"The shoe fits, my soldier," replied the poet, smiling; "but let me tell you that it is quite possible to have a great deal of feeling both in the intellectual life and in real life. My good friend here, La Briere, is madly in love," continued Canalis, with a fine show of generosity, looking at Modeste. "I, who certainly love as much as he, --that is, I think so unless I delude myself,--well, I can give to my love a literary form in harmony with its character. But I dare not say, mademoiselle," he added, turning to Modeste with too studied a grace, "that to-morrow I may not be without inspiration."
Thus the poet triumphed over all obstacles. In honor of his love he rode a-tilt at the hindrances that were thrown in his way, and Modeste remained wonder-struck at the Parisian wit that scintillated in his declamatory discourse, of which she had hitherto known little or nothing.
"What an acrobat!" whispered Butscha to Latournelle, after listening to a magnificent tirade on the Catholic religion and the happiness of having a pious wife,--served up in response to a remark by Madame Mignon.
Modeste's eyes were blindfolded as it were; Canalis's elocution and the close attention which she was predetermined to pay to him prevented her from seeing that Butscha was carefully noting the declamation, the want of simplicity, the emphasis that took the place of feeling, and the curious incoherencies in the poet's speech which led the dwarf to make his rather cruel comment. At certain points of Canalis's discourse, when Monsieur Mignon, Dumay, Butscha, and Latournelle wondered at the man's utter want of logic, Modeste admired his suppleness, and said to herself, as she dragged him after her through the labyrinth of fancy, "He loves me!" Butscha, in common with the other spectators of what we must call a stage scene, was struck with the radiant defect of all egoists, which Canalis, like many men accustomed to perorate, allowed to be too plainly seen. Whether he understood beforehand what the person he was speaking to meant to say, whether he was not listening, or whether he had the faculty of listening when he was thinking of something else, it is certain that Melchior's face wore an absent-minded look in conversation, which disconcerted the ideas of others and wounded their vanity. Not to listen is not merely a want of politeness, it is a mark of disrespect.
Canalis pushed this habit too far; for he often forgot to answer a speech which required an answer, and passed, without the ordinary transitions of courtesy, to the subject, whatever it was, that preoccupied him. Though such impertinence is accepted without protest from a man of marked distinction, it stirs a leaven of hatred and vengeance in many hearts; in those of equals it even goes so far as to destroy a friendship. If by chance Melchior was forced to listen, he fell into another fault; he merely lent his attention, and never gave it. Though this may not be so mortifying, it shows a kind of semi-
concession which is almost as unsatisfactory to the hearer and leaves him dissatisfied. Nothing brings more profit in the commerce of society than the small change of attention. He that heareth let him hear, is not only a gospel precept, it is an excellent speculation;
follow it, and all will be forgiven you, even vice. Canalis took a great deal of trouble in his anxiety to please Modeste; but though he was compliant enough with her, he fell back into his natural self with the others.
Modeste, pitiless for the ten martyrs she was ******, begged Canalis to read some of his poems; she wanted, she said, a specimen of his gift for reading, of which she had heard so much. Canalis took the volume which she gave him, and cooed (for that is the proper word) a poem which is generally considered his finest,--an imitation of Moore's "Loves of the Angels," entitled "Vitalis," which Monsieur and Madame Dumay, Madame Latournelle, and Gobenheim welcomed with a few yawns.
"If you are a good whist-player, monsieur," said Gobenheim, flourishing five cards held like a fan, "I must say I have never met a man as accomplished as you."
The remark raised a laugh, for it was the translation of everybody's thought.
"I play it sufficiently well to live in the provinces for the rest of my days," replied Canalis. "That, I think, is enough, and more than enough literature and conversation for whist-players," he added, throwing the volume impatiently on a table.
This little incident serves to show what dangers environ a drawing-
room hero when he steps, like Canalis, out of his sphere; he is like the favorite actor of a second-rate audience, whose talent is lost when he leaves his own boards and steps upon those of an upper-class theatre.