Elective Affinities (24 page)

Luciane had heard of this and she at once secretly resolved that when she came to visit that house she would, as it were, perform a miracle and restore the girl to society. She bore herself more circumspectly than usual, managed to gain access to the mentally sick patient and, as far as one could tell, win her confidence by talking about and playing music. But finally she made a mistake, for, because she wanted as always to produce a sensation, she one evening brought the pale beautiful child, whom she thought she had sufficiently prepared, unexpectedly out into a noisy glittering assemblage; and perhaps this too would have been a success had the company itself not behaved ineptly out of curiosity and apprehension, crowding around the invalid and then avoiding her and making her confused and agitated by whispering and putting their heads together. The highly-strung girl could not endure
it. She fled, emitting fearful shrieks that sounded like cries of terror at some approaching demon. The company scattered in alarm and Ottilie was one of those who attended the utterly prostrate girl back to her room.

Luciane had then given the company a stern talking-to, without realizing for a moment that all the guilt in this matter was hers and without letting this failure or other failures deter her from her activities.

The invalid’s condition had grown worse from that time on; indeed, she had become so bad that the poor child’s parents could no longer keep her in the house but had to put her into a public institution. All Charlotte could do was to try to mitigate the pain her daughter had caused that family by treating them with especially tender consideration. On Ottilie the affair had made a profound impression; she was all the more sorry for the poor girl since she was convinced, as she did not deny to Charlotte too, that she could certainly have been cured had she received more consistent treatment.

And because people do discuss past unpleasantness more than they do pleasant events, there was also talk about a little misunderstanding which had arisen between Ottilie and the architect, and had perplexed her about him, on that evening when he had been unwilling to exhibit his collection although she had requested him so politely. This refusal of his had remained fixed in her soul and she herself could not say why. Her feelings were altogether justified, for what a girl like Ottilie is capable of asking for, a young man like the architect ought not to refuse. But the latter, when she now and then gently reproached him, made fairly acceptable excuses for his behaviour.

‘If you knew,’ he said, ‘how roughly even cultivated people treat works of art you would forgive me if I am disinclined to bring mine out in a crowd. No one seems to know he should take a medallion by the edges. They all finger the
most beautiful impressions and the cleanest backgrounds, and pass the most valuable pieces around between forefinger and thumb, as if this were the way to examine artistic objects. Without thinking that a large sheet of paper has to be held with two hands, they reach out with one hand for some invaluable copperplate, some irreplaceable drawing, like some pothouse politician taking hold of a newspaper and by the way he crumples it publishing in advance his judgement on the events of the day. It seems not to occur to anyone that if twenty people handle a work of art like that one after another there will not be very much left for the twenty-first to see.’

‘Haven’t I too sometimes embarrassed you in that way?’ Ottilie asked. ‘Haven’t I occasionally harmed your treasures without realizing it?’

‘Never,’ the architect replied, ‘never! You could not do it, it would be impossible for you to do it: good-breeding and propriety are inborn in you.’

‘Be that as it may,’ Ottilie replied, ‘it would not be a bad idea in future to insert in books of etiquette, after the chapters on how to eat and drink in company, a detailed chapter on how to treat art collections and behave in museums.’

‘Custodians and art lovers would then certainly be happier to show their rareties,’ said the architect.

Ottilie had long since forgiven him, but as he seemed to have taken the reproach very much to heart and continued to assure her he really did like showing his collection and was glad to put himself out for his friends, she realized she had hurt his tender susceptibilities and felt a sense of guilt towards him; so that she could not very well directly refuse a request he made her as a consequence of this conversation, although, when she consulted her feelings on the matter, she could not see how she could grant it.

