CHAPTER X. A BUDDING POET

It is the first of May, and the lilacs in the Luxembourg Gardens are in

blossom. It has just struck four o’clock. The bright sun and the pure

sky have rendered more odious than ever the captivity of the office to

Amedee, and he departs before the end of the sitting for a stroll in the

Medicis garden around the pond, where, for the amusement of the children

in that quarter, a little breeze from the northeast is pushing on a

miniature flotilla. Suddenly he hears himself called by a voice which

bursts out like a brass band at a country fair.

“Good-day, Violette.”

It is Jocquelet, the future comedian, with his turned-up nose,

which cuts the air like the prow of a first-class ironclad, superb,

triumphant, dressed like a Brazilian, shaved to the quick, the dearest

hope of Regnier’s class at the Conservatoire-Jocquelet, who has made an

enormous success in an act from the “Precieuses,” at the last quarter’s

examination--he says so himself, without any useless modesty--Jocquelet,

who will certainly have the first comedy prize at the next examination,

and will make his debut with out delay at the Comedie Francaise! All

this he announces in one breath, like a speech learned by heart, with

his terrible voice, like a quack selling shaving-paste from a gilded

carriage. In two minutes that favorite word of theatrical people had

been repeated thirty times, punctuating the phrases: “I! I! I! I!”

Amedee is only half pleased at the meeting. Jocquelet was always a

little too noisy to please him. After all, he was an old comrade, and

out of politeness the poet congratulated him upon his success.

Jocquelet questioned him. What was Amedee doing? What had become of him?

Where was his literary work? All this was asked with such cordiality

and warmth of manner that one would have thought that Jocquelet was

interested in Amedee, and had a strong friendship for him. Nothing of

the sort. Jocquelet was interested in only one person in this world,

and that person was named Jocquelet. One is either an actor or he is

not. This personage was always one wherever he was--in an omnibus, while

putting on his suspenders, even with the one he loved. When he said to

a newcomer, “How do you do?” he put so much feeling into this very

original question, that the one questioned asked himself whether he

really had not just recovered from a long and dangerous illness. Now, at

this time Jocquelet found himself in the presence of an unknown and poor

young poet. What role ought such an eminent person as himself to play

in such circumstances? To show affection for the young man, calm his

timidity, and patronize him without too much haughtiness; that was the

position to take, and Jocquelet acted it.

Amedee was an artless dupe, and, touched by the interest shown him, he

frankly replied:

“Well, my dear friend, I have worked hard this winter. I am not

dissatisfied. I think that I have made some progress; but if you knew

how hard and difficult it is!”

He was about to confide to Jocquelet the doubts and sufferings of a

sincere artist, but Jocquelet, as we have said, thought only of himself,

and brusquely interrupted the young poet:

“You do not happen to have a poem with you--something short, a hundred

or a hundred and fifty lines--a poem intended for effect, that one could

recite?”

Amedee had copied out that very day, at the office, a war story, a

heroic episode of Sebastopol that he had heard Colonel Lantz relate not

long since at Madame Roger’s, and had put into verse with a good French

sentiment and quite the military spirit, verse which savored of powder,

and went off like reports of musketry. He took the sheets out of his

pocket, and, leading the comedian into a solitary by-path of sycamores

which skirted the Luxembourg orangery, he read his poem to him in a low

voice. Jocquelet, who did not lack a certain literary instinct, was

very enthusiastic, for he foresaw a success for himself, and said to the

poet:

“You read those verses just like a poet, that is, very badly. But no

matter, this battle is very effective, and I see what I could do with

it-with my voice. But what do you mean?” added he, planting himself in

front of his friend. “Do you write verses like these and nobody knows

anything about them? It is absurd. Do you wish, then, to imitate

Chatterton? That is an old game, entirely used up! You must push

yourself, show yourself. I will take charge of that myself! Your evening

is free, is it not? Very well, come with me; before six o’clock I

shall have told your name to twenty trumpeters, who will make all

Paris resound with the news that there is a poet in the Faubourg

Saint-Jacques. I will wager, you savage, that you never have put your

foot into the Cafe de Seville. Why, my dear fellow, it is our first

manufactory of fame! Here is the Odeon omnibus, get on! We shall be

at the Boulevard Montmartre in twenty minutes, and I shall baptize you

there, as a great man, with a glass of absinthe.”

