Sealed lips

Front matter

?}i; Tlf

O ^

C * C/ A o O'

Contents

I— An Honored Composer 5

II — Descriptive 1 3

IV — Historical 3 2

Chapter I. An Honored Composer

The applause was long and loud, the curtain was raised several times with that docile facility which distinguishes a theater’s drop curtain, especially on evenings of a first representation. A new chef d’ oeuvre, “Constantin XII.,” words by a manufacturer of librettos now in fashion, the music by Antoine Godefroid, had just been brought out, and scored a perfect success upon our greatest of lyric stages, The Opera.

In the house, in the lobbies, and on the staircase two thousand people were talking as they went out. The sparkling eyes of the women endeavored to read even then, in the countenances of others, the triumph of their beauty more than half vailed under lace or hidden in softly caressing furs. The men gave their hats little caressing blows, shook hands

HEALED LIPS.

and calmly smiled with that impertinent, morose, or blase coolness which is now the social custom of modern society. One could see that some of them did not find it dull, a much more infrequent result than we realize.

Various groups were formed in the vestibules making up parties. They talked of the new work very little, but arranged meetings for the next day. To meet together, no matter where, is for the Parisian of to-day a supreme pleasure, to go to their homes the greatest of misfortunes. Each one delayed as long as possible the time when monsieur and madam should find themselves alone in their coupe, on their way home. Nobody seemed in a hurry save the journalists, who hastened to their offices to finish the article which they had already commenced in the morning, with a smattering of knowledge and some politic remarks upon the fall of Byzance, the final episode in the new opera.

During this time, on the other side of the footlights, Antoine Godefroid was dividing his laurels with everybody. He was a composer who knew his trade, and had no illusions as to the modesty of the people connected with the theater. With a tired and melancholy smile, he had finished giving his praises. The principal actors had already gone to their dressing-rooms to remove their costumes. A suffocating crowd of people in dress suits, of all the artistic clans, remained, and it was from these that Godefroid tried to escape, repeating for the hun-

SEALED LIPS.

dredtk time that nobody until now had directed an opera, looked after the scenery, led the chorus, beat time, painted and decorated a stage with such inimitable perfection. A small number, more polite than the others, had courteously replied that he had contributed something toward the success of the opera. A wise man has said, that politeness consists in doing more than one needs to do and saying more than one thinks.

Between times he shook hands with a crowd of strange men, one quarter of whom he knew by name and another quarter by sight. The physician in attendance, an old man with a gray beard, in his turn approached the musician.

“My dear friend,” said he, “you are in one of those two situations in life when you will receive the most hand shaking.”

“Why, to be sure; so I have noticed, doctor. When will the other be?”

“At your marriage, with a little difference, however.”

“What is it? Just now I am not equal to guessing conundrums.”

“Only this, on that day you will be congratulated at the end of the prologue.”

“A wise precaution,” replied Godefroid. “In that branch of art we see too many representations which never reach an end.”

At last he was alone, and for the first time in many weeks free to give his nerves a little rest.

SEALED LIPS.

When he had disappeared, a second tenor, who reentered in his ordinary clothes, observed that Godefroid had left without asking them to supper.

The leader of the orchestra defended the composer :

“ He looks as if he had had enough for one evening.”

One of the head employees whispered a little loudly in the tenor’s ear : “ Probably he prefers to sup with the Princess Adossides.”

Twenty people heard this insinuation, and smiled in a knowing way. The princess in question was the principal female character in the new opera, being no other than the debutante of the evening, the beautiful, much admired, and much envied Jenny Sauval.

To tell the truth, the public gave the master credit for better luck than he had. With his overcoat turned up to his ears, both hands in his pockets, and a lighted cigar, he stepped out of the door on Boulevard Haussman, with no other intention than to go slowly home, alone and on foot, to cool his forehead and temples in the fresh air in the silence of the night. But he had not counted upon surprises. As he passed the gate of the enormous building now almost entirely dark, a man who had been hiding there for half an hour, threw himself on his neck, and nearly strangled him with his embrace,

SEALED LIPS.

“Dear old friend! Dear grand genius! How beautiful it was ! How happy you must be!”

Having recovered from the embrace and the shock, Godefroid took the night wanderer under a neighboring gas light to stare at him,

“Patrice! You! Here in Paris, and I know nothing of it ! And I have passed an evening like this without having the only friend that I can rely on here below, near me ! How, then, be off ! You do not deserve that I should look at you any longer!”

“But what the devil! If I tell you that at six o’clock I was at the Lyons station trying to protect my poor traps against duties. I had only time to have my trunks and person taken to the first place.”

“Why not to my house?”

