"This," said Rodolphe, "is an evening borrowed from a romance." And yet overcome, despite himself, by a langourous charm, he sat down on a seat and gazed sentimentally at the moon.
In a short time he was wholly under the spell of a feverish hallucination. It seemed to him that the gods and heroes in marble who peopled the garden were quitting their pedestals to make love to the goddesses and heroines, their neighbors, and he distinctly heard the great Hercules recite a madrigal to the Vedella, whose tunic appeared to him to have grown singularly short.
From the seat he occupied he saw the swan of the fountain making its way towards a nymph of the vicinity.
"Good," thought Rodolphe, who accepted all this mythology, "There is Jupiter going to keep an appointment with Leda; provided always that the park keeper does not surprise them."
Then he leaned his forehead on his hand and plunged further into the flowery thickets of sentiment. But at this sweet moment of his dream Rodolphe was suddenly awakened by a park keeper, who came up and tapped him on the shoulder.
"It is closing time, sir," said he.
"That is lucky," thought Rodolphe. "If I had stayed here another five minutes I should have had more sentiment in my breast than is to be found on the banks of the Rhine or in Alphonse Karr's romances."
And he hastened from the gardens humming a sentimental ballad that was for him the Marseillaise of love.
Half an hour later, goodness knows how, he was at the Prado, seated before a glass of punch and talking with a tall fellow celebrated on account of his nose, which had the singular privilege of being aquiline when seen sideways, and a snub when viewed in front. It was a nose that was not devoid of sharpness, and had a sufficiency of gallant adventures to be in such a case to give good advice and be useful to its friend.
"So," said Alexander Schaunard, the man with the nose, "you are in love."
"Yes, my dear fellow, it seized on me, just now, suddenly, like a bad toothache in the heart."
"Pass me the tobacco," said Alexander.
"Fancy," continued Rodolphe, "for the last two hours I have met nothing but lovers, men and women in couples. I had the notion of going into the Luxembourg Gardens, where I saw all manner of phantasmagorias, that stirred my heart extraordinarily. Ellegies are bursting from me, I bleat and I coo; I am undergoing a metamorphosis, and am half lamb half turtle dove. Look at me a bit, I must have wool and feathers."
"What have you been drinking?" said Alexander impatiently, "you are chaffing me."
"I assure you that I am quite cool," replied Rodolphe. "That is to say, no. But I will announce to you that I must embrace something. You see, Alexander, it is not good for man to live alone, in short, you must help me to find a companion. We will stroll through the ballroom, and the first girl I point out to you, you must go and tell her that I love her."
"Why don't you go and tell her yourself?" replied Alexander in his magnificent nasal bass.
"Eh? my dear fellow," said Rodolphe. "I can assure you that I have quite forgot how one sets about saying that sort of thing. In all my love stories it has been my friends who have written the preface, and sometimes even the denouement; I never know how to begin."
"It is enough to know how to end," said Alexander, "but I understand you. I knew a girl who loved the oboe, perhaps you would suit her."
"Ah!" said Rodolphe. "I should like her to have white gloves and blue eyes."
"The deuce, blue eyes, I won't say no—but gloves—you know that we can't have everything at once. However, let us go into the aristocratic regions."
"There," said Rodolphe, as they entered the saloon favored by the fashionables of the place, "there is one who seems nice and quiet," and he pointed out a young girl fairly well dressed who was seated in a corner.
"Very good," replied Alexander, "keep a little in the background, I am going to launch the fire-ship of passion for you. When it is necessary to put in an appearance I will call you."
For ten minutes Alexander conversed with the girl, who from time to time broke out in a joyous burst of laughter, and ended by casting towards Rodolphe a smiling glance which said plainly enough, "Come, your advocate has won the cause."
"Come," said Alexander, "the victory is ours, the little one is no doubt far from cruel, but put on an air of simplicity to begin with."
"You have no need to recommend me to do that."
"Then give me some tobacco," said Alexander, "and go and sit down beside her."
"Good heavens," said the young girl when Rodolphe had taken his place by her side, "how funny you friend is, his voice is like a trumpet."
"That is because he is a musician."
Two hours later Rodolphe and his companion halted in front of a house in the Rue St. Denis.
"It is here that I live," said the girl.
"Well, my dear Louise, when and where shall I see you again?"
"At your place at eight o'clock tomorrow evening."
"For sure?"
"Here is my pledge," replied Louise, holding up her rosy cheek to Rodolphe's, who eagerly tasted this ripe fruit of youth and health.
Rodolphe went home perfectly intoxicated.
"Ah!" said he, striding up and down his room, "it can't go off like that, I must write some verses."
The next morning his porter found in his room some thirty sheets of paper, at the top of which stretched in solitary majesty of line—
"Ah; love, oh! love, fair prince of youth."
That morning, contrary to his habits, Rodolphe had risen very early, and although he had slept very little, he got up at once.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, "today is the great day. But then twelve hours to wait. How shall I fill up these twelve eternities?"
And as his glance fell on his desk he seemed to see his pen wriggle as though intending to say to him "Work."
"Ah! yes, work indeed! A fig for prose. I won't stop here, it reeks of ink."
He went off and settled himself in a cafe where he was sure not to meet any friends.
"They would see that I am in love," he thought, "and shape my ideal for me in advance."
After a very brief repast he was off to the railway station, and got into a train. Half an hour later he was in the woods of Ville d'Avray.
Rodolphe strolled about all day, let loose amongst rejuvenated nature, and only returned to Paris at nightfall.
After having put the temple which was to receive his idol in nature, Rodolphe arrayed himself for the occasion, greatly regretting not being able to dress in white.
From seven to eight o'clock he was a prey to the sharp fever of expectation. A slow torture, that recalled to him the old days and the old loves which had sweetened them. Then, according to habit, he already began to dream of an exalted passion, a love affair in ten volumes, a genuine lyric with moonlight, setting suns, meetings beneath the willows, jealousies, sighs and all the rest. He was like this every time chance brought a woman to his door, and not one had left him without bearing away any aureola about her head and a necklace of tears about her neck.
"They would prefer new boots or a bonnet," his friend remarked to him.
But Rodolphe persisted, and up to this time the numerous blunders he had made had not sufficed to cure him. He was always awaiting a woman who would consent to pose as an idol, an angel in a velvet gown, to whom he could at his leisure address sonnets written on willow leaves.
At length Rodolphe heard the "holy hour" strike, and as the last stroke sounded he fancied he saw the Cupid and Psyche surmounting his