Dazzled and carried away, Amedee humored him and climbed upon the

outside of the omnibus with his comrade. The vehicle hurried them

quickly along toward the quay, crossed the Seine, the Carrousel, and

passed before the Theatre-Francais, at which Jocquelet, thinking of his

approaching debut, shook his fist, exclaiming, “Now I am ready for you!”

Here the young men were planted upon the asphalt boulevard, in front of

the Cafe de Seville.

Do not go to-day to see this old incubator, in which so many political

and literary celebrities have been hatched; for you will only find

a cafe, just like any other, with its groups of ugly little Jews who

discuss the coming races, and here and there a poor creature, painted

like a Jezebel, dying of chagrin over her pot of beer.

At the decline of the Second Empire--it was May 1, 1866, that Amedee

Violette entered there for the first time--the Cafe de, Seville passed

for, and with reason too, one of the most remarkable places in Paris.

For this glorious establishment had furnished by itself, or nearly so,

the eminent staff of our third Republic! Be honest, Monsieur le Prefet,

you who presided at the opening of the agricultural meeting in our

province, and who played the peacock in your dress-coat, embroidered

in silver, before an imposing line of horned creatures; be honest and

admit, that, at the time when you opposed the official candidates in

your democratic journal, you had your pipe in the rack of the Cafe

de Seville, with your name in white enamel upon the blackened bowl!

Remember, Monsieur le Depute, you who voted against all the exemption

cases of the military law, remember who, in this very place, at your

daily game of dominoes for sixty points, more than a hundred times

ranted against the permanent army--you, accustomed to the uproar of

assemblies and the noise of the tavern--contributed to the parliamentary

victories by crying, “Six all! count that!” And you too, Monsieur le

Ministre, to whom an office-boy, dating from the tyrants, still says,

“Your excellency,” without offending you; you also have been a constant

frequenter of the Cafe de Seville, and such a faithful customer that the

cashier calls you by your Christian name. And do you recall, Monsieur

the future president of the Council, that you did not acquit yourself

very well when the sedentary dame, who never has been seen to rise from

her stool, and who, as a joker pretended, was afflicted with two wooden

legs, called you by a little sign to the desk, and said to you, not

without a shade of severity in her tone: “Monsieur Eugene, we must be

thinking of this little bill.”

Notwithstanding his title of poet, Amedee had not the gift of prophecy.

While seeing all these negligently dressed men seated outside at

the Cafe de Seville’s tables, taking appetizers, the young man never

suspected that he had before him the greater part of the legislators

destined to assure, some years later, France’s happiness. Otherwise he

would have respectfully taken note of each drinker and the color of his

drink, since at a later period this would have been very useful to

him as a mnemonical method for the understanding of our parliamentary

combinations, which are a little complicated, we must admit. For

example, would it not have been handy and agreeable to note down

that the recent law on sugars had been voted by the solid majority of

absinthe and bitters, or to know that the Cabinet’s fall, day before

yesterday, might be attributed simply to the disloyal and perfidious

abandonment of the bitter mints or blackcurrant wine?

Jocquelet, who professed the most advanced opinions in politics,

distributed several riotous and patronizing handshakes among these

future statesmen as he entered the establishment, followed by Amedee.

Here, there were still more of politics, and also poets and literary

men. They lived a sort of hurly-burly life, on good terms, but one

could not get them confounded, for the politicians were all beard, the

litterateurs, all hair.

Jocquelet directed his steps without hesitation toward the magnificent

red head of the whimsical poet, Paul Sillery, a handsome young fellow

with a wide-awake face, who was nonchalantly stretched upon the red

velvet cushion of the window-seat, before a table, around which were

three other heads of thick hair worthy of our early kings.

“My dear Paul,” said Jocquelet, in his most thrilling voice, handing

Sillery Amedee’s manuscript, “here are some verses that I think

are superb, and I am going to recite them as soon as I can, at some

entertainment or benefit. Read them and give us your opinion of them. I

present their author to you, Monsieur Amedee Violette. Amedee, I present

you to Monsieur Paul Sillery.”

All the heads of hair, framing young and amiable faces, turned curiously

toward the newcomer, whom Paul Sillery courteously invited to be seated,

with the established formula, “What will you take?” Then he began to

read the lines that the comedian had given him.