“ The time would have been well chosen. I had only time to buy a ticket in the pit, at a ridiculous price, and to take my seat before the first measure. If you believe me, I have had no dinner.”

“Ho dinner?”

“ Ho, but that is a discomfort to which I am accustomed, and according to all appearances I shall be frequently subjected to it. I shall not always be compensated by a chef d’ oeuvre substituting a roast.”

“Then your business ?”

“Oh, it is not brilliant, my friend. Hever mind business. Talk of yourself. 'Constantin’ is an admirable work, and its author a celebrity. Listen! To-morrow, when it is broad daylight, we will go to the boulevard together. You will give me your

SEALED LIPS.

arm; I shall have my share of the glory. The passers-by will bow to us without suspecting that they have under their very eyes the most fortunate and the most unfortunate man in all Paris — success and failure, victory and defeat, a pelisse for fifty louis and a coat for forty-nine francs just bought at the Belle Jardiniere. One person out of two satisfied. Fifty per cent, of happiness in our friendship. It is a good proportion, and I do not dream of complaining.”

“You would do very wrong to do so. You are young, gay, and lively. How I envy you!”

“Blase! He is already hardened. And you are going home on foot, like an author who has been hissed. I concealed myself here, expecting to see you pass in an elegant carriage, surrounded by an enthusiastic crowd. Oh! these favorites of fortune ! I will wager that you are not hungry, not you!”

“ My poor friend, I forgot. Come quickly to my house and I will keep you company. Joy at seeing you has given me an appetite.”

Toward two o’clock in the morning Antoine Godefroid and his friend, Patrice O’Farrell were smoking their cigars in the musician’s warm and comfortable dining-room.

“I am drunk,” said Patrice, “completely fuddled. You saw, too, that I drank nothing hut water, according to my Usual custom. Mon Dieu ! How my head aches ! What a confusion of ideas of all sorts

SEALED LIPS .

and kinds ! My straw hut in the Okma Island, your walls hung with Gobelin tapestry, my Chinese cook with braided hair, your valet’s whiskers, the King of Siam’s bayaderes, the ballet dancers a few hours ago, my fights with pirates, the massacre of the unfortunate Dracoses, the sea, the ships, the railroad, the opera, my elephants, the Parisians sparkling with diamonds. Ah ! my friend, tell me that I am not crazy! You are not at the head of an institution for the insane, and just now when I wanted to leave they did not give me a cold water douche?”

“ Do not be uneasy. My brain is in no better condition than yours. It now contains eighty men, all in black coats, playing on every sort of an instrument that was ever heard of. Not only do they play, but I know in advance just the note that they should sound. I see it, I wrote it, I wait for it, and I am always afraid that they will play the wrong one. One of the disadvantages of the school that I belong to is that they notice false notes. Well! We are both tired out. Let us go to bed.”

“You speak of it coolly; to go to bed, for you, simply means to open a door, take of your clothes, and stretch yourself out upon a good bed. But for me, to leave this arm-chair, go into the street, I should say real life; turn to the east into a labyrinth of houses ; read the numbers ; get out of the way of carriages. If some one would only take me and put me out on the sidewalk ! Once there, willing or not, I would make an effort, like a paralytic

SEALED LIPS.

placed on the track at the approach of a train.”

“Come,” said Antoine, smiling, “you will not find the ordeal so hard as you think.” But he did not conduct his friend into the street. He raised a portiere, and they entered a room brightly lighted and heated by a fire.

“I have moved since your departure,” said he. “But in this house, as well as the other, you have your room. Here, the same as there, you are at home. Sleep well, dear Patrice; thanks for the great happiness that you have given me this evening. Go to sleep quickly, for I warn you I shall not let you sleep long. As for me, I shall not shut my eyes.”

O’Farrell, without listening to his host, looked about him with an air of suspicion.

“Go,” sighed he, “my hallucination still continues. But do not imagine that I shall be caught. I know very well that this room is a cabin, that this bed that looks so large and sumptuous is only a berth where I shall soon hear my companion, the Liverpool merchant, snoring only ten inches above my head. Good-night, I shall go to sleep at once, for fear of waking up entirely.”

A short time after the young man was asleep, for the first time in five years, upon a pillow and a good bed in dear France. And strangest of all, the only vision he had before him as he slept was the beautiful Adossides of whom he had not spoken a word to Godefroid,

HEALED LIPS.

