LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume III, Issue 292, 19 May 1875, Page 4

LITERATURE.

ROMANCE IN A PARIS PENSION. Part I. ( Continued. ) ‘ Yes, you are very wise, Miss Minerva ; and lam an ungrateful wretch. Some days, when the sun is bright, I feel so happy that I should like to live on for ever and do some good ; but to-day I am agacee, mischievous. I should like to scratch some one.’ ‘I shall run away,’ I exclaim laughing. ‘ But now be sensible, Olga, and tell me all about these little love affairs that seem in a measure to have altered your nature; for when I knew r you five years ago you had no bitterness, no cynicism.’ ‘ Well, perhaps I had better confide this tale of wme, though, as a rule, I hate talking about myself,’ So, leaving the piano, she threw herself upon the soft rug, and placing her pretty perfumed head on my lap, related what follows : Olga’s Love Disappointments. ‘ Don’t you remember, four years ago, meeting at mamma’s apartments on the Boulevard des Italiens a young Pole, Stanislas Marilski ? ’ ‘ Oh yes, very well, for I was much struck with his appearance; he was distingue looking, handsome, and artistic ; but I only saw him that one evening. Is he the hero?”

‘ Yes ; he was the first man who inspired a new feeling. Before I met him I was a joyous, light, merry, thoughtless girl, msoiiciante. Sufficient for the day was the evil or good thereof, was certainly my motto. But Stanislas Marilski’s advent changed the course of my thoughts, and I was no longer as joyous as a bird. 1 felt that life was a mystery ; nature was different, and art was different, from what they had been to me before. I felt a capacity for greater happiness and for greater pain. He was certainly good-look-ing ; but it was not his handsome features that attracted me, so much as the peculiarity of his disposition and the originality of his mind. He was an orphan, a rebel, a revolutionist: he believed in nothing that was past; history was a lie to him, he cared but for the future. Melancholy, cynical, passionate, we were both strongly attracted towards each other the minute we met. I met him for the first time at a ball at the Hotel de Yille. I had been dancing merrily about with a very insipid polite Frenchman. I was resting, enjoying thoroughly the bright scene, the music, the lights, the wonderful dresses, the diamonds, when, looking round, I was suddenly attracted by that very pale face and those large, dark, melancholy eyes, gazing at me so keenly. I looked at him, and from that moment I really did feel a different being; a new interest had come into my life. He got introduced to my mother, called at our house ; we had long talks together—curious to say, chiefly on political topics. But that ceased. We used to meet out of doors, and have long walks together in unfrequented parts of Paris. He told me that he loved me, but that for a few months he could not make a regular offer of marriage. I did not mind that; to be cared for by such a man was sufficient happiness. And as my mother, who was then in extremely delicate health, allowed me entire liberty, I saw Stanislas every day for five months. One day, calling at a friend’s house, she informed me that several people had seen me walking with Mr Marilski—that remarks were passed, so that my friend had made inquiries ; and did I know that Mr Marilski was engaged to be married to a Polish young lady ?—and she mentioned the name, I shall never forget what I felt when she told me this horrible piece of news. The room seemed to whirl round and round; the blood rushed to my throat and head. I tried to conceal my emotion. My friend was shocked at having told me this so abruptly. To cut a long, sad story short, I wrote to Stanislas, telling him what 1 had just heard. I received a miserable letter from him, confessing that there was an engagement, but that he had ceased to care for the girl, and only loved me, begging me to run away with him, and that he would gladly give up everything for my sake. ‘ I was considering what I had better do, when I received a letter from the mother of the girl, saying that if I married Mr Marilski it would certainly cause her daughter’s death, she was so desperately attached to him; and that Stanislas’ late behaviour had made her seriously ill. This piece of news decided me. I broke off entirely from him, and my poor mother took me to Dresden for change of air, scene, and people. ‘ Strange to say, that instead of dreading love, I longed for it. Life seemed to me so stale, dull, and unprofitable, so uninteresting without it. I did everything to forget Stanislas, to drive away his image. I did my best even to think ill of him, to picture him in a ludicrous light. I really felt as if my soul had left me, for my body simply vegetated ; but I resolved to fight against my misfortune, and not allow this dull oppression to warp my existence. Always fond of art, I resolved to devote myself to painting. I went to the Dresden Gallery, that ideal of a picture gallery, a perfect little temple, where every picture is a gem. It was at the Dresden Gallery that 1 met my fate number two, in the shape of an artist who was copying the same picture (curious coincidence) that I had begun—‘Kinder’ von C. I, Vogel.

‘My easel was close to his, and from the very first he became most attentive, prepared my pallet, gave me valuable hints about the mixing of colors, how effects were produced—impossible to be kindes. He was a great contrast to Stanislas, but there was something about him which attracted me. I shall repeat to you some of his remarks, and you will judge what sort of man number two was.

* After having looked at several of the chefs d’oeuvre in the gallery, I remarked rather petulantly to him that he was too fond of analyzing the different manners in which the pictures were painted; that he was completely absorbed by the technical process and missed the spiritual idea, the soul, the genius of the conception. A picture to him was a kind of plum pudding. Why not chiefly admire the thought, and not merely how an effect is produced ?