Amedee, seated on the edge of his chair, was distracted with timidity,

for Paul Sillery already enjoyed a certain reputation as a rising

poet, and had established a small literary sheet called La Guepe, which

published upon its first page caricatures of celebrated men with large

heads and little bodies, and Amedee had read in it some of Paul’s poems,

full of impertinence and charm. An author whose work had been published!

The editor of a journal! The idea was stunning to poor innocent

Violette, who was not aware then that La Guepe could not claim forty

subscribers. He considered Sillery something wonderful, and waited with

a beating heart for the verdict of so formidable a judge. At the end

of a few moments Sillery said, without raising his eyes from the

manuscript:

“Here are some fine verses!”

A flood of delight filled the heart of the poet from the Faubourg

St.-Jacques.

As soon as he had finished his reading, Paul arose from his seat, and,

extending both hands over the carafes and glasses to Amedee, said,

enthusiastically:

“Let me shake hands with you! Your description of the battle-scene is

astonishing! It is admirable! It is as clear and precise as Merimee, and

it has all the color and imagination that he lacks to make him a

poet. It is something absolutely new. My dear Monsieur Violette, I

congratulate you with all my heart! I can not ask you for this beautiful

poem for La Guepe that Jocquelet is so fortunate as to have to recite,

and of which I hope he will make a success. But I beg of you, as a great

favor, to let me have some verses for my paper; they will be, I am sure,

as good as these, if not better. To be sure, I forgot to tell you that

we shall not be able to pay you for the copy, as La Guepe does not

prosper; I will even admit that it only stands on one leg. In order to

make it appear for a few months longer, I have recently been obliged to

go to a money-lender, who has left me, instead of the classical stuffed

crocodile, a trained horse which he had just taken from an insolvent

circus. I mounted the noble animal to go to the Bois, but at the Place

de la Concorde he began to waltz around it, and I was obliged to get rid

of this dancing quadruped at a considerable loss. So your contribution

to La Guepe would have to be gratuitous, like those of all the rest.

You will give me the credit of having saluted you first of all, my dear

Violette, by the rare and glorious title of true poet. You will let me

reserve the pleasure of intoxicating you with the odor that a printer’s

first proofs give, will you not? Is it agreed?”

Yes, it was agreed! That is to say, Amedee, touched to the depths of his

heart by so much good grace and fraternal cordiality, was so troubled in

trying to find words to express his gratitude, that he made a terrible

botch of it.

“Do not thank me,” said Paul Sillery, with his pleasant but rather

sceptical smile, “and do not think me better than I am. If all your

verses are as strong as these that I have just read, you will soon

publish a volume that will make a sensation, and--who knows?--perhaps

will inspire me first of all with an ugly attack of jealousy. Poets are

no better than other people; they are like the majority of Adam’s sons,

vain and envious, only they still keep the ability to admire, and the

gift of enthusiasm, and that proves their superiority and is to their

credit. I am delighted to have found a mare’s nest to-day, an original

and sincere poet, and with your permission we will celebrate this happy

meeting. The price of the waltzing horse having hardly sufficed to

pay off the debt to the publisher of La Guepe, I am not in funds this

evening; but I have credit at Pere Lebuffle’s, and I invite you all to

dinner at his pot-house; after which we will go to my rooms, where I

expect a few friends, and there you will read us your verses, Violette;

we will all read some of them, and have a fine orgy of rich rhymes.”

This proposition was received with favor by the three young men with the

long hair, a la Clodion and Chilperic. As for Violette, he would have

followed Paul Sillery at that moment, had it been into the infernal

regions.

Jocquelet could not go with them, he had promised his evening to a lady,

he said, and he gave this excuse with such a conceited smile that all

were convinced he was going to crown himself with the most flattering of

laurels at the mansion of some princess of the royal blood. In reality,

he was going to see one of his Conservatoire friends, a large, lanky

dowdy, as swarthy as a mole and full of pretensions, who was destined

for the tragic line of character, and inflicted upon her lover Athalie’s

dream, Camille’s imprecations, and Phedre’s monologue.

