FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   499   500   501   502   503   504   505   506   507   508   509   510   511   512   513   514   515   516   517   518   519   520   521   522   523  
524   525   526   527   528   529   530   531   532   533   534   535   536   537   538   539   540   541   542   543   544   545   546   547   548   >>   >|  
of a relapse. And your mother said to her--I heard the words: ''Tis not for his bodily health I could dare to ask you to stay, when every man who can afford it is sending away his wife, sisters, daughters. As for that, I should suffice to tend him; but if you go, I resign all hope for the health of his mind and his soul.' I think at Paris there may be female poets and artists whom that sort of argument would not have much influenced. But it so happens that Isaura is not a Parisienne. She believes in those old myths which you think fatal to sympathies with yourself; and those old myths also lead her to believe that where a woman has promised she will devote her life to a man, she cannot forsake him when told by his mother that she is necessary to the health of his mind and his soul. Stay. Before you interrupt me, let me finish what I have to say. It appears that, so soon as your bodily health was improved, you felt that your mind and your soul could take care of themselves; and certainly it seems to me that Isaura Cicogna is no longer of the smallest use to either." Rameau was evidently much disconcerted by this speech. He saw what Savarin was driving at--the renunciation of all bond between Isaura and himself. He was not prepared for such renunciation. He still felt for the Italian as much of love as he could feel for any woman who did not kneel at his feet, as at those of Apollo condescending to the homage of Arcadian maids. But on the one hand, he felt that many circumstances had occurred since the disaster at Sedan to render Isaura a very much less desirable partie than she had been when he had first wrung from her the pledge of betrothal. In the palmy times of a Government in which literature and art commanded station and insured fortune, Isaura, whether as authoress or singer, was a brilliant marriage for Gustave Rameau. She had also then an assured and competent, if modest, income. But when times change, people change with them. As the income for the moment (and Heaven only can say how long that moment might last), Isaura's income had disappeared. It will be recollected that Louvier had invested her whole fortune in the houses to be built in the street called after his name. No houses, even when built, paid any rent now. Louvier had quitted Paris; and Isaura could only be subsisting upon such small sum as she might have had in hand before the siege commenced. All career in such literature and art as Isaura adorned
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   499   500   501   502   503   504   505   506   507   508   509   510   511   512   513   514   515   516   517   518   519   520   521   522   523  
524   525   526   527   528   529   530   531   532   533   534   535   536   537   538   539   540   541   542   543   544   545   546   547   548   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Isaura

 

health

 

income

 
moment
 

literature

 
Rameau
 

renunciation

 
fortune
 

change

 

houses


mother

 

bodily

 

Louvier

 

Government

 
partie
 
desirable
 
betrothal
 

pledge

 

career

 

adorned


condescending
 

homage

 

Arcadian

 
disaster
 

circumstances

 

commenced

 

occurred

 

render

 
commanded
 
street

people
 

called

 
assured
 

competent

 
modest
 

Apollo

 

disappeared

 

recollected

 

Heaven

 

invested


insured

 

station

 

quitted

 

authoress

 

Gustave

 

marriage

 

brilliant

 
singer
 

subsisting

 

artists