"How plain is this paganism," he said. "Seeing them, we cannot but think of their deep feather beds, the savoury omelettes made of new-laid eggs served at mid-day, and followed by juicy beefsteaks cooked in the best b.u.t.ter. Those villas are not only typical of Pa.s.sy, but of France; their excellent life ascends from the peasant's cottage; they are the result of agriculture, which is the original loveliness. All that springs from agriculture must be beautiful, just as all that springs from commerce must be vile. Manchester is the ugliest place on the earth, and the money of every individual cotton spinner serves to multiply the original ugliness--the house he builds, the pictures he buys. Isn't that so?"

"I can't say, dear; I have never been to Manchester. But how can you think of such things?"

"Don't you like those villas? I love them, and their comfort is secure; its root is in the earth, the only thing we are sure of. There is more pagan of life and sentiment in France than elsewhere. Would you not like to have a Pa.s.sy villa? Would you not like to live here?"

"One of these days I may buy one, then you shall come to breakfast, and I'll give you an omelette and a beefsteak. For the present, I shall have to put up with something less expensive. I must be near my music lessons. Thanks all the same, dearest."

She sought a reason for the expression of thoughtfulness which had suddenly come over his face.

"I don't know how it is, but I never see Paris without thinking of Balzac. You don't know Balzac; one of these days you must read him. The moment I begin to notice Paris, I think, feel, see and speak Balzac.

That dark woman yonder, with her scornful face, fills my mind with Balzacian phrases--the celebrated courtesan, celebrated for her diamonds and her vices, and so on. The little woman in the next carriage, the Princess de Saxeville, would delight him. He would devote an entire page to the description of her coat of arms--three azure panels, and so on.

And I should read it, for Balzac made all the world beautiful, even sn.o.bbery. All interesting people are Balzacians. The moment I know that a man is an admirer of Balzac, a sort of Freemasonry is established between us, and I am interested in him, as I should be in a man who had loved a woman whom I had loved."

"But I shouldn't like a woman because I knew that you had loved her."

"You are a woman; but men who have loved the same woman will seek each other from the ends of the earth, and will take an intense pleasure in their recollections. I don't know whether that aphorism is to be found in Balzac; if not, it is an accident that prevented him from writing it, for it is quite Balzacian--only he would give it a turn, an air of philosophic distinction to which it would be useless for me to pretend."

"I wonder if I should like him. Tell me about him."

"You would be more likely than most women to appreciate him. Supposing you put the matter to the test. You would not accept these horses, maybe you will not refuse a humbler present--an edition of Balzac. There's a very good one in fifty-two volumes."

"So many as that?"

"Yes; and not one too many--each is a masterpiece. In this enormous work there are something like two thousand characters, and these appear in some books in princ.i.p.al, in other books in subordinate, parts. Balzac speaks of them as we should of real people. A young lady is going to the opera and to a ball afterwards, and he says--

"'It is easy to imagine her delight and expectation, for was she not going to meet the delicious d.u.c.h.esse de la Maufregneuse, and her friend the celebrated Madame d'Espard, Coralis, Lucien de Rubempre and Rastignac.'

"These people are only mentioned in the _Memoires de deux jeunes Mariees_. But they are heroes and heroines in other books, in _Les Secrets de la Princesse de Cadignan, Le Pere Goriot_, and _Les Illusions Perdues_." Before you even begin to know Balzac, you must have read at least twenty volumes. There is a vulgarity about those who don't know Balzac; we, his worshippers, recognise in each other a refinement of sense and a peculiar comprehension of life. We are beings apart; we are branded with the seal of that great mind. You should hear us talk among ourselves. Everyone knows that Popinot is the sublime hero of _L'Interdiction_, but for the moment some feeble Balzacian does not remember the other books he appears in, and is ashamed to ask.... But I'm boring you."

"No, no; I love to listen. It is more interesting than any play."

Owen looked at her questioningly, as if he doubted the flattery, which, at the bottom of his heart, he knew to be quite sincere.

"You cannot understand Paris until you have read Balzac. Balzac discovered Paris; he created Paris. You remember just now what I said of those villas? I was thinking at the moment of Balzac. For he begins one story by a reading of the human characteristics to be perceived in its streets. He says that there are mean streets, and streets that are merely honest; there are young streets about whose morality the public has not yet formed any opinion; there are murderous streets--streets older than the oldest hags; streets that we may esteem--clean streets, work-a-day streets and commercial streets. Some streets, he says, begin well and end badly. The Rue Montmartre, for instance, has a fine head, but it ends in the tail of a fish. How good that is. You don't know the Rue Montmartre? I'll point it out next time we're that way. But you know the Rue de la Paix?"