After paying for the refreshments, Sillery gave his arm to Amedee, and,

followed by the three Merovingians, they left the cafe. Forcing a

way through the crowd which obstructed the sidewalk of the Faubourg

Montmartre he conducted his guests to Pere Lebuffle’s table d’hote,

which was situated on the third floor of a dingy old house in the Rue

Lamartine, where a sickening odor of burnt meat greeted them as soon as

they reached the top of the stairs. They found there, seated before a

tablecloth remarkable for the number of its wine-stains, two or three

wild-looking heads of hair, and four or five shaggy beards, to whom Pere

Lebuffle was serving soup, aided by a tired-looking servant. The name

under which Sillery had designated the proprietor of the table d’hote

might have been a nickname, for this stout person in his shirt-sleeves

recommended himself to one’s attentions by his bovine face and his

gloomy, wandering eyes. To Amedee’s amazement, Pere Lebuffle called the

greater part of his clients “thou,” and as soon as the newcomers were

seated at table, Amedee asked Sillery, in a low voice, the cause of this

familiarity.

“It is caused by the hard times, my dear Violette,” responded the

editor of ‘La Guepe’ as he unfolded his napkin. “There is no longer a

‘Maecenas’ or ‘Lawrence the Magnificent.’ The last patron of literature

and art is Pere Lebufle. This wretched cook, who has perhaps never read

a book or seen a picture, has a fancy for painters and poets, and allows

them to cultivate that plant, Debt, which, contrary to other vegetables,

grows all the more, the less it is watered with instalments. We must

pardon the good man,” said he, lowering his voice, “his little sin--a

sort of vanity. He wishes to be treated like a comrade and friend by

the artists. Those who have several accounts brought forward upon his

ledger, arrive at the point of calling him ‘thou,’ and I, alas! am of

that number. Thanks to that, I am going to make you drink something a

little less purgative than the so-called wine which is turning blue

in that carafe, and of which I advise you to be suspicious. I say,

Lebuffle, my friend here, Monsieur Amedee Violette, will be, sooner or

later, a celebrated poet. Treat him accordingly, my good fellow, and go

and get us a bottle of Moulins-Vent.”

The conversation meanwhile became general between the bearded and

long-haired men. Is it necessary to say that they were all animated,

both politicians and ‘litterateurs’, with the most revolutionary

sentiments? At the very beginning, with the sardines, which evidently

had been pickled in lamp-oil, a terribly hairy man, the darkest of them

all, with a beard that grew up into its owner’s eyes and then sprung out

again in tufts from his nose and ears, presented some elegiac regrets to

the memory of Jean-Paul Marat, and declared that at the next revolution

it would be necessary to realize the programme of that delightful friend

of the people, and make one hundred thousand heads fall.

“By thunder, Flambard, you have a heavy hand!” exclaimed one of

the least important of beards, one of those that degenerate into

side-whiskers as they become conservative. “One hundred thousand heads!”

“It is the minimum,” replied the sanguinary beard.

Now, it had just been revealed to Amedee that under this ferocious beard

was concealed a photographer, well known for his failures, and the young

man could not help thinking that if the one hundred thousand heads in

question had posed before the said Flambard’s camera, he would not show

such impatience to see them fall under the guillotine.

The conversation of the men with the luxuriant hair was none the less

anarchical when the roast appeared, which sprung from the legendary

animal called ‘vache enragee’. The possessor of the longest and thickest

of all the shock heads, which spread over the shoulders of a young story

writer--between us, be it said, he made a mistake in not combing it

oftener--imparted to his brothers the subject for his new novel, which

should have made the hair of the others bristle with terror; for the

principal episode in this agreeable fiction was the desecration of a

dead body in a cemetery by moonlight. There was a sort of hesitation in

the audience, a slight movement of recoil, and Sillery, with a dash of

raillery in his glance, asked the novelist:

“Why the devil do you write such a story?”

The novelist replied, in a thundering tone:

“To astonish the bourgeoisie!”

And nobody made the slightest objection.

