point of the evening turned out as heavy as lead.[1] Mercifully. Chaudes-Aigués got drunk, which broke the ice a little. Rachel asked me with so conciliating or coquettish an expression, if "we were still fighting," that I replied, "Why did you not ask me that three years ago. You know that I am not rancorous, and our quarrel would have blown over at once." She looked at me still more coquettishly, exclaiming, "How much time lost!" and we shook hands as good friends. Rachel has invited me to come and see her; I go every Thursday. That is the whole story.
The sequel is thus told by Paul de Musset in the Biography he wrote of his brother:—
One day, in the April of 1846, Rachel had invited him (Alfred) to dinner. The other guests were all men of position and rank. During dinner, the person seated on the left of the mistress of the house remarked a beautiful ring that she wore. The ring was immediately passed round, all expressing their admiration. "Messieurs," said Rachel, "since this trifle pleases you, I will put it up to auction. How much will you give for it?" One of the guests offered five hundred francs, another a thousand, a third fifteen hundred. At one moment the bidding went as high as three thousand francs. "And you, my poet," said Rachel, "why don't you make an offer? Come, what will you give me?" "I give you my heart," answered Alfred. "The ring is yours." With childish impetuosity Rachel threw the ring, as she spoke, into the poet's plate. After dinner Alfred wished to give it back to her. "Dear poet," she said, "you have given me your heart, and I would not return it to you for a hundred thousand crowns. Keep this ring as a pledge. If ever, by my fault or yours, you renounce the idea of writing the rôle for which I have expressed a wish so often, bring me the ring, and I will take it back." He accepted it subject to these conditions.
Rachel left for England shortly afterwards. She had promised to write to "her poet," but did not keep her
- ↑ It is noteworthy that Heine is one of the few great artists who saw Rachel and refused her the tribute of his admiration. "I find in the matter of talent," he says, "a great similarity between Herr Felix Mendelssohn and Mademoiselle Rachel Félix, the tragic artist. Peculiar to both is a severe, a very serious severeness—a decided, nearly unfortunate, attachment to classic models, the purest, most talented power of calculation, sharpness of understanding, and, in fine, a total want of näiveté." Is there, however, in art such a thing as original genius without näiveté? Up till now there has been no occurrence of an example of it.
