As, during my first stay in Paris, I had frequently visited Madame
Victorine, the widow of my deceased uncle, and her children, very
cordial relations had since existed between us, especially after my
uncle's faithless friend had been compelled to disgorge the sums sent
from Denmark for her support, which he had so high-handedly kept back.
There were only faint traces left of the great beauty that had once
been hers; life had dealt hardly with her. She was good and
tender-hearted, an affectionate mother, but without other education
than was usual in the Parisian small bourgeois class to which she
belonged. All her opinions, her ideas of honour, of propriety, of
comfort and happiness, were typical of her class.
Partly from economy, partly from a desire not to waste the precious
time, I often, in those days, restricted my midday meal. I would buy
myself, at a provision dealer's, a large veal or ham pie and eat it in
my room, instead of going out to a restaurant. One day Victorine
surprised me at a meal of this sort, and exclaimed horrified:
_"Comment? vous vous nourrissez si mal!"_ To her, it was about the same
as if I had not had any dinner at all. To sit at home without a cloth
on the table, and cut a pie in pieces with a paper knife, was to sink
one's dignity and drop to poor man's fare.
Her thoughts, like those of most poor people in France and elsewhere,
centred mostly on money and money anxieties, on getting on well in the
world, or meeting with adversity, and on how much this man or the other
could earn, or not earn, in the year. Her eldest son was in St.
Petersburg, and he was doing right well; he was good and kind and sent
his mother help when he had a little to spare. He had promised, too, to
take charge of his next brother. But she had much anxiety about the
little ones. One of them was not turning out all that he should be, and
there were the two youngest to educate.
There was a charming celebration in the poor home when little Emma went
to her first communion, dressed all in white, from head to foot, with a
long white veil and white shoes, and several other little girls and
boys came just as smartly dressed, and presents were given and good
wishes offered. Little Henri looked more innocent than any of the
little girls.
Victorine had a friend whom she deemed most happy; this was Jules
Clarétie's mother, for, young though her son was, he wrote in the
papers, wrote books, too, and earned money, so that he was able to
maintain his mother altogether. He was a young man who ought to be held
in high estimation, an author who was all that he should be. There was
another author whom she detested, and that was P.L. Möller, the Dane:
"Jacques, as you know, was always a faithful friend of Monsieur Möller;
he copied out a whole book for him, [Footnote: _The Modern Drama in
France and Denmark_, which won the University Gold Medal for Möller.]
when he himself was very busy. But then when Jacques died--_pauvre
homme!_--he came and paid visits much too often and always at more and
more extraordinary times, so that I was obliged to forbid him the
house."