To “astonish the bourgeoisie” was the dearest hope and most ardent wish

of these young men, and this desire betrayed itself in their slightest

word; and doubtless Amedee thought it legitimate and even worthy

of praise. However, he did not believe--must we admit his lack of

confidence?--that so many glorious efforts were ever crowned with

success. He went so far as to ask himself whether the character and

cleverness of these bourgeoisie would not lead them to ignore not

only the works, but even the existence, of the authors who sought to

“astonish” them; and he thought, not without sadness, that when La Guepe

should have published this young novelist’s ghostly composition,

the unconquerable bourgeoisie would know nothing about it, and would

continue to devote itself to its favorite customs, such as tapping the

barometer to know whether there was a change, or to heave a deep sigh

after guzzling its soup, saying, “I feel better!” without being the

least astonished in the world.

In spite of these mental reservations, which Amedee reproached himself

with, being himself an impure and contemptible Philistine, the poet was

delighted with his new friends and the unknown world opening before him.

In this Bohemian corner, where one got intoxicated with wild excesses

and paradoxes, recklessness and gayety reigned. The sovereign charm

of youth was there, and Amedee, who had until now lived in a dark

hiding-place, blossomed out in this warm atmosphere.

After a horrible dessert of cheese and prunes, Pere Lebuffle’s guests

dispersed. Sillery escorted Amedee and the three Merovingians to the

little, sparsely furnished first floor in the Rue Pigalle, where he

lived; and half a dozen other lyric poets, who might have furnished some

magnificent trophies for an Apache warrior’s scalping-knife, soon came

to reenforce the club which met there every Wednesday evening.

Seats were wanting at the beginning, but Sillery drew from a closet an

old black trunk which would hold two, and contented himself, as master

of the house, with sitting from time to time, with legs dangling, upon

the marble mantel. The company thus found themselves very comfortable;

still more so when an old woman with a dirty cap had placed upon the

table, in the middle of the room, six bottles of beer, some odd glasses,

and a large flowered plate upon which was a package of cut tobacco with

cigarette paper. They began to recite their verses in a cloud of smoke.

Each recited his own, called upon by Sillery; each would rise without

being urged, place his chair in front of him, and leaning one hand upon

its back, would recite his poem or elegy. Certainly some of them were

wanting in genius, some were even ludicrous. Among the number was a

little fellow with a cadaverous face, about as large as two farthings’

worth of butter, who declared, in a long speech with flat rhymes,

that an Asiatic harem was not capable of quenching his ardent love of

pleasure. A fat-faced fellow with a good, healthy, country complexion,

announced, in a long story, his formal intention of dying of a decline,

on account of the treason of a courtesan with a face as cold as marble;

while, if the facts were known, this peaceable boy lived with an artless

child of the people, brightening her lot by reducing her to a state of

slavery; she blacked his boots for him every morning before he left the

house.

In spite of these ridiculous things, there were present some genuine

poets who knew their business and had real talent. These filled Amedee

with respect and fear, and when Sillery called his name, he arose with a

dry mouth and heavy heart.

“It is your turn now, you newcomer! Recite us your ‘Before Sebastopol.’”

And so, thoroughbred that he was, Amedee overcame his emotion and

recited, in a thrilling voice, his military rhymes, that rang out like

the report of a veteran’s gun.

The last stanza, was greeted with loud applause, and all the auditors

arose and surrounded Amedee to offer him their congratulations.

“Why, it is superb!”

“Entirely new!”

“It will make an enormous success!”

“It is just what is needed to arouse the public!”

“Recite us something else!--something else!”

Reassured and encouraged, master of himself, he recited a popular scene

in which he had freely poured out his love for the poor people. He

next recited some of his Parisian suburban scenes, and then a series

of sonnets, entitled “Love’s Hopes,” inspired by his dear Maria; and

he astonished all these poets by the versatility and variety of his

inspirations.

At each new poem bravos were thundered out, and the young man’s heart

expanded with joy under this warm sunshine of success. His audience vied

with each other to approach Amedee first, and to shake his hand. Alas!

some of those who were there would, later, annoy him by their low envy

and treason; but now, in the generous frankness of their youth, they

welcomed him as a master.

What an intoxicating evening! Amedee reached his home about two o’clock

in the morning, his hands burning with the last grasps, his brain and

heart intoxicated with the strong wine of praise. He walked with long

and joyful strides through the fairy scene of a beautiful moonlight, in

the fresh morning wind which made his clothes flutter and caressed his

face. He thought he even felt the breath of fame.

BOOK 3.

