Читать книгу Leone Leoni - George Sand - Страница 7

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I was the sort of person I have described, and sixteen years old, when Leoni came to Brussels. The first time I saw him was at the theatre. I was with my mother in a box near the balcony, where he sat with several of the richest and most fashionable young men in the city. My mother called my attention to him. She was constantly lying in wait for a husband for me, and always looked for him among the men with the finest figures and the most gorgeous clothes; those two points were everything in her eyes. Birth and fortune attracted her only as accessories of things that she considered much more important—dress and manners. A man of superior mind in a simple coat would have inspired nothing but contempt in her. Her future son-in-law must have cuffs of a certain style, an irreproachable cravat, an exquisite figure, a pretty face, coats made in Paris, and a stock of that meaningless twaddle which makes a man fascinating in society.

As for myself, I made no comparison between one man and another. I blindly entrusted the selection to my parents, and I neither dreaded nor shrank from marriage.

My mother considered Leoni fascinating. It is true that his face is wonderfully beautiful, and that he has the secret of being graceful, animated and perfectly at ease with his dandified clothes and manners. But I felt none of those romantic emotions which give to ardent hearts a foretaste of their destiny. I glanced at him for a moment in obedience to my mother, and should not have looked at him a second time, had she not forced me to do so by her constant exclamations and by her manifest curiosity to know his name. A young man of our acquaintance, whom she summoned in order to question him, informed her that he was a noble Venetian, a friend of one of the leading merchants of the city, that he seemed to have an enormous fortune, and that his name was Leone Leoni.

My mother was delighted with this information. The merchant who was Leoni's friend was to give a party the very next day, to which we were invited. Frivolous and credulous as she was, it was enough for her to have learned vaguely that Leoni was rich and noble, to induce her to cast her eyes upon him instantly. She spoke to me about him the same evening, and urged me to be pretty the next day. I smiled and went to sleep at precisely the same hour as on other nights, without the slightest acceleration of my heart beats at the thought of Leoni. I had become accustomed to listen without emotion to the formation of such projects. My mother declared that I was so sensible that they were not called upon to treat me like a child. The poor woman did not realize that she herself was much more of a child than I.

She dressed me with so much care and magnificence that I was proclaimed queen of the ball; but at first the time seemed to have been wasted: Leoni did not appear, and my mother thought that he had already left Brussels. Incapable of controlling her impatience, she asked the master of the house what had become of his Venetian.

"Ah!" said Monsieur Delpech, "you have noticed my Venetian already, have you?"—He glanced with a smile at my costume, and understood.—"He's an attractive youngster," he said, "of noble birth, and very much in fashion both in Paris and London; but it is my duty to inform you that he is a terrible gambler, and that the reason that you don't see him here is that he prefers the cards to the loveliest women."

"A gambler!" said my mother; "that's very bad."

"Oh! that depends," rejoined Monsieur Delpech. "When one has the means, you know!"

"To be sure!" said my mother; and that remark satisfied her. She worried no more about Leoni's passion for gambling.

A few seconds after this brief interview, Leoni appeared in the salon where we were dancing. I saw Monsieur Delpech whisper to him and glance at me, and Leoni's eyes wander uncertainly about me, until, guided by his friend's directions, he discovered me in the crowd and walked nearer to see me more distinctly. I realized at that moment that my rôle as a marriageable maiden was somewhat absurd; for there was a touch of irony in the admiration of his glance, and, for the first time in my life perhaps, I blushed and had a feeling of shame.

This shame became a sort of dull pain when I saw that Leoni had returned to the card room after a few moments. It seemed to me that I was laughed at and disdained, and I was vexed with my mother on that account. That had never happened before and she was amazed at the ill-humor I displayed toward her.—"Well, well," she said to me, with a little irritation on her side, "I don't know what the matter is with you, but you are turning homely. Let us go."

She had already risen when Leoni hurriedly crossed the room and invited her to waltz; that unhoped-for incident restored all her good-humor; she laughingly tossed me her fan and disappeared with him in the whirl.

As she was passionately fond of dancing, we were always accompanied to balls by an old aunt, my father's older sister, who acted as my chaperon when I was not invited to dance at the same time as my mother. Mademoiselle Agathe—that was what we called my aunt—was an old maid of a cold and even disposition. She had more common-sense than the rest of the family, but she was not exempt from the tendency to vanity, which is the reef upon which all parvenus go to pieces. Although she cut a very melancholy figure at a ball, she never complained of the necessity of accompanying us; it was an opportunity for her to display in her old age some very beautiful gowns which she had never had the means to procure in her youth. She set great store by money therefore; but she was not equally accessible to all the seductions of society. She had a hatred of long standing for the nobles, and she never lost an opportunity to decry them and turn them to ridicule, which she did with much wit.

