"Is not all this admirable! How much better this than politics! Parbleu! He must be an idiot who does not see it. Positively, people are absurd, they are asses! They would be so happy if they would only consent to live carelessly, without seeking to free themselves from their masters. As if, when some masters are gone, others will not immediately come! Positively they are animals fit to eat hay!"
The next day he resumed his walks, and so day after day, without worrying himself about a mode of life so agreeable and happy; and in this he was perfectly right.
The young painter, as we have already said, lived in a house placed at the disposal of M. Dubois by the Buenos Airean Government, and situated on the Plaza Mayor, under the gates. The young man, on stepping out of his house, found himself in face of a wide street, furnished with shops, which led out of the square. This street was the Calle de las Mercaderes. Now, the painter had been in the habit of going straight on, of following the Calle Mercaderes, at the end of which was the Callejón de las Cruces; he then entered the Callejón, and arrived, without any turning, at the river. Thus, twice a day – in the morning in going out, and in the evening in returning from his promenade – Emile Gagnepain passed the entire length of the Callejón de las Cruces.
He stopped sometimes for a considerable time to admire the graceful outline of some gable ends, dating from the earlier years of the conquest, and preferred to traverse this silent and solitary street, where he could freely give himself up to his thoughts without fear of being interrupted, rather than to take the streets of the higher quarters, where it was impossible to take a step without meeting some acquaintance whom he could not have passed without exchanging a few words, or at least without a bow – things which annoyed him much, as they broke the thread of his thoughts.
One morning when, according to custom, Emile Gagnepain had begun his walk, and was pensively traversing the Callejón de las Cruces, at the moment when he was passing the house of which we have spoken, he felt a slight tap on the crown of his hat, as if some light object had struck it, and a flower immediately fell at his feet.
The young man stopped with astonishment. His first movement was to raise his head, but he saw nothing; the old house had still its accustomed mournful and sombre aspect.
"Hum!" murmured he; "What does that mean? This flower, at all events, has not fallen from the sky."
He stooped down, picked it up delicately, and examined it with care.
It was a white rose, scarcely half opened, and still fresh and damp with dew.
Emile remained an instant wrapped in thought.
"Well, that is odd," said he; "this flower has only been gathered a few minutes; is it not to me that it has been thrown? Nay," added he, looking around him, "it would be very difficult to have thrown it to another, for I am alone. This deserves reflection. I must not be carried away by vanity. I'll wait till the evening."
And he continued his walk, after having vainly explored, with an anxious look, all the windows of this solitary house.
This incident, slight as it was, was sufficient to trouble the artist during the remainder of his promenade.
He was young, he believed himself good-looking; and, moreover, he had more than a reasonable share of vanity. His imagination soon carried him away. He called to mind all the love stories he had heard related in relation to Spain; and, putting this and that together, he soon arrived at this conclusion, excessively flattering to his self-love – that a beautiful Señora, held prisoner by some jealous husband, had seen him pass under her windows, had felt herself drawn towards him by an irresistible passion, and had thrown him this flower to attract his attention.
This conclusion was absurd, it was true but it immensely pleased the painter, whose self-love, as we have said, it flattered.
During the whole day the young man was burning with anxiety; twenty times he thought of returning, but, happily, reflection came to his aid, and he came to the conclusion that too much haste would compromise the success of his adventure, and that it would be better not again to pass the house till the hour when he was in the habit of returning home.
"In this way," said he, with a knowing air – questioning himself to avoid a disillusion, if, which was possible, he was deceived – "if she expects me, she will throw me another flower; then I will buy a guitar, a mantle the colour of the wall, and I will come like a lover of the time of the Cid Campeador, by starlight, to tell her my love."
But, notwithstanding this mockery, which he addressed to himself as he wandered about, he was much more concerned in the matter than he was ready to confess, and every moment he was consulting his watch to see if the hour for his return was near.
Although we may not be in love – and certainly the painter only felt at this moment a curiosity which he could not explain; for it was impossible for him to entertain any other feeling for a person whom he did not know: nevertheless the unknown – the unforeseen, if you will – has an indefinable charm, and exerts a powerful attraction on certain excitable organisations, which induces them in a moment to build up suppositions which they are not slow to consider as realities, until the truth suddenly comes, as a drop of cold water thrown into a boiling fluid will in a moment stop the evaporation of steam.
When the painter thought the hour had arrived, he turned back towards home. Affecting, perhaps, a little too visibly – if anyone had had an interest in watching his movements and gestures – the manners of a man completely indifferent, he reached the Callejón de las Cruces, and soon arrived near the house.
Spite of himself, the young man felt that he was flushed; his heart beat rapidly, and he had a buzzing in his ears, as when the blood, suddenly excited, rushes to the head.
All of a sudden, he felt a pretty smart shock to his hat.
He briskly raised his head.
Sudden as had been his movement, he could see nothing; only he heard a slight noise as if a window had been cautiously closed.
Disappointed at this second and unsuccessful attempt to perceive the person who was thus interested in him, he remained for a moment motionless; then, recollecting the ridiculousness of his position in the middle of a street, and under the eyes of people who were, perhaps, watching him from behind a window blind, he resumed his apparent coolness and indifference, and looked on the ground about him for the object which had so suddenly struck him.
He soon perceived it two or three paces from him.
This time it was not a flower. The object, whatever it was – for at first he could not be certain of it – was enveloped in paper, and tied carefully with a purple silk thread several times round the paper.
"Oh, oh!" thought the painter, picking up the little roll of paper, and rapidly hiding it in the pocket of the waistcoat which he wore under his poncho; "This complicates the matter. Are we already to write to one another? The devil! This is making rapid progress, indeed!"
He began to walk rapidly to reach his lodgings; but soon reflecting that this unaccustomed proceeding would astonish people who were in the habit of seeing him, lounging and looking about him, he checked himself, and resumed his ordinary pace.
But his hand was incessantly going to his pocket, to feel the object which he had so carefully deposited there.
"God pardon me," said he, after a time! "I believe it is a ring. Oh, oh! That would be charming! Upon, my word, I return to my first idea – I will buy a guitar, and a mantle the colour of the wall, and in making love to my beautiful unknown – for she is beautiful, I doubt not – I will forget the torments of exile. But," said he, suddenly stopping right in the middle of the square, and throwing up his arms with a desperate air, "if she is ugly! Ugly women have often extraordinary ideas which seize them, they know not why. Ah! That would be frightful! Come! What am I talking about? The devil take me, if I am not becoming stupid! She cannot be ugly, for the very simple, reason that all the Spaniards are pretty."
And reassured by this reasoning,