CHAPTER XI. SUCCESS

Success, which usually is as fickle as justice, took long strides and

doubled its stations in order to reach Amedee. The Cafe de Seville, and

the coterie of long-haired writers, were busying themselves with the

rising poet already. His suite of sonnets, published in La Guepe,

pleased some of the journalists, who reproduced them in portions

in well-distributed journals. Ten days after Amedee’s meeting with

Jocquelet, the latter recited his poem “Before Sebastopol” at a

magnificent entertainment given at the Gaite for the benefit of an

illustrious actor who had become blind and reduced to poverty.

This “dramatic solemnity,” to use the language of the advertisement,

began by being terribly tiresome. There was an audience present who were

accustomed to grand Parisian soirees, a blase and satiated public, who,

upon this warm evening in the suffocating theatre, were more fatigued

and satiated than ever. The sleepy journalists collapsed in their

chairs, and in the back part of the stage-boxes, ladies’ faces, almost

green under paint, showed the excessive lassitude of a long winter of

pleasure. The Parisians had all come there from custom, without

having the slightest desire to do so, just as they always came, like

galley-slaves condemned to “first nights.” They were so lifeless that

they did not even feel the slightest horror at seeing one another grow

old. This chloroformed audience was afflicted with a long and too heavy

programme, as is the custom in performances of this kind. They played

fragments of the best known pieces, and sang songs from operas long

since fallen into disuse even on street organs. This public saw the

same comedians march out; the most famous are the most monotonous;

the comical ones abused their privileges; the lover spoke distractedly

through his nose; the great coquette--the actress par excellence, the

last of the Celimenes--discharged her part in such a sluggish way that

when she began an adverb ending in “ment,” one would have almost had

time to go out and smoke a cigarette or drink a glass of beer before she

reached the end of the said adverb.

But at the most lethargic moment of this drowsy soirees, after the

comedians from the Francais had played in a stately manner one act

from a tragedy, Jocquelet appeared. Jocquelet, still a pupil at the

Conservatoire, showed himself to the public for the first time and by

an exceptional grace--Jocquelet, absolutely unknown, too short in his

evening clothes, in spite of the two packs of cards that he had put in

his boots. He appeared, full of audacity, riding his high horse, raising

his flat-nosed, bull-dog face toward the “gallery gods,” and, in his

voice capable of making Jericho’s wall fall or raising Jehoshaphat’s

dead, he dashed off in one effort, but with intelligence and heroic

feeling, his comrade’s poem.

The effect was prodigious. This bold, common, but powerful actor, and

these picturesque and modern verses were something entirely new to this

public satiated with old trash. What a happy surprise! Two novelties

at once! To think of discovering an unheard-of poet and an unknown

comedian! To nibble at these two green fruits! Everybody shook off his

torpor; the anaesthetized journalists aroused themselves; the colorless

and sleepy ladies plucked up a little animation; and when Jocquelet

had made the last rhyme resound like a grand flourish of trumpets, all

applauded enough to split their gloves.

In one of the theatre lobbies, behind a bill-board pasted over with old

placards, Amedee Violette heard with delight the sound of the applause

which seemed like a shower of hailstones. He dared not think of it! Was

it really his poem that produced so much excitement, which had thawed

this cold public? Soon he did not doubt it, for Jocquelet, who had just

been recalled three times, threw himself into the poet’s arms and glued

his perspiring, painted face to his.

“Well, my little one, I have done it!” he exclaimed, bursting with

gratification and vanity. “You heard how I caught them!”

Immediately twenty, thirty, a hundred spectators appeared, most of

them very correct in white cravats, but all eager and with beaming

countenances, asking to see the author and the interpreter, and to

be presented to them, that they might congratulate them with an

enthusiastic word and a shake of the hand. Yes! it was a success, an

instantaneous one. It was certainly that rare tropical flower of the

Parisian greenhouse which blossoms out so seldom, but so magnificently.

One large, very common-looking man, wearing superb diamond

shirt-buttons, came in his turn to shake Amedee’s hand, and in a hoarse,

husky voice which would have been excellent to propose tickets “cheaper

than at the office!” he asked for the manuscript of the poem that had

just been recited.

“It is so that I may put you upon the first page of my tomorrow’s

edition, young man, and I publish eighty thousand. Victor Gaillard,

editor of ‘Le Tapage’. Does that please you?”