It was like this. He had been extremely hurt that Luciane’s jealousy had excluded Ottilie from the picture tableaux; he
had also noticed with regret that Charlotte had been able to attend this most splendid part of the social entertainment only now and then, because she had not been feeling well: now he did not want to leave them without expressing his gratitude by organizing to the honour of the one and for the entertainment of the other a far finer representation than the previous ones had been. Perhaps there was another secret motive too, of which he was unconscious: he found it very hard to leave this house and this family, indeed it seemed to him impossible he could ever tear himself away from Ottilie’s eyes, for during recent weeks he had virtually lived on their quiet friendly glance.

Christmas was approaching and he suddenly realized that the art of representing pictures by three-dimensional figures had actually originated in the so-called Crib, in the pious representation devoted, during this holy season, to the divine mother and child, and showing how, in their apparent lowliness, they are worshipped firstly by shepherds and then by kings.

He had perfectly visualized how such a picture might be made. He had found a fine healthy boy baby, there would be no shortage of shepherds and shepherdesses, but the thing could not be brought to fruition without Ottilie. The young man had elevated her in his mind to the role of the Mother of God, and if she were to refuse there was, so far as he was concerned, no question but that the undertaking would have to be dropped. Ottilie, half embarrassed by his proposal, referred him to Charlotte. The latter gladly gave him permission and also managed to persuade Ottilie out of her reluctance to assume that sacred figure. The architect laboured day and night so that on Christmas Eve nothing should be lacking.

And day and night it literally was. He had in any case few needs, and Ottilie’s presence seemed to serve him in place of all other refreshment: working for her sake, it was as if he
needed neither sleep nor food. So that when the solemn evening came all was finished and ready. It had proved possible to assemble a group of wind instruments to play an overture and evoke the desired atmosphere. When the curtain went up Charlotte was genuinely surprised. The picture represented before her had been repeated so often that no new impression was to be expected from it. But in this case there were particular advantages in presenting actuality in the form of a picture. The whole room was closer to night than twilight and yet individual details were not obscure. The incomparable idea of having all the light proceed from the child had been realized by the artist through an ingenious lighting device concealed by the shadowed figures in the foreground, which were illumined only by sidelights. Happy girls and boys were disposed around the scene, their youthful faces sharply illumined from below. And there were angels too, and the light that proceeded from them seemed to be darkened by the divine light and their ethereal bodies seemed heavy and opaque compared with the human-divine body.

Happily the child had fallen asleep in the most charming posture, so that there was no distraction when your glance dwelt on the mother, who had with boundless charm raised part of the child’s bands to reveal the treasure hidden within them. It was at this moment that the picture appeared to have been caught and fixed. Dazzled and surprised, the people standing round seemed just to have turned away their eyes and to be in the act of looking back again in happy curiosity, their expressions showing more of amazement and pleasure than admiration and reverence, although these had not been forgotten and their expression had been assigned to a number of older figures.

But Ottilie’s figure, gestures, expression and eyes surpassed anything ever depicted by a painter. The sensitive connoisseur, seeing this vision, would have trembled lest anything move, and he would have doubted whether anything could
ever again please him so well. Unhappily there was no one present capable of appreciating this effect to the full. Only the architect, who as a tall slim shepherd looked from the side over the heads of those who were kneeling, derived full pleasure from it, although he was not in the best position to see it. And who could describe the expression worn by the new-made Queen of Heaven? The purest humility, the loveliest sense of humbleness before a great undeserved honour, an incomprehensible immeasurable happiness, suffused her features, expressing what she herself felt as well as her conception of the role she was playing.

Charlotte was delighted with the lovely picture, but what affected her most was the child. Tears streamed from her eyes and there came vividly into her mind how she hoped soon to be holding a similar dear creature in her arms.

The curtain had been lowered, in part to give the performers some relief, in part to allow a change of scene. The artist had intended to transform the first picture of night and lowliness into one of daylight and glory, and to that end had set up on all sides a vast increase in lighting, which was being lit during this interval.