Shrewd and penetrating, accustomed to inaction and to keeping close watch on the actions of other people, she had understood the cause of my little fit of spleen. My mother's effusive chatter had apprised her of her views concerning Leoni, and the Venetian's face, amiable and proud and sneering, all at once, disclosed to her many things that my mother did not understand.

"Look, Juliette," she said, leaning toward me, "there's a great nobleman making sport of us."

I felt a painful thrill. What my aunt said corresponded with my forebodings. It was the first time that I had seen contempt for our bourgeoisie plainly written on a man's face. I had been brought up to laugh at the contempt which the women hardly concealed from us, and to look upon it as an indication of envy; but hitherto our beauty had preserved us from the disdain of the men, and I thought that Leoni was the most insolent creature that ever lived. I had a horror of him, and when, after bringing my mother back to her seat, he invited me for the following contradance, I haughtily declined. His face expressed such amazement that I understood how confidently he reckoned upon a warm reception. My pride triumphed and I sat down beside my mother, declaring that I was tired. Leoni left us, bowing low after the Italian manner, and bestowing upon me a curious glance in which there was a touch of his characteristic mockery.

My mother, amazed at my action, began to fear that I might be capable of having a will of my own. She talked to me gently, hoping that in a short time I would consent to dance, and that Leoni would ask me again, but I persisted in remaining in my seat. An hour or more later we heard Leoni's name several times amid the confused murmuring of the ball; some one passing near us said that he had lost six hundred louis.

"Very fine!" said my aunt dryly; "he will do well to look out for some nice girl with a handsome dowry."

"Oh! he doesn't need to do that," somebody else replied, "he is so rich!"

"Look," said a third, "there he is dancing; he doesn't look very anxious."

Leoni was dancing, in fact, and his features did not display the slightest concern. He accosted us again, paid my mother some insipid compliments with the facility of a man in the best society, and then tried to make me speak by putting questions to me indirectly. I maintained an obstinate silence and he walked away with an indifferent air. My mother was in despair and took me home.

For the first time she scolded me and I sulked. My aunt upheld me and declared that Leoni was an impertinent fellow and a scoundrel. My mother, who had never been opposed to such a point, began to weep, and I did the same.

By such petty agitations did the coming of Leoni, and the unhappy destiny that he brought, begin to disturb the profound peace in which I had always lived. I will not tell you with so much detail what happened on the following days. I do not remember so well, and the insatiable passion that I conceived for him always seems to me like a strange dream which no effort of my reason can reduce to order. This much is certain, that Leoni was visibly piqued, surprised and disconcerted by my coldness, and that he began at once to treat me with a respect which satisfied my wounded pride. I saw him every day at parties or out walking, and my aversion to him speedily vanished before the extraordinary civilities and humble attentions with which he overwhelmed me. In vain did my aunt try to put me on my guard against the arrogance of which she accused him. I was no longer capable of feeling insulted by his manners or his words; even his face had lost that suggestion of sarcasm which had offended me at first. His glance acquired from day to day an indescribable gentleness and affectionateness. He seemed to think of nothing but me; he even sacrificed his taste for card-playing, and passed whole nights dancing with my mother and me or talking with us. He was soon invited to call at our house. I dreaded his call a little. My aunt prophesied that he would find in our home a thousand subjects of ridicule which he would pretend not to notice but which would furnish him with material for joking with his friends. He came, and, to cap the climax, my father, who was standing at his shop-door, brought him into the house that way. That house, which belonged to us, was very handsome, and my mother had had it decorated with exquisite taste; but my father, who took no pleasure in anything outside of his business, was unwilling to transfer to any other building his cases of pearls and diamonds. That curtain of sparkling jewels behind the glass panels which guarded it was a magnificent spectacle, and my father said truly enough that there could be no more splendid decoration for a ground-floor. My mother, who had had hitherto only transitory flashes of ambition to be allied to the nobility, had never been humiliated to see her name carved in huge letters just below the balcony of her bedroom. But when, from that balcony, she saw Leoni cross the threshold of the fatal shop, she thought that we were lost and looked anxiously at me.