Chapter II. Descriptive

“ Constantin XII.” marked Antoine Godefroid’s debut upon the lyric stage, but the composer, although more than forty years old, did not make his debut as far as celebrity and fortune were concerned. His only operetta, “Des Filets de Vulcain,” this masterpiece of a style now passed by, for fifteen years the California for musicians, had enriched him by covering the walls of all the principal cities of Europe with his name. As practical in business matters as ambitious in his profession, Godefroid, while putting aside his profits in a sure place, was soon tired of this title of “ author of ‘Des Filets de Vulcain/” which he saw himself threatened with for the rest of his life. He was too wise not to understand that in time the operetta would succumb to two fatal disorders — abuse and mediocrity. He felt that he was born for something better. He wrote “Constantin,” and without any trouble or waiting the doors of the Opera opened to receive his work. Then he felt that he had reached the height of his ambition.

To tell the truth, it was not everybody’s opinion. An old master, whose teaching he followed more

SEALED LIPS.

U

than his advice — for his independent will did not bend to others — made some predictions that he remembered on the day that our story commences.

“You are like,” said this sinister prophet, “those unlucky ones who build an inn on a mountain road the very day before a railroad is laid out which passes below it. You are a dreamer and a poet. Your talent consists of color, passion, tenderness, and enthusiasm. What the devil can one do with that in an opera? Are you blind? Do you not see that to-day the public discuss the beautiful as coldly as one discusses the thickness of a bridge’s iron beams? Art, like the Romish church of old, undergoes its reform. Two or three little Luthers led by one great one will undermine the edifice of our old musical creeds. I doubt if they have time to destroy the temple. Already these very serious and convincing men, much more learned than we, for they have not genius, have put their strong hands upon the grace notes. We now pass, thanks to them, for idolaters worthy of pity. To the stables with all statuary! to the fire with pictures! No more images in the sanctuary, only those cold gray pictures that the engineer’s compass traces, a hieroglyphic mixture of straight, crooked, and broken lines. Ah! To be sure! You choose a fortunate moment to offer your sparkling gold, your azure skies and voluptuous, satin flesh. Certainly, I am easy as to the future, as true as there has been a Mozart, melody will come again, but these illusions

SEALED LIPS.

must have their day. You, my dear fellow, have come too soon or too late.”

The old professor did not convince Godefroid, for two other voices spoke louder still in the young master’s ear than experience and wisdom. One of these voices was that of immortal art. I will tell you of the other later.

Until he was forty years old his profession had been his only faith, hope, and. love. Even from his youth art, like a beneficent god, had taken him by the hand in the humble school-house of a village in Touraine, where his father gained a scanty subsistence as instructor.

One day the lady of the castle, Countess O’Farrell, mother of Patrice, was surprised to hear the little parish church organ depart from its vulgar flourishes and play a sweet touching melody. The organist was sent for to come to the castle — castles were of some use in those days — and was complimented and questioned. The little fellow, fourteen years old, told how, until then, nature had been his only teacher. The sacred spark had kindled in him, he said, the first time he heard the talented organist at the cathedral play, on a trip that he had taken to the city with his father when very young.

Still filled with ecstasy, he returned to his humble home, and passed the entire night in trying to find on a dilapidated old instrument the harmony that had transported him the night before into a new world. Thus, step by step, degree by degree, guided

SEALED LIPS.

by an infallible ear, the child had discovered the fundamental principles of the science. At fourteen he not only accompanied the sacred chants perfectly, but he improvised with much feeling and taste.

“What would you like to do?” asked the enthusiastic countess at the sight of this prodigy.

“ To visit the cathedral organ and know the organist,” replied the young country lad. “More than once I have been to X on foot, to attend wor-

ship on fete days, and have pushed open the little r turret gate, and found myself on the narrow stairway that seemed to me to lead to Paradise, but the young lads who blew the organ stopped me. One day they promised to let me work for them. How happy I was then ! It seemed that a part of me sung in every pipe. I had a genuine bath in harmony, and that night, in spite of the dozen leagues that I walked, I never closed my eyes.”

Madame O’Farrell had an artistic soul and a charitable heart, she felt that there was a future great artist in this child.

First it was necessary to conciliate Father Godefroid, an earnest instructor and a little defiant regarding the castle, as people of his class were then scarcely less than to-day. A pedagogue — this word seemed all in all to him — passed in his eyes as one of the most noble and sure professions in the world. A musician ! That was^ something like a chorus singer minus the fees.

SEALED LIPS.

Finally his consent was given on condition that the countess assumed all the expense. A few days later young Antoine knew the cathedral organ in another way than blowing it.

He has often recounted since that the happiest day of his life — musical — was when he was seated upon the old oak bench for the first time to accompany a third-class burial mass. The dead, thank the Lord ! did not seem to notice the substitution of pupil for master, and the living, if they noticed it, did not complain.

