The Blue Duchess

ittle theatre where La Duchesse Blue was being performed he was a little more jolly than the beautiful women who drove up in their carriages from a

en the lava in the crater of Vesuvius do, while fiery stones of the size of a man shot into the air with a report like a cannon. There the atmosphere is suffocating and full of stench. The sulp

ical extenuation such a comparison would be rather comic. Whether justified or not, I gave myself up to this sensation without discussion. Wearied as I was by my day of moral lassitude, was not this way of spending my evening an unexpected pleasure? The comedy might interest me, for this foppish egoist had great talent. The actress might be pretty, although doubtless Jacques’ fatuity had transformed for my astonishment a Conservatoire fool into a bird of pa

is very charming here in the two little stage boxes, and upon the stage behind the

lighter, his cane waved in his hand, and his shoulders involuntarily swaggered. These things are in themselves of no importance, but we painters who have studied portraiture make it our business to seize upon these trifles. The theatre staff, when they saw “their author” pass, displayed inexpressible and unconscious r

said that little Favier is pretty? She has caught sight of me. Fortunately she has nothing to say for a minute or two, or she would have forgotten her lines. She is looking at yo

led tenderly cruel. This play is a little masterpiece of to-day by Marivaux—a Marivaux whose airy gaiety would be like lace upon a wound. But I did not perceive the real value of the comedy on this first evening; although Molan was present to comment upon its smallest details. The painter in me was too keenly attracted by the extraordinary appearance of this Camille Favier, whom my friend had so carelessly called his mistress. The box being almost on the stage allowed me to follow the smallest movements of her face, her most furtive winks, and the most rapid knitting of her brows. I could see the layers of cream and rouge 30unequally distributed on her face, and the lengthening of her lashes with black crayon. Even made up in this way she realized in an extraordinary way the ideal type created by the most refin

lasses in the fourth box of the first tier on the left. You see a woman in white, fanning herself with a fan, with silk muslin flounces, white too, and an invention of her

, and I soon had my glasses fixed on the fash

es and Galateas of the most suave of the Pre-raphaelite Brothers, Madam Pierre de Bonnivet, with her arched nose, her wilful chin, the fine line of the cheek, her elegant haughty mouth, had beauty enough to justify the most aristocratic pretensions. How, coming of a poor family—I have found out since that she was a Tarava

who conceal beneath the tenderness of a siren the courage of a captain of dragoons. Her neck, though a little long, was well developed, and the fingers of her nervous hands were a little long also; her bust, which was outlined at each movement by her supple white corsage, was so young, so elegant, and so full. But the most significant thing to me about this creature of luxury was her blue eyes, as blue as those of the other woman, with this difference, that the blue of Camille Favier’s eyes

tless love, I am taking into account that my actual knowledge of their characters influences my recollection of this first meeting. I do not thin

good choice, w

,” he said as he

continued, “with mistr

cted me. “Madam de Bonni

oncerns what I am going to say. I am asking

go pretended had the skin of a toad in his pocket. It a

will hold? Then what o

woman is the best antido

geance, vitriol, and the revolver. One

ointed with my cane

ke,” he went on as he got up, “the act is over, I will present you to one or the other of them. It is very funny. Would you believe that in my stories I have always more or le

coolness did not wound me. Alas! it has been decreed that I should be, like Horatio, always and everywhere an unsuccessful man. What irony to have as my Hamlet the implacable egotist who was showing me the way to little Favier’s dressing

green room. There, more than elsewhere I have experienced the disenchantment of the contrast between the play and the back of the stage, between theatrical prestige and its kitchen. On the contrary, behind the scenes of the smaller theatres, where my friends 35have taken me, the Varieties, the Gymnase and the Vaudeville on that evening, I have felt the picturesque antitheses, the supple improvization, the animal energy which constitute an actor’s business.

new part,” the latter asked,

Bressoré replied, “but

is t

and look the audience

Molan said to me with a laugh; “between ourselves as friends, you are a litt

science; and I did not give him the answer which rose to my lips. “That simply proves the basene

waiting for a reply the door opened and Camille Favier appeared with a smile of happiness upon her

I did not think you would bring any

ery great painter, you understand. All our friends are great men. He is used to disorder in his own studio, so make your mind easy. He asked to be introduced to you because he has long wished to paint your portrait.” He nudged me with his elbow to warn m

red wrapper over a chair, on which I had noticed a well worn pair of common corsets, which she generally wore for economy’s sake. She did all this with a smile, and then noticed a pair of pale green stockings which she wore upon the stage. These she picked up with wonderful quickness, and I thought I could detect a tremor of shame in her as she did so. Those silk stockings which still displayed the shape of her fine leg and tiny foot were a small part of h

the dressing-room 38where Colette Regaud reigned at the Fran?ais. Ah, if Colette had only had for Claude, when I accompanied that unfortunate fellow to her dressing-room, the evident love which the Blue Duchess showed for Jacques Molan even in the tones of her most ordinary conversation, the ardour of her most fleeting glances, and the fever of her smallest gestures! She was a delightful child, who lo

ou always are. Ask Vince

true?”

rue,” I

s too, I assure you,

eam of contentment in her eyes; then she knitted her brows and

sked her i

cques said, with a laugh. “I know b

ne of the nervous impressions which we all have—you two as well. Do you not sometimes experience a shudder of antipathy in the company of certain people, whose presence alone freeze

st as if they were my avowed enemies. Once I used to try and resist this instinctive feeling of repulsion. I found from experience that I was always wrong not to yield to it, and I am sure t

urning to Molan, “I am no

and seen his generosity. To my knowledge he has put his purse at the disposal of colleagues whom he had more or less slandered. It is difficult to reconcile that, for example, with the indelicate unkindness which made him name his mistress’ rival at a time when he saw the pretty child was so troubled. The explanation, however, is quite simple. Such a thing as good or evil, unkindness or generosity, never entered into his ca

in Don Juan resist the chance of satisfying two vanities at the same time, that of the observer and that of the seducer? He went on: “I am going to amuse you with the n

ithout noticing that the use of his Christian name betray

of her admirers,” the latter i

t me with a sudden feeling of

I have seen in the theatre no fa

surprised, Camille. Comparison with pictures is a mania with painters. To them a woman or a landscape is only a bit of canvas without a frame. This little infirmity is to their mind what an ink stain is to us authors, and he displayed, in spite of his e

not been introduced to her. I told you, too, that I could see in her eyes a frightfully hard and bitter look. In spite of her beauty, eleg

thought of concealing it than he did, though for a different reason. She could not conceal it because she was so much in l

k to you. He understands you already. Think what it will be when he has p

iend has not the

as rather afraid that this project would fall through. “But time is up, you m

od-bye till presently.

that she was experiencing a little emotion. “Allow me

the young actress’ gestures and words. We had only been with her a quarter of an hour, and in that time the appearance of the corridor had changed. Feverish haste now betokened the approaching rise of the curtain and the fe

r, “let us get back to our box at once. If Camille does not see me when she appears

alousy?” I replied. “How can you be so hardhe

at first, but then they are like all vicious animals, they can only be subdued by hurting them. I want you now to see her rival. About the middle of the act Fa