When there were no diplomatic at homes, or balls given by wealthy foreigners, such as Lady Dudley or the Princesse de Galathionne, the Countess went almost every evening after the opera to one of the few aristocratic drawing-rooms still open—whether that of the Marquise d’Espard, Mme. de Listomère, Mlle. des Touches, the Comtesse de Montcornet, or the Vicomtesse de Grandlieu. Never did she leave these gatherings without some seeds of evil scattered in her soul. She heard talk about “completing her life,” an expression much in vogue then, or about being “understood,” another word to which women attach marvelous meanings. She would return home uneasy, pensive, dreamy, and curious. Her life seemed somehow impoverished, but she had not yet gone so far as to feel it entirely barren.
IV
A Man of Note
The most lively, but also the most mixed, company to be found in any of the houses where Mme. de Vandenesse visited, was decidedly that which met at the Comtesse de Montcornet’s. She was a charming little woman, who opened her doors to distinguished artists, commercial princes, and celebrated literary men; but the tests to which she submitted them before admission were so rigorous that the most exclusive need not fear rubbing up against persons of an inferior grade; the most unapproachable were safe from pollution. During the winter, society (which never loses its rights, and at all costs will be amused) began to rally again, and a few drawing-rooms—including those of Mmes. d’Espard and de Listomère, of Mlle. des Touches, and of the Duchesse de Grandlieu—had picked up recruits from among the latest celebrities in art, science, literature, and politics. At a concert given by the Comtesse de Montcornet, toward the end of the winter, Raoul Nathan, a well-known name in literature and politics, made his entry, introduced by Émile Blondet, a very brilliant but also very indolent writer. Blondet too was a celebrity, but only among the initiated few; much made of by the critics, he was unknown to the general public. Blondet was perfectly aware of this, and in general was a man of few illusions. In regard to fame, he said, among other disparaging remarks, that it was a poison best taken in small doses.
Raoul Nathan had a long struggle before emerging to the surface. Having reached it, he had at once made capital out of that sudden craze for external form then distinguishing certain exquisites, who swore by the Middle Ages, and were humorously known as “young France.” He adopted the eccentricities of genius, and enrolled himself among these worshipers of art, whose intentions at least we cannot but admire, since nothing is more absurd than the dress of a Frenchman of the nineteenth century, and courage was needed to change it. Raoul, to do him justice, has something unusual and fantastic in his person, which seems to demand a setting. His enemies or his friends—there is little to choose between them—are agreed that nothing in the world so well matches the inner Nathan as the outer. He would probably look even more remarkable if left to nature than he is when touched by art. His worn and wasted features suggest a wrestling with spirits, good or evil. His face has some likeness to that which German painters give to the dead Christ, and bears innumerable traces of a constant struggle between weak human nature and the powers on high. But the deep hollows of his cheeks, the knobs on his craggy and furrowed skull, the cavities round his eyes and temples, point to nothing weak in the constitution. There is remarkable solidity about the tough tissues and prominent bones; and though the skin, tanned by excess, sticks to them as though parched by same fire within, it none the less covers a massive framework. He is tall and thin. His long hair, which always needs brushing, aims at effect. He is a Byron, badly groomed and badly put together, with legs like a heron’s, congested knees, an exaggeratedly small waist, a hand with muscles of whipcord, the grip of a crab’s claw, and lean, nervous fingers.
Raoul’s eyes are Napoleonic, blue and soul-piercing; his nose is sensitive and finely chiseled, his mouth charming and adorned with teeth white enough to excite a woman’s envy. There is life and fire in the head, genius on the brow. Raoul belongs to the small number of men who would not pass unnoticed in the street, and who, in a drawing-room, at once form a centre of light, drawing all eyes. He attracts attention by his negligee if one may borrow from Molière the word used in Éliante to describe personal slovenliness. His clothes look as though they had been pulled about, frayed, and crumpled on purpose to harmonize with his countenance. He habitually thrusts one hand into his open waistcoat in the pose which Girodet’s portrait of Chateaubriand has made famous, but not so much for the sake of copying Chateaubriand (he would disdain to copy anyone) as to take the stiffness out of his shirt front. His tie becomes all in a moment a mere wisp, from a trick he has of throwing back his head with a sudden convulsive movement, like that of a racehorse champing its bit and tossing its head in the effort to break loose from bridle and curb. His long, pointed beard is very different from that of the dandy, combed, brushed, scented, sleek, shaped like a fan or cut into a peak; Nathan’s is left entirely to nature. His hair, caught in by his coat-collar and tie, and lying thick upon his shoulders, leaves a grease spot wherever it rests. His dry, stringy hands are innocent of nailbrush or the luxury of a lemon. There are even journalists who declare that only on rare occasions is their grimy skin laved in baptismal waters.
In a word, this awe-inspiring Raoul is a caricature. He moves in a jerky way, as though propelled by some faulty machinery;
