LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 291, 18 May 1875, Page 3

LITERATURE.

ROMANCE IN A PARIS PENSION.

Pabt I. (Continued.)

'So delighted to see you, cherie. Welcome to la belle France ! Let me introduce you to two of my friends who are staying at the boarding-house—both Englishmen—Mr Morris and Mr Blake.' We all shake hands.

'Mr Morris is evidently the genius,'l mentally ejaculate ; he looks helpless, bewildered, and inspired ; he wears a velveteen coat quite clean, and his wideawake is guiltless of holes; he is rather handsome, very dark, just a dash of the demon about him. Mr Blake is a contrast—a short, spruce, dapper little figure, dressed most carefully, quite un petit maitre, he has a lovely white flower in his button-hole, and looks as if he had just stepped out of a bandbox.

I confide my keys to him, and he politely goes off and looks after my luggage, which has to undergo the process of being examined. ' Now, Mr Morris, won't you go and get us a voiture?' says Olga, in her sweet, foreign accent. 'I do wonder if he will be able to do that; for of course you have guessed that he is the genius, always up in the heights—a great deal of power about him, but not much practicality.' But Olga's remarks are cut short by the reappearance of Mr Blake, followed by a porter carrying my trunk. ' The fiacre is waiting. What a wonder that it is not a hearse !' exclaims Mr Blake, with a shrug of compassion. ' I did not think Morris could discern one vehicle from another.'

The trunk is placed on the roof; my innumerable parcels fill up nearly the cab, Olga and I squeeze into a corner, and the two men bid us good evening. Off we rattle through the brilliant streets. It is a lovely evening in May, the trees are clothed in delicate young green, the stars are just beginning to shine, the shops are beautifully lit, the streets are crowded. How poetical Paris looks from the Place de la Concorde on to the bridge ! The towers of Nortre Dame and of St Jacques la Boucherie, standing there like guardian angels protecting the beloved city. The dismal prison of the Conciergerie, the ruins of the Tuileries, lend a solemnity to the scene. The Seine is twinkling with many lights, the bathinghouses are slightly lit up, giving it a weird appearance. A few dark barges are gliding warily by, like dreary, troubled spirits. The equestrian statue of Henri Quatre looks well in the evening light—the gay monarch there in effigy watching over his dear Paris, At last the cab stops. Olga rings a bell; the door is opened by a neat bonne in a very ,white cap and apron, holding a brass candlestick. The bonne ushers us into a large sitting room furnished with crimson curtains, chairs, &c, gilt clock and ornaments on the mantle-piece ; and the floor is so highly waxed that it is almost impossible to walk without slipping. A tiny lady in a black silk comes forward. " This is my friend, Miss Louisa Larcom," says Olga in Freeh. Madame Dupont makes a graceful reverence, is enchanted to see me, inquires after my journey, and says that she will send me up ait the in my room. Olga says that I shall have tea with her in her own sitting room. So bidding the little lady good-night, we go up-stairs to Olga's apartment. 1 What a lovely sanctum sanctorum !' I exclaim ; and certainly it is a charming room worth describing. The furniture is of bright blue damask silk, white lace curtains, and the fond of the carpet is white, with wreaths of roses entwined with blue ribbon. A bookcase of carved oak filled with beautifullybound books. On all sides are statuettes of Dresden china. A Venus de Milo and a Venus de Medici, in bronze, mount guard on each side of the bookcase. A fine Erard piano stands in the middle of the room. On a rosewood easel is a study of a head in black and white, just begun. Out of this room is a small bedroom, with a pretty bed and toilette, all white. Engravings of Ary Scheffer's famous pictures—of Les deux Mignons, Ste. -Monique, and Ste-Augustin, decorate the walls, besides photographs of nearly all the great masterpieces in art. "This is your room, leading out of mine," says Olga, opening a door. "Of course yours is not so beautiful as mine, for mine is furnished out of my pocket, and yours is Madame Dupont's taste. Still it is pretty and cosy, furnished in pink perse. You have everything couleur de rose, and I am all in the blues. Still lam not going to exchange. Now take off your things, and let us make ourselves comfortable. I love luxury, ease, comfort. "

So saying, she takes off her walking-dress and puts on a delicious grey, soft cashmere dressing-gown, puts her tiny feet into lovely velvet slippers, and throws herself into a large arm chair, forces me down into another, and rings the bell for tea. How pretty she looks now, as she indolently reclines back. She is small; her figure is round, supple, graceful; her skin is clear and white; her hair, golden and wavy, is plated round "her small well, shaped head; her eyes are very dark and soft, but there is often a twinkle of mischief in them ; her mouth is lovely and surrounded by dimples. "What a luxurious creature! what an epicure you are, Olga !" I exclaim, half enviously, thinking of all the gifts and good things she had. ' How thoroughly happy you ought to be ! You have everything you want—beauty, wealth, talent, liberty, youth. You have indeed too much of the good things of this world, you spoilt child of fortune!'