"Yes; what does that mean?"

"The Rue de la Paix, he says, is a large street, and a grand street, but it certainly doesn't awaken the gracious and n.o.ble thoughts that the Rue Royale suggests to every sensitive mind; nor has it the dignity of the Place Vendome. The Place de la Bourse, he says, is in the daytime babble and prost.i.tution, but at night it is beautiful. At two o'clock in the morning, by moonlight, it is a dream of old Greece."

"I don't see much in that. What you said about the villas was quite as good."

Fearing that the conversation lacked a familiar and personal interest, he sought a transition, an idea by which he could connect it with Evelyn herself. With this object he called her attention to two young men who, he pretended, reminded him of Rastignac and Morny. That woman in the mail phaeton was an incipient Madame Marneffe; that dark woman now looking at them with ardent, amorous eyes might be an Esther.

"We're all creatures of Balzac's imagination. You," he said, turning a little so that he might see her better, "are intensely Balzacian."

"Do I remind you of one of his characters?" Evelyn became more keenly interested. "Which one?"

"You are more like a character he might have painted than anyone I can think of in the Human Comedy. He certainly would have been interested in your temperament. But I can't think which of his women is like you. You are more like the adorable Lucien; that is to say, up to the present."

"Who was Lucien?"

"He was the young poet whom all Paris fell in love with. He came up to Paris with a married woman; I think they came from Angouleme. I haven't read _Lost Illusions_ for twenty years. She and he were the stars in the society of some provincial town, but when they arrived in Paris each thought the other very common and countrified. He compares her with Madame d'Espard; she compares him with Rastignac; Balzac completes the picture with a touch of pure genius--'They forgot that six months would transform them both into exquisite Parisians.' How good that is, what wonderful insight into life!"

"And do they become Parisians?"

"Yes, and then they both regret that they broke off--"

"Could they not begin it again?"

"No; it is rarely that a _liaison_ can be begun again--life is too hurried. We may not go back; the past may never become the present--ghosts come between."

"Then if I broke it off with you, or you broke it off with me, it would be for ever?"

"Do not let us discuss such unpleasant possibilities;" and he continued to search the _Human Comedy_ for a woman resembling Evelyn. "You are essentially Balzacian--all interesting things are--but I cannot remember any woman in the _Human Comedy_ like you--Honorine, perhaps."

"What does she do?"

"She's a married woman who has left her husband for a lover who very soon deserts her. Her husband tries in vain to love other women, but his wife holds his affections and he makes every effort to win her back.

The story is mainly an account of these efforts."

"Does he succeed?"

"Yes. Honorine goes back to her husband, but it cost her her life. She cannot live with a man she doesn't love. That is the point of the story."

"I wonder why that should remind you of me?"

"There is something delicate, rare, and mystical about you both. But I can't say I place _Honorine_ very high among Balzac's works. There are beautiful touches in it, but I think he failed to realise the type. You are more virile, more real to me than Honorine. No; on the whole, Balzac has not done you. He perceived you dimly. If he had lived it might, it certainly would, have been otherwise. There is, of course, the d.u.c.h.esse Langeais. There is something of you in her; but she is no more than a brilliant sketch, no better than Honorine. There is Eugene Grandet. But no; Balzac never painted your portrait."

Like all good talkers, he knew how to delude his listeners into the belief that they were taking an important part in the conversation. He allowed them to speak, he solicited their opinions, and listened as if they awakened the keenest interest in him; he developed what they had vaguely suggested. He paused before their remarks, he tempted his listener into personal appreciations and sudden revelations of character. He addressed an intimate vanity and became the inspiration of every choice, and in a mysterious reticulation of emotions, tastes and ideas, life itself seemed to converge to his ultimate authority. And having induced recognition of the wisdom of his wishes, he knew how to make his yoke agreeable to bear; it never galled the back that bore it, it lay upon it soft as a silken gown. Evelyn enjoyed the gentle imposition of his will. Obedience became a delight, and in its intellectual sloth life floated as in an opium dream without end, dissolving as the sunset dissolves in various modulations. Obedience is a divine sensualism; it is the sensualism of the saints; its la.s.situdes are animated with deep pauses and thrills of love and worship. We lift our eyes, and a great joy fills our hearts, and we sink away into blisses of remote consciousness. The delights of obedience are the highest felicities of love, and these Evelyn had begun to experience.

