Yes, you will be able to appear a man in their eyes, while I should disguise myself to no purpose; I should never be anything but a mechanic, and my rough shell would show in spite of me. It is too late for me to begin: I am twenty-six years old! But I thrill with strange emotion when I think that, five years ago, when I was still as pliable as wax, if someone had encouraged and ennobled in my eyes the instincts that were springing to life within me, if someone had spoken to me as you have just done, I might have followed a course not unlike yours, and have started upon a soul-stirring career! My mind was open to the sentiment of the beautiful; I could sing like the nightingale, without understanding my own notes, but with the power of untaught inspiration. I could read, understand, and remember many books; I understood nature, too; I could read in the sky and in the broad expanse of the sea, in the verdure of the forests and the blue-capped mountains. It seems to me that I might have been a musician, or a poet, or a landscape painter. And love was already speaking to my heart; already she had appeared to me from whom I cannot detach my thoughts. What a stimulus for me if I had surrendered to my violent temptations!--But I forced them all back into my heart, fearing to be false to my kindred and friends, fearing to degrade myself in their eyes and my own by seeking to rise. I have inured myself to work; my hands have become callous, and my mind as well. My chest has increased in size, it is true, and my heart has kept pace with it, like a polypus which feeds upon me and absorbs all my vitality; but my brow has retreated, I am sure of it; my imagination has collapsed; poesy is dead within me; I have nothing left except the reasoning power, loyalty, resolution, and self-sacrifice--that is to say, suffering! Ah! Michel, spread your wings and leave this land of sorrows! fly, like a bird, to the domes of palaces and temples, and from that height look down upon this wretched people, grovelling and groaning at your feet. Pity me at least, love me if you can, and never do anything which can lower you in your own eyes."

Magnani was deeply moved; but suddenly his emotion changed its nature; he started, hastily turned his head and put his hand on the branches of a dense clump of rose myrtle, which masked a dark recess in the wall behind him. That curtain of verdure, which he put aside with a convulsive movement, concealed the entrance to a secret passage, which, as it presumably led only to the servants' quarters, was not open to the princess's guests. Michel, surprised at Magnani's movement, glanced into the passage, which was dimly lighted by a dying lamp, the farther end being in total darkness. It seemed to him that he saw a white figure gliding through the shadows, but it was so vague that it was hardly perceptible, and it might have been an illusion caused by the sudden introduction of a brighter light when the bushes were put aside. He was about to enter; but Magnani detained him, saying:

"We have no right to watch what takes place in the reserved portions of this sanctuary. My first curious movement was made without reflection; I thought that I heard a light step close beside me, and--I was dreaming, doubtless!--I fancied that I saw this bush move. But it was an illusion due to the fear that seized upon me at the thought that I was on the point of letting my secret pass my lips. I must leave you, Michel; these outpourings of the heart are dangerous, they upset me; I feel that I must withdraw into myself and give my reason time to allay the tempests raised in my breast by your words and your example."

Magnani hurried away, and Michel returned to the ball. The confession of his young companion, that he was beset by an insane love for a great lady, had reawakened in him an emotion which he thought that he had conquered. He hovered about the dancers, trying to divert his thoughts, for he felt that his folly was as dangerous for the moment as Magnani's. Many years must pass before he could consider that his genius had placed him on the level of the most exalted social ranks; so that he derived an agonizing sort of amusement from watching the youngest of the dancers and dreamily seeking among them one whom he might some day gaze upon with eyes inflamed with love and presumption. Probably he did not discover her, for he transferred his fancy from one to another, and, as one risks nothing by being hard to please in that variety of castles in Spain, he continued to seek, and to discuss with himself the comparative merits of those youthful beauties.

But in the midst of these aberrations of his brain he suddenly saw the Princess of Palmarosa pass. He had been careful hitherto to remain at some distance from the dancing groups, and to keep well out of sight behind the benches of the amphitheatre; now he involuntarily approached; and, although the crowd was not dense enough to justify or conceal his presence, he walked on until he was almost in the front row, among persons each nobler and richer than his neighbor. This time his instinctive pride did not warn him of the perils of his situation. An invincible magnet drew him on and detained him: the princess was dancing.

Doubtless it was for form's sake, to satisfy the proprieties, or from good nature, for she simply walked, and did not seem to take the slightest pleasure in it. But she walked better than the others danced, and, without a thought of striving to be graceful, she displayed every variety of grace. That woman really possessed an extraordinary charm which penetrated like a subtle perfume, and finally dominated or effaced everything about her. One would have said that she was a queen in the midst of her court, in some kingdom where moral and physical perfection reigned.

It was the chastity of the celestial virgins with their omnipotent serenity--a pallor in nowise extreme or sickly--which denoted the absence of intense emotions. People said that the secret of that mysterious life was either systematic abstinence from excitement or extraordinary indifference. And yet her appearance was not that of a lifeless statue. Kindness of heart lent animation to her somewhat absent-minded glance and gave an indescribable sweetness to her faint smile.

In the glare of those countless lights she appeared to Michel an entirely different woman from her he had seen in the grotto an hour earlier, when the peculiar light or his own imagination had made her appear a little terrifying to him. Now her indifference was calm rather than depressed, habitual rather than forced. She had recovered just enough animation to vanquish the heart and leave the passions undisturbed.