' Yes, I ought to be very happy,' she slowly answers, with rather a sad smile ; ' and it may seem strange and ungrateful on my part to say that I am not so. Happiness is within ourselves, and not derived entirely from outward circumstances. At times I feel quite happy ; at others I am low and depressed. lam lonely, for I have no one belonging to me alive. When I feel very low I rush off to Madame Latour, and her influence, the feeling of her genius, seems to put new life into me; but there is a void within me. Ido net care for people generally, so that I now live but for myself.'

A knock at the door : the bonne comes in with a tray full of good things, which she deposits on a table close by, inquires if we require her services, and then retires. ' But, Olga, you are sure to be loved by some one worthy of you ; you are so young —only two-and-twenty.' ' Yes, that is my age ; still, at times I feel middle-aged, for 1 have had great experience

of life. Of course I have inspired love, and have tasted the bitterness of it, with little of its sweets !'

'Yon amaze me!' I exclaim. 'You, so admired, so recherche, to talk like this ! you, who seem such a sunbeam, such a butterfly, is it possible that you have cause for talking so ? The bitterness of love ! you almost make me laugh. It seems so incongruous for such urn en/ante gate to talk thus.'

' Well, then, I shall give you a few details about my past life, and then you will see if all is gold that glitters, and if I have not reason at times to be a little triste. But before I tell you my unfortunate love affair, ' let us eat, drink, and be merry.' This is Russian tea—a treat for you.' How charming she looks, as she gracefully pours out the delicious beverage from a small silver teapot into our two cups ! I cannot imagine how so fascinating a girl can ever have had a love disappointment. Her movements, as she rushes about the room, remind me of those of a pet kitten—soft, purring, graceful; the small head iB well placed on the sloping shoulders the eyes are so luminous, the light hair looks like an aureole of glory, shedding light around it. Olga has a wonderful inner smile—a smile that Leonardo da Vinci alone could have rendered, and which he has so inimitablj painted in that famous portrait, 'La Joaonde,' or 'Mona Lisa.'

" We shall get on together," suddenly exclaims Olga, while she is cutting me a large slice of plum cake. "I require a certain kind of sympathy, not pity. As a rule I hate sympathy, for though surrounded by society I live in my own thoughts. I have such a horror of being bored. Liberty is my cry —liberty of ideas, of life ; no shackles of any sort. lam a Republican at heart, and the conventionalities of society and the lies of the world sicken me.'

As she utters these words her eyes flash, hee cheeks flush, and she looks like a young goddess of revolt. Suddenly she rushes to the piano, and sings a wild Russian air, and evidently forgetting me, the tea, and everything else, pours her soul into her music. And then, in a low, tragic voice, with an intensity that appals me, she intones the ' Marseillaise.' It is almost terrible to hear her, her eyes seem to see beyond, and, as she utters these words, "Amour sacre de la patrie ! " there are tears in her very voice; then, not to give further vent to her emotion, she rattles off "La Sabre dejmon pere, Schneider's famous song, from Offenbach's 'Grande Duchesse.' I look at Olga with astonishment.

' You are an enigma, a sphinx, an imp, a creature|from another world, arejyou not ?' * Indeed lam not. I belong very much to this earth; only at times I feel so lonely, so dissatisfied with myself, with everybody and everything, that I should like to get away from myself and my thoughts, to rush off to some wild spot, be blown about by the winds of heaven, and have new thoughts and ideas driven into me. Why is there not a Lethe—a wonderful stream where one could take a plunge and forget what one wishes to forget ? Music is an intense resource to me, for I can pour out my wrongs and give way to my many moods in music. Sometimes, when painting, I take my brush and create a grotesque demon torturing some wretched soul, and, you may laugh, but it does relieve me; or I tease my cat. I often wish that I could hire a slave, that I might bully him when those dreadful fits of revolt came over me. Of course you must be horrified, and no wonder; but how can I help it, if I have a diavolina within me ?—perhaps seven devils, and they all kicking inside me. I feel the wretches are there, and some days they are so powerful, that if I did not take a ride on horse back, or some very violent exercise, I should do something wicked.' ' What an undisciplined yonng rebel you are, Olga!' 'lt is inherited,' she answers. 'My mother was an Italian prima donna, with a voice like Malibran. I have been told she had an unhappy home life; her stepmother tortured her by her despotism, her artist nature could not stand the petty worries of a small narrow-minded household; she ran away, went on the stage, loved, was deceived. Disappointed, she married my father, who was a Russian merchant, for his wealth. He was (you know he died when I was quite a child) tyrannical, but generous ; so my parents were not happy in their short married life. lam the offspring of these two widely different natures : the warm, genial, artistic, imaginative, rebellious Italian on one side ; the cruelty, perhaps, from my father's side. So lam an odd mixture, and am not entirely accountable for my moods. I would gladly be different—glad to have no aspiration, no dreams of happiness, no longing for ideal love, no wish for something beyond—to be quiet, unemotional, unimaginative, and satisfied with that state of life to which I have been called. But lam talking of nothing but my horrid self. The fact is, it does me good to give vent to my inner feelings ; it is a great sign of friendship, my boring you thus. ' You are not boring me ; on the contrary, dear Olga, I am deeply interested, and sympathise with your nature and understand it. You are capable of feeling great unhappiness and great happiness ; but you must try and discipline yourself, and not let yourself be run away with. Put a bridle on your wild feelings.' To be continued.