Ottilie had until then been greatly relieved that, apart from Charlotte and one or two other members of the household, no one had witnessed this pious mummery. She was therefore somewhat taken aback to hear, during the interval, that a stranger had arrived and that Charlotte had welcomed him into the hall. No one could tell her who he was. She wanted to cause no disturbance, so she raised no objection. Lights and lamps were burning and a boundless brightness surrounded her. The curtain went up and presented the audience with a surprising view: the scene was all light, and in place of the now abolished shadows there remained only colours which, by being skilfully selected, produced a moderating influence on the light. From beneath her long eyelashes Ottilie saw a man sitting next to Charlotte. She could not make out who
it was, but she thought she recognized the voice of the young schoolmaster from the boarding-school. A strange feeling took possession of her. How much had happened since she had last heard that voice! The succession of joys and sorrows she had experienced passed like lightning through her soul and awoke in her the question whether she dared admit and confess it all to him. ‘And how little worthy you are to appear before him in this sacred form,’ she thought. ‘And how strange it must be for him to see you thus disguised.’ With a celerity with which nothing else can be compared, feeling and thought reacted one against the other within her. Her heart beat fast and her eyes filled with tears, while she strove to stay as still as a statue; and how glad she was when the boy began to stir and the artist found himself under the necessity of signalling for the curtain to be lowered.

If the painful feeling of not being able to hurry to greet a worthy friend had been added during these last moments to Ottilie’s other sensations, she now found herself in an even more embarrassing predicament. Should she go to meet him in this strange costume and attire? Ought she to change? She did not hesitate, she did the latter, and in the meantime tried to collect and calm herself, and she succeeded in regaining her composure only when she was at last able to greet the new arrival in her ordinary clothes.

CHAPTER SEVEN

S
INCE
the architect had the best interests of his patronesses at heart, it was pleasant for him, now he at last had to leave, to know they were in the good company of the estimable schoolmaster; yet, since he was also interested in retaining their favour himself, he found it a little painful to see himself so soon and, as his modesty would have it seem, so well, indeed so completely replaced. Hitherto he had procrastinated, now he was eager to be gone: for what he would have to put up with after he had left he at least did not want to have to endure while he was still there.

In order to cheer him a little, the ladies made him a farewell gift of a waistcoat; he had long seen them both at work knitting it and had felt a silent envy of the unknown fortunate man for whom it was intended. Such a present is the pleasantest an affectionate man can receive: for when he thinks of the tireless play of the lovely fingers that made it he cannot help flattering himself that in so long drawn out a labour the heart too cannot have been altogether indifferent.

The women now had a new man to look after towards whom they felt well-disposed and who they wanted to feel comfortable while he was with them. The female sex inwardly cherishes its own unalterable interest from which nothing in the world can sunder it; in external social affairs, on the other hand, it is happy to let itself be easily swayed by the man of the moment, and thus, by what it accepts and what it rejects, by obstinacy and complaisance, it is really the female sex which directs the regime from which no man in the polite world dares to withdraw.

If the architect had exercised his talents for the entertainment and profit of the ladies more or less as he pleased, and
the business and entertainment of the household had been conducted from this point of view, the presence of the schoolmaster very soon brought about a change in their mode of life. His great gift was to speak well and to discourse on human affairs, particularly the education of the young. And thus there developed a new way of living perceptibly different from the old, and it was the more different in that the schoolmaster did not altogether approve of what they had previously been exclusively engaged in.

Of the
tableau vivant
which had greeted him on his arrival he said nothing. But when he was complacently shown the church and the chapel and the things pertaining to them, he was unable to refrain from voicing his opinion. ‘So far as I am concerned,’ he said, ‘I do not in the least like this assimilation of the sacred and the sensual, this compounding of them together. Nor do I like it that certain particular rooms have to be set aside, consecrated and adorned for the preservation and enjoyment of pious feelings. The sense of the divine ought to be accessible to us everywhere, even in the most commonplace surroundings; it can accompany us wherever we are and hallow every place into a temple. I like to see family prayers conducted in the room where the family usually eats and assembles for social occasions and dancing. The highest excellence in man is without form and one should beware of giving it any form other than that of the noble deed.’