Three years after he left his home Antoine entered the Conservatory ; he was invited frequently during the winter to his benefactress’ house,, and learned in the best society of Paris a knowledge of the world, that so many of our illustrious geniuses are ignorant of, on account of studying it too late in life.

L’Ecole de Rome received the young prize-taker, and when he returned to France almost immediately fortune favored him, and commenced to wreath about his head the golden crown of success, a thing more rare at his age than the Institute laurels.

From thence only two sentiments filled the heart of this happy mortal— love of his profession and gratitude toward the generous woman who had given him this profession. One of the first and greatest troubles of his life was the ruin of the O’Farrell family, a disaster followed in two years

SEALED LIPS.

by the death of the countess and her husband.

Their only child, young Patrice, was then only fifteen years old, and alone in the world. Antoine adopted him, and assumed most seriously the duties of a father ; he renounced, in order to remove his ward from all unfavorable contact, the pleasures which his reputation as a renowned artist opened to him in more than one part of the globe. Until the last of the 0 ’Farrells attained his majority his adopted father lead the life of a recluse. Sometimes this giving up of all pleasures seemed hard in his youth, but he was largely recompensed for it by the regularity and opportunities to work, with nothing to interrupt him. One thing remained to be seen — would not his heart and unknown senses, condemned to solitude, some day reclaim the arrears a hundred fold?

At all events when the young orphan was twentyone years old he left his home to seek his fortune. Even after his departure Godefroid continued to work as seriously as ever. The most elevated branches of his largely developed nature seemed to have singularly weakened the frantic growth of his vigor. Thus by patient culture the ground refuses its strength to the brilliant but sterile flowers, keeping its richness for the branches of precious buds.

It was a strange thing ! This great artist, applauded by everybody, remained good, timid, and artless, and was always ready to assist others. He passed for a misanthrope and a haughty, proud person. He had very few friends, either among young composers or the older masters. The first for the most part considered that they were rivals, unjustly frustrated by fate. The others wpre not attracted toward a talent that rose so quickly. They accused him of being a miser, and, of all censure that they had given him, this above all caused them to withhold their sympathy.

In reality nobody could be less avaricious than he, but in his tranquil existence the gold that he earned deposited itself like clay upon a ground covered with stagnant water.

Perhaps with time these faults that were attributed to him would prove to be untrue, a circumstance of frequent occurrence. From continually hearing that he was a misanthrope he thought the world blind and unjust and disagreeable. It made him still more dignified when they reproached him for his pride, and if anything made money of value in his eyes it was to see to what a point those who did not have it made faces at those who did. He learned more and more to dispense with others’ society, a quality that is nearly related to egotism. However, upon these moderate and easily explained transformations of character art and work continued to rule in a masterly manner. If he was not the happiest of men, he was surely one of the least to be pitied. The ideal steeped his soul in the purest delight ; reality spared him sorrow for the present,

HEALED LIPS .

and, alone, in the world he was sheltered for the future from much vexation.

Often, after he first undertook his great work, “Constantin,” the young man had been obliged to stop his tremendous task of putting each of the one hundred thousand notes which composed an act in the opera in their own place. He often felt that he had exhausted his strength, his inspiration, and his confidence in himself, but one thought always cheered him :

“ I shall forget all this in one evening, providing that we come out conquerors in the struggle.”

For it was not for himself alone that he trembled.

Two new comers were to make their first appearance the same evening on one of the greatest lyric stages of the world ; Godefroid was aiming at the most noble success, and Jenny Sauvel, an unknown, was protected and launched by the young master ; people even said imposed upon them by his will.

Both of them could now say that they had succeeded. One was applauded for her voice and talent as well as her grace and beauty. The other was applauded not by a few hundred friends, but by an audience perhaps not as fashionably attired as people usually are on nights of a first representation, but more intelligent and appreciative. Finally, to complete his happiness, the cordial and unexpected greeting of the man that he loved best in all the world crowned one of the ever to be remem-

SEALED LIPS.

bered hours of his life. And yet, when he entered his room, after having left Patrice, instead of the complete, profound, and secret joy that he expected to taste he felt in his heart a dim impression of uneasiness and vacancy.

“What is it that I lack?” he asked himself. “Is not art, glory, fortune, and friendship all there is in this world?”

HEALED LIPS .

Chapter III. A Floral Memento

It was eight o’clock in the morning, and the lamp was still burning in Antoine Godefroid’s room. The hero of the night before was reading the journals with calm attention, but a trifle uneasy, as a lawyer gives an abstract of a case.

Patrice, fresh and rested, enters his friend’s room, and is surprised to find him with this preoccupied and sober face.

