It was useless for me to try to taste it, the very sight of it turned me sick.
My mother looked at me rather anxiously.
‘It is nothing, only for some time back I have been getting sick of coffee.’
‘Sick of coffee? You never said so before.’
‘Did I not?’ I said absently.
‘Will you have some chocolate, or some tea?’
‘Can I not fast for once?’
‘Yes, if you are ill — or if you have some great sin to atone for.’
I looked at her and shuddered. Could she be reading my thoughts better than myself?
‘A sin?’ quoth I, with an astonished look.
‘Well, you know even the righteous — ‘
‘And what then?’ I said, interrupting her snappishly; but to make up for my supercilious way of speaking, I added in gentler tones:
‘I do not feel hungry; still, to please you, I’ll have a glass of champagne and a biscuit.’
‘Champagne, did you say?’
‘Yes.’
‘So early in the morning, and on an empty stomach?’
‘Well, then I’ll have nothing at all,’ I answered pettishly. ‘I see you are afraid I’m going to turn drunkard.’
My mother said nothing, she only looked at me wistfully for a few minutes, an expression of deep sorrow was seen in her face, then — without adding another word — she rang the bell and ordered the wine to be brought.
— But what made her so sad?
— Later on, I understood that she was frightened that I was already getting to be like my father.
— And your father — ?
— I’ll tell you his story another time.
After I had gulped down a glass or two of champagne, I felt revived by the exhilarating wine; our conversation then turned on the concert, and although I longed to ask my mother if she knew anything about Teleny, still I durst not utter the name which was foremost on my lips, nay I had even to restrain myself not to repeat it aloud every now and then.
At last my mother spoke of him herself, commending first his playing and then his beauty.
‘What, do you find him good-looking?’ I asked abruptly.
‘I should think so,’ she replied, arching her eyebrows in an astonished way, ‘is there anybody who does not? Every woman finds him an Adonis; but then you men differ so much from us in your admiration for your own sex, that you sometimes find insipid those whom we are taken up with. Anyhow, he is sure to succeed as an artist, as all the ladies will be falling in love with him.’
I tried not to wince upon hearing these last words, but do what I could, it was impossible to keep my features quite motionless.
My mother, seeing me frown, added, smilingly:
‘What, Camille, are you going to become as vain as some acknowledged belle, who cannot hear anybody made much of without feeling that any praise given to another woman is so much subtracted from what is due to her?’
‘All women are free to fall in love with him if they choose,’ I answered snappishly, ‘you know quite well that I never piqued myself either on my good looks or upon my conquests.’
‘No, it is true, still, today you are like the dog in the manger, for what is it to you whether the women are taken up with him or not, especially if it is such a help to him in his career?’
‘But cannot an artist rise to eminence by his talent alone?’
‘Sometimes,’ she added with an incredulous smile, ‘though seldom, and only with that superhuman perseverance which gifted persons often lack, and Teleny — ‘
My mother did not finish her phrase in words, but the expression of her face, and above all of the corners of her mouth, revealed her thoughts.
‘And you think that this young man is such a degraded being as to allow himself to be kept by a woman, like a — ‘
‘Well, it is not exactly being kept — at least, he would not consider it in that light. He might, moreover, allow himself to be helped in a thousand ways other than by money, but his piano would be his gagnepain.’
‘Just like the stage is for most ballet-girls; then I should not like to be an artist.’
‘Oh! they are not the only men who owe their success to a mistress, or to a wife. Read “Bel Ami,” and you will see that many a successful man, and even more than one celebrated personage, owes his greatness to — ‘
‘A woman?’
‘Exactly; it is always: Cherchezla femme.’
‘Then this is a disgusting world.’
‘Having to live in it, we must take the best of it we can, and not take matters quite so tragically as you do.’
‘Anyhow, he plays well. In fact, I never heard anyone play like he did last night.’
‘Yes, I grant that last night he did play brilliantly, or, rather, sensationally; but it also must be admitted that you were in a rather morbid state of health and mind, so that music must have had an uncommon effect upon your nerves.’
‘Oh! you think there was an evil spirit within me troubling me, and that a cunning player — as the Bible has it — was alone able to quiet my nerves.’
My mother smiled.
‘Well, nowadays, we are all of us more or less like Saul; that is to say, we are all occasionally troubled with an evil spirit.’
Thereupon her brow grew clouded, and she interrupted herself, for evidently the remembrance of my late father came to her mind; then she added, musingly —
‘And Saul was really to be pitied.’
I did not give her an answer. I was only thinking why David had found favor in Saul’s sight. Was it because ‘he was ruddy, and withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to’? Was it also for this reason that, as soon as Jonathan had seen him, ‘the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul’?
Was Telen^s soul knit with my own? Was I to love and hate him, as Saul loved and hated David? Anyhow, I despised myself and my folly. I felt a grudge against the musician who had bewitched me; above all, I loathed the whole of womankind, the curse of the world.
All at once my mother drew me from my gloomy thoughts.
‘You are not going to the office today, if you do not feel well,’ said she, after a while.
