第98章

On the third day, the conversation at table happening to turn, as it often turned, upon St.Sebald's Church, a young Frenchman, who was criticising its architecture with fluent dogmatism, drew Bourgonef into the discussion, and thereby elicited such a display of accurate and extensive knowledge, no less than delicacy of appreciation, that we were all listening spellbound.In the midst of this triumphant exposition the irritated vanity of the Frenchman could do nothing to regain his position but oppose a flat denial to a historical statement made by Bourgonef, backing his denial by the confident assertion that "all the competent authorities" held with him.At this point Bourgonef appealed to me, and in that tone of deference so exquisitely flattering from one we already know to be superior he requested my decision; observing that, from the manner in which he had seen me examine the details of the architecture, he could not be mistaken in his confidence that I was a connoisseur.

All eyes were turned upon me.As a shy man, this made me blush; as a vain man, the blush was accompanied with delight.It might easily have happened that such an appeal, acting at once upon shyness and ignorance, would have inflamed my wrath; but the appeal happening to be directed on a point which I had recently investigated and thoroughly mastered, I was flattered at the opportunity of a victorious display.

The pleasure of my triumph diffused itself over my feelings towards him who had been the occasion of it.The Frenchman was silenced;the general verdict of the company was too obviously on our side.

From this time the conversation continued between Bourgonef and myself; and he not only succeeded in entirely dissipating my absurd antipathy--which I now saw to have been founded on purely imaginary grounds, for neither the falseness nor the furtiveness could now be detected--but he succeeded in captivating all my sympathy.Long after dinner was over, and the salle empty, we sat smoking our cigars, and discussing politics, literature, and art in that suggestive desultory manner which often gives a charm to casual acquaintances.

It was a stirring epoch, that of February, 1848.The Revolution, at first so hopeful, and soon to manifest itself in failure so disastrous, was hurrying to an outburst.France had been for many months agitated by cries of electoral reform, and by indignation at the corruption and scandals in high places.The Praslin murder, and the dishonor of M.Teste, terminated by suicide, had been interpreted as signs of the coming destruction.The political banquets given in various important cities had been occasions for inflaming the public mind, and to the far-seeing, these banquets were interpreted as the sounds of the tocsin.Louis Philippe had become odious to France, and contemptible to Europe.Guizot and Duchatel, the ministers of that day, although backed by a parliamentary majority on which they blindly relied, were unpopular, and were regarded as infatuated even by their admirers in Europe.The Spanish marriages had all but led to a war with England.The Opposition, headed by Thiers and Odillon Barrot, was strengthened by united action with the republican party, headed by Ledru Rollin, Marrast, Flocon, and Louis Blanc.

Bourgonef was an ardent republican.So was I; but my color was of a different shade from his.He belonged to the Reds.My own dominant tendencies being artistic and literary, my dream was of a republic in which intelligence would be the archon or ruler; and, of course, in such a republic, art and literature, as the highest manifestation of mind, would have the supreme direction.Do you smile, reader? I smile now; but it was serious earnest with me then.It is unnecessary to say more on this point.I have said so much to render intelligible the stray link of communion which riveted the charm of my new acquaintance's conversation; there was both agreement enough and difference enough in our views to render our society mutually fascinating.

On retiring to my room that afternoon I could not help laughing at my absurd antipathy against Bourgonef.All his remarks had disclosed a generous, ardent, and refined nature.While my antipathy had specially fastened upon a certain falseness in his smile--a falseness the more poignantly hideous if it were falseness, because hidden amidst the wreaths of amiability--my delight in his conversation had specially justified itself by the truthfulness of his mode of looking at things.He seemed to be sincerity itself.There was, indeed, a certain central reserve;but that might only he an integrity of pride; or it might be connected with painful circumstances in his history, of which the melancholy in his face was the outward sign.

That very evening my constructive imagination was furnished with a detail on which it was soon to be actively set to work.I had been rambling about the old fortifications, and was returning at nightfall through the old archway near Albert Durer's house, when a man passed by me.We looked at each other in that automatic way in which men look when they meet in narrow places, and I felt, so to speak, a start of recognition in the eyes of the man who passed.

Nothing else, in features or gestures, betrayed recognition or surprise.But although there was only that, it flashed from his eyes to mine like an electric shock.He passed.I looked back.

He continued his way without turning.The face was certainly known to me; but it floated in a mist of confused memories.

I walked on slowly, pestering my memory with fruitless calls upon it, hopelessly trying to recover the place where I could have seen the stranger before.In vain memory traveled over Europe in concert-rooms, theaters, shops, and railway carriages.I could not recall the occasion on which those eyes had previously met mine.

That they had met them I had no doubt.I went to bed with the riddle undiscovered.