It is not easy to imitate the pathos and the wit of Heine; but it is easy to imitate his defiance of the Deity, his mockery of right and wrong, his relentless war on that heroic standard of thought and action which the writers who exalt their nation intuitively preserve. Rameau cannot be a Heine, but he can be to Heine what a misshapen snarling dwarf is to a mangled blaspheming Titan. Yet he interests the women in general, and he evidently interests the fair Signorina in especial."
Just as Bacourt finished that last sentence, Isaura lifted the head which had hitherto bent in an earnest listening attitude that seemed to justify the Doctor's remarks, and looked round. Her eyes met Graham's with the fearless candour which made half the charm of their bright yet soft intelligence; but she dropped them suddenly with a half-start and a change of colour, for the expression of Graham's face was unlike that which she had hitherto seen on it,--it was hard, stern, and somewhat disdainful. A minute or so afterwards she rose, and in passing across the room towards the group round the host, paused at a table covered with books and prints near to which Graham was standing alone. The Doctor had departed in company with the German Count.
Isaura took up one of the prints.
"Ah!" she exclaimed, "Sorrento, my Sorrento. Have you ever visited Sorrento, Mr. Vane?"
Her question and her movement were evidently in conciliation. Was the conciliation prompted by coquetry, or by a sentiment more innocent and artless?
Graham doubted, and replied coldly, as he bent over the print,--
"I once stayed there a few days, but my recollection of it is not sufficiently lively to enable me to recognize its features in this design."
"That is the house, at least so they say, of Tasso's father; of course you visited that?"
"Yes, it was a hotel in my time; I lodged there."
"And I too. There I first read 'The Gerusalemine.'" The last words were said in Italian, with a low measured tone, inwardly and dreamily.
A somewhat sharp and incisive voice speaking in French here struck in and prevented Graham's rejoinder: "Quel joli dessin! What is it, Mademoiselle?"
Graham recoiled; the speaker was Gustave Rameau, who had, unobserved, first watched Isaura, then rejoined her side.
"A view of Sorrento, Monsieur, but it does not do justice to the place. I was pointing out the house which belonged to Tasso's father."
"Tasso! Hein! and which is the fair Eleonora's?"
"Monsieur," answered Isaura, rather startled at that question, from a professed homme de lettres, "Eleonora did not live at Sorrento."
"Tant pis pour Sorrente," said the homme de lettres, carelessly. "No one would care for Tasso if it were not for Eleonora."
"I should rather have thought," said Graham, "that no one would have cared for Eleonora if it were not for Tasso."
Rameau glanced at the Englishman superciliously. "Pardon, Monsieur, in every age a love-story keeps its interest; but who cares nowadays for le clinquant du Tasse?"
"Le clinquant du Tasse!" exclaimed Isaura, indignantly.
"The expression is Boileau's, Mademoiselle, in ridicule of the 'Sot de qualite,' who prefers--
"'Le clinquant du Tasse a tout l'or de Virgile.'
"But for my part I have as little faith in the last as the first."
"I do not know Latin, and have therefore not read Virgil," said Isaura.
"Possibly," remarked Graham, "Monsieur does not know Italian, and has therefore not read Tasso."
"If that be meant in sarcasm," retorted Rameau, "I construe it as a compliment. A Frenchman who is contented to study the masterpieces of modern literature need learn no language and read no authors but his own."
Isaura laughed her pleasant silvery laugh. "I should admire the frankness of that boast, Monsieur, if in our talk just now you had not spoken as contemptuously of what we are accustomed to consider French masterpieces as you have done of Virgil and Tasso."
"Ah, Mademoiselle! it is not my fault if you have had teachers of taste so rococo as to bid you find masterpieces in the tiresome stilted tragedies of Corneille and Racine. Poetry of a court, not of a people, one simple novel, one simple stanza that probes the hidden recesses of the human heart, reveals the sores of this wretched social state, denounces the evils of superstition, kingcraft, and priestcraft, is worth a library of the rubbish which pedagogues call 'the classics.' We agree, at least, in one thing, Mademoiselle; we both do homage to the genius of your friend Madame de Grantmesnil."
"Your friend, Signorina!" cried Graham, incredulously; "is Madame de Grantmesnil your friend?"
"The dearest I have in the world."
Graham's face darkened; he turned away in silence, and in another minute vanished from the room, persuading himself that he felt not one pang of jealousy in leaving Gustave Rameau by the side of Isaura. "Her dearest friend Madame de Grantmesnil!" he muttered.
A word now on Isaura's chief correspondent. Madame de Grantmesnil was a woman of noble birth and ample fortune.