She had ascended already into this happy nowhere. She was aware of him, and a little of the brilliant goal whither he was leading her. She was the instrument, he was the hand that played upon it, and all that had happened from hour to hour in their mutual existence revealed in some new and unexpected way his mastery over life. She had seen great ladies bowing to him, smiling upon him in a way that told their intention to get him away from her. She had heard sc.r.a.ps of his conversation with the French and English n.o.blemen who had stopped to speak to him; and now, as Owen was getting into the victoria, after a brief visit to some great lady who had sent her footman to fetch him, a man, who looked to Evelyn like a sort of superior groom, came breathless to their carriage. He had only just heard that Owen was on the course. He was the great English trainer from Chantilly, and had tried Armide II. to win with a stone more on his back than he had to carry.

"That is the horse," and Owen pointed to a big chestnut. "The third horse--orange and white sleeves, black cap ... they are going now for the preliminary canter. We shall have just time to back him. There is a Pari Mutuel a little way down the course; or shall we back the horse in the ring? No, it is too late to get across the course. The Pari Mutuel will do. Isn't the racecourse like an English lawn, like an overgrown croquet ground? and the horses go round by these plantations."

It was not fashionable, he admitted, for a lady to leave her carriage, but no one knew her. It did not matter, and the spectacle amused her.

But there was only time to catch a glimpse of beautiful toilettes, actresses and princesses, and the young men standing on the steps of the carriages. Owen whispered the names of the most celebrated, and told her she should know them when she was on the stage. At present it would be better for her to live quietly--unknown; her lessons would take all her time. He talked as he hastened her towards where a crowd had collected.

She saw what looked like a small omnibus, with a man distributing tickets. Owen took five louis out of her purse and handed them to the man, who in return handed her a ticket. They would see the race better from their carriage, but it was pleasanter to stroll about the warm gra.s.s and admire the little woods which surrounded this elegant pleasure-ground, the white painted stands with all their flags flying on the blue summer air, the glitter of the carriages, the colour of the parasols, the bright jackets and caps of the jockeys, the rhythmical movement of the horses. Some sailed along with their heads low, others bounded, their heads high in the air. While Owen watched Evelyn's pleasure, his face expressed a cynical good humour. He was glad she was pleased, and he was flattered that he was influencing her. No longer was she wasting her life, the one life which she had to live. He was proud of his disciple, and he delighted in her astonishment, when, having made sure that Armide II. had won, he led her back to the Pari Mutuel, and, bidding her hold out her hands, saw that forty louis were poured into them.

Then Evelyn could not believe that she was in her waking senses, and it took some time to explain to her how she had won so much money; and when she asked why all the poor people did not come and do likewise, since it was so easy, Owen said that he had had more sport seeing her win five and thirty louis than he had when he won the gold cup at Ascot. It almost inclined him to go in for racing again. Evelyn could not understand the circ.u.mstance and, still explaining the odds, he told the coachman that they would not wait for the last race. He had tied her forty louis into her pocket-handkerchief, and feeling the weight of the gold in her hand she leant back in the victoria, lost in the bright, penetrating happiness of that summer evening. Paris, graceful and indolent--Paris returning through a whirl of wheels, through pleasure-grounds, green swards and long, shining roads--instilled a fever of desire into the blood, and the soul cried that life should be made wholly of such light distraction.

The wistful light seemed to breathe all vulgarity from the procession of pleasure-seekers returning from the races. An aspect of vision stole over the scene. Owen pointed to the group of pines by the lake's edge, to the gondola-like boat moving through the pink stillness; and the cloud in the water, he said, was more beautiful than the cloud in heaven. He spoke of the tea-house on the island, of the shade of the trees, of the lush gra.s.s, of the chatter of the nursemaids and ducks. He proposed, and she accepted, that they should go there to-morrow. The secret of their lips floated into their eyes, its echoes drifted through their souls like a faint strain played on violins; and neither spoke for fear of losing one of the faint vibrations. Evelyn settled her embroidered gown over her feet as the carriage swept around the Arc de Triomphe.

"That is our rose garden," he said, pointing to Paris, which lay below them glittering in the evening light, "You remember that I used to read you Omar?"

"Yes, I remember. Not three days ago, yet it seems far away."

"But you do not regret--you would not go back?"

"I could not if I would."