“Mon Bleu /” exclaimed he, “what a pile of journals! And to think that each one represents a political party! Happy France! Well, are you pleased? Does the incense burn upon all these blue, white, and red altars without exception? Ah! here is one where they compare you to Berlioz.”

“You might say that the article was on Berlioz. He only speaks of me to deplore the unjust partiality of fate in respect to certain artists.”

“ Pie admits in the same breath the success of your work.”

“He admits it, but in his heart he laments it. He is politely astonished. Do you see, my friend, on the whole— for I love you too well to let you read all these papers — the public is only a lofty critic which fights me with a vengeance.”

SEALED LIPS .

“Would you like it better if the two thousand people had hissed you last night and the twelve bald-headed critics should praise you this morning?”

“Perhaps, for to-morrow these two thousand people will make their public apologies to these twelve gentlemen that you speak of, and excuse themselves for having applauded me too quickly.”

“That would be preposterous. But what have you not upset these last hundred years, you fellows of the revolution?”

“We thought to overturn all tyrannies, those of priests as well as kings. But another has sprung up — a band composed of critics and young fellows have put their feet upon the public, and have made them submit. ‘Obey/ cries this Kobespierre of music, literature, and the pencil. ‘Too long art has gloried in being your servant. Too long we have solicited your approbation. In your turn you must bow before us. What we like you must like. What we youngsters give you you will pretend to like and understand. What you think is of little importance to us. We advise you, above all things, not to sulk. We put away the scorned dish for pouting children until they are resigned to swallow it, free to make up faces. Thus we shall do with you, oh, Frenchmen! We will take away the old masters, servile flatterers of your pleasure. What matters it if half a century is necessary to make you forget your tastes, instincts, and national customs? We will be patient, first because we have

HEALED LIPS.

the future before us, and then because in spite of your bad humor you will bring us your money. Oh, public ! the easiest to govern in the world, if one remains firm the first quarter of an hour of your resistance.’ ”

“ But among all these worthy people is there not one who takes your part and that of your school?”

“No, for the journals agree on every point, better than you would suppose. They separate on politics, but after the fashion of bees who swarm upon different bushes, under standing that if they were all to plunder the same plant they would die of hunger. But returning to their lives they all follow the same designs in their cells. Nevertheless for independents like me the journals always show a little spite. They love to revenge themselves in showing us as Bossuet said, that seated on a throne we are no less under their hands and supreme authority. Et nunc reges intelligite. Translated: Poor Godefroid will not see many such evenings like yesterday’s.”

“The devil take me if I expected to hear at this time your funeral oration. Go, pessimist! What would you say if you were in my place?”

“My friend, pardon me, I am a miserable egotist. For twelve hours you have only heard me talk of what interests and pleases and disenchants me. It is, do you see, because I have not yet grasped the idea that my success is not yours, my gain your gain, that you work, succeed, and fail on your own

SEALED LIPS.

account. Your return has made me forget the past six years in our life, and, seeing you before me, I imagine that it is still the same as when my thoughts said ‘we/ but my lips ‘1/ ”

“And I? Did it take me long to return to my old habits of eating your bread and sleeping under your roof? Even when I left to seek my fortune, it was with your money. Do not be uneasy, I bring it back, but just what you gave me, without the slightest addition.”

“ I did hope so much to see you rich some day.”

“An O’Farrell rich ! You are crazy ! Money with us is like truth among rogues, an exception never lasting. Many a time since my ancestor followed James II. into beautiful France we have met with bad luck, and on my own part I can pride myself upon keeping up the reputation of the family. God be praised, I have a firm grip.”

“Was your plantation a complete failure?”

“Yes and no. I obtained some superb crops. I had piles of coffee and mountains of sugar cane. As to tobacco I put it in ricks like hay. I can prove it, for there is not a leaf of it gone. It is all there. ”

“ Well, what then?”

“Well, crops are good for nothing if you cannot sell them, and that is what I never could do. My products were as detestable as abundant. My coffee smelled of tobacco, my tobacco of nothing, and was obliged to bring it to Paris for my own personal

HEALED LIPS.

use. As to my sugar cane, it was as large as my arm, and gave out juice like a sponge, but the juice was not sweet, which was a great defect in that species. I might as well have distilled spinach. I still had my indigo remaining, which at tirst I had reason to be proud of. Ah, yes! You do not know about indigo ! It is magnificent in its savage state. It is subject, if one cultivates it, to twenty-seven diseases, all deadly. I was a little vexed, as you may imagine, when I received a premium of encouragement from the colonial government, which paid back what I had spent. It is useless to say that I made only one bound for the treasurer’s box and another to the steamer that brought me home.”