* “You are an exaltee enthusiastic young girl,” he said to me after a few hours’ talk. “You must calm yourself. You have a dash of genius, but you require a rudder. I shall be your rudder. ” ‘ Cool, n’est-ce pas?’ said Olga, looking up at me with an arch smile. He went on :

‘ Those high-flown ideas are very youthful. You must not allow your imagination to run away with you. ’ And fixing his cold grey eyes upon me : ‘ I can read your character in your face, for you are very transparent. I can read the inner workings of your mind. You ha\e suffered, young lady; you are disappointed : you are not now in your normal condition. You have been taken out of your small orbit, and you are in a feverish state, and are trying to fling yourself into another sphere. I know the sensation well, for I have been in that condition. I have loved and lost.’

His impudence took me by storm. ‘ What right have you to form such a conclusion ?’ I said to him.

*Do not be offended with me; I understand your nature, and read it all in your face; do not contradict me, but take my fatherly advice, for I am over forty, and know life. Fly from love ; never let a man know how much you care for him. Devote yourself to art; that will never deceive or disenchant you, and the labor you bestow upon it will be recompensed in this world. You will have hours of real joy over your own creations—that is my experience. I looked for love, and while under the fatal spell I felt intoxicated, and like the sunflower basked in sunshine ; but I have never met with a being that satisfied my heart and soul; whilst the beauties of Nature and of Art are unfailing resources of happiness.’ * Do you mean to say, Olga, that this man spoke to you thus, on so short an acquaintance ?’

‘ Yes, exactly,’ she replied, slightly colouring, and tossing back her wavy hair.

* What is his name, and who is he ?’ *His name is Crauford, and he is half Irish, half English ; a very clever artist, musician and poet, with just a dash of mystery to make him interesting. We met every day for several months at the Dresden Gallery. I felt myself alive again. Mr Crauford made it a point to copy the same picture I copied, and the hours spent in his society were hours of happiness. He would recite to me ballads of his own composition, weird, strange, grotesque, and full of fancy. His voice was deep, strong, and yet soft. This man puzzled and fascinated me. Outwardly he seemtd calm, conceited, vain, obstinate; at other times he was full of tenderness, flavoured with cynicism. He had a dramatic, powerful way of expressing himself, and an utter absence of ideality. We grew confidential, and I told him about Stanislas. I do not know if he was actuated by a feeling of jealously, or if he really wished to cure me entirely, but he turned the whole affair into ridicule. Fancy Mr Marilski with a bad cold in his head, red nose, eyes swimming, no pocket-handkerchief, sneezing, &c ; or, in a dozen years, with a big stomach like an alderman, gouty, with a dozen children. No; analyze the feeling, and you will find that love is built on a very slight foundation. You excite an interest; there is some objection in the way, your imagination is at work, and that object becomes a dire necessity as long as you cannot possess him or her, but when you do possess, illusion vanishes, love often flies, and you find yourself tied down for life to a log.’ Though Mr Crauford talked to me thus, he did everything to excite my interest in himself; he spoke to me of his plans, his aspirations, his doubts, fears—and ended by confessing that he loved me. * Now comes wound number two.

‘ One evening at an artistic party, where I went with a lady friend, somebody mentioned Mr Crauford’s name, speaking in great praise of his artistic merit and general fascination. Then somebody else remarked, and I still hear the words as if they were words of fire—

‘“Yes, poor fellow, what a miserable thing for him, that wife of his being such a confirmed drunkard ! and though separated, he cannot marry again. There ought to be a divorce in such cases. Married and not married! What a sad position for a man still in the bloom of his life. ” * I never knew that Crauford was a married man,’ said a fat elderly gentleman. * He has dined several times at my house in London, and I have often asked him why he did not enter the blessed state of matrimony; and he simply said he could not, and I thought pei haps it was because his means did not allow him. ’

‘He is very well off,’ answered speaker number one. ‘ I met him yesterday, and he told that he felt restless and unhappy. He is getting on splendidly as an artist, but I hear that he has fallen in love with a pretty girl who is studying Art and copying at the Gallery here.’ * I could stand it no longer. Rushing off to my chaperone, I complained of a sick headache; once home, I burst into tears, felt the world again to .be a wide desert, and did not return to the Gallery. My mother soon after this died ; so that month was indeed a black epoch in my life, and made lovely Dresden a perfect nightmare. A few days after my mother’s funeral, when I was trying to pack up my things in order to get away from this now hateful place, and come to Paris, where I had at all events a few friends, I received a long, touching letter from Mr Crauford, telling me all about his unfortunate marriage, his love and sympathy for me.

‘ I wrote back to bid him adieu, and telling him that my wish was that we should never meet or correspond any more. This is the end of my love stories, so you see that I have not been lucky in that department.’ ‘ Poor little Olga!’ I said, taking her soft white hand in mine, ‘you have indeed

suffered; but you are still very young, and will be more fortunate another time.’

‘ Oh, no, no more love affairs ! C'est f ni. I have made a firm resolve to work hard to become a great artist, if possible. Adieu to romance, it is a waste of time—

* I slept and dreamt that life was beauty; I woke, and found that life was duty.’

We part for the night, both of us vowing and declaring that we should throw ourselves heart and soul into the art career, and give up all idea of marriage. ‘Yes,’says Olga, ‘ all men are deceivers ; false, vain, conceited, jealous, wicked, &c, &c, &c. _ I shall be a nice, clever, artistic old maid. That is my final decision. ’ To be continued.