He took the manuscript without listening to the thanks of the poet, who

trembled with joy at the thought that his work had caught the fancy of

this Barnum of the press, the foremost advertiser in France and Europe,

and that his verses would meet the eyes of two hundred thousand readers.

Yes, it was certainly a success, and he experienced the first bitterness

of it as soon as he arrived the next morning at the Cafe de Seville,

where he now went every two or three days at the hour for absinthe. His

verses had appeared in that morning’s Tapage, printed in large type and

headed by a few lines of praise written by Victor Gaillard, a la Barnum.

As soon as Amedee entered the cafe he saw that he was the object of

general attention, and the lyric gentlemen greeted him with acclamations

and bravos; but at certain expressions of countenance, constrained

looks, and bitter smiles, the impressionable young man felt with a

sudden sadness that they already envied him.

“I warned you of it,” said Paul Sillery to him, as he led him into a

corner of the cafe. “Our good friends are not pleased, and that is very

natural. The greater part of these rhymers are ‘cheap jewellers,’ and

they are jealous of a master workman. Above all things, pretend not

to notice it; they will never forgive you for guessing their bad

sentiments. And then you must be indulgent to them. You have your

beautiful lieutenant’s epaulettes, Violette, do not be too hard upon

these poor privates. They also are fighting under the poetic flag, and

ours is a poverty-stricken regiment. Now you must profit by your good

luck. Here you are, celebrated in forty-eight hours. Do you see, even

the political people look at you with curiosity, although a poet in the

estimation of these austere persons is an inferior and useless being.

It is all they will do to accept Victor Hugo, and only on account of his

‘Chatiments.’ You are the lion of the day. Lose no time. I met just now

upon the boulevard Massif, the publisher. He had read ‘Le Tapage’ and

expects you. Carry him all your poems to-morrow; there will be enough to

make a volume. Massif will publish it at his own expense, and you will

appear before the public in one month. You never will inveigle a second

time that big booby of a Gaillard, who took a mere passing fancy for

you. But no matter! I know your book, and it will be a success. You are

launched. Forward, march! Truly, I am better than I thought, for your

success gives me pleasure.”

This amiable comrade’s words easily dissipated the painful feelings

that Amedee had just experienced. However, it was one of those exalted

moments when one will not admit that evil exists. He spent some time

with the poets, forcing himself to be more gracious and friendly than

ever, and left them persuaded--the unsuspecting child!--that he had

disarmed them by his modesty; and very impatient to share his joy with

his friends, the Gerards, he quickly walked the length of Montmartre and

reached them just at their dinner hour.

They did not expect him, and only had for their dinner the remains of

the boiled beef of the night before, with some cucumbers. Amedee carried

his cake, as usual, and, what was better still, two sauces that always

make the poorest meal palatable--hope and happiness.

They had already read the journals and knew that the poem had been

applauded at the Gaite, and that it had at once been printed on the

first page of the journal; and they were all so pleased, so glad, that

they kissed Amedee on both cheeks. Mamma Gerard remembered that she had

a few bottles--five or six--of old chambertin in the cellar, and you

could not have prevented the excellent woman from taking her key and

taper at once, and going for those old bottles covered with cobwebs and

dust, that they might drink to the health of the triumphant one. As to

Louise, she was radiant, for in several houses where she gave lessons

she had heard them talk of the fine and admirable verses published in Le

Tapage, and she was very proud to think that the author was a friend of

hers. What completed Amedee’s pleasure was that for the first time Maria

seemed to be interested in his poem, and said several times to him, with

such a pretty, vain little air:

“Do you know, your battle is very nice. Amedee, you are going to become

a great poet, a celebrated man! What a superb future you have before

you!”

Ah! what exquisitely sweet hopes he carried away that evening to his

room in the Faubourg St.-Jacques! They gave him beautiful dreams, and

pervaded his thoughts the next morning when the concierge brought him

two letters.

Still more happiness! The first letter contained two notes of a hundred

francs each, with Victor Gaillard’s card, who congratulated Amedee anew

and asked him to write something for his journal in the way of prose;

a story, or anything he liked. The young poet gave a cry of joyful

surprise when he recognized the handwriting of Maurice Roger upon the

other envelope.

“I have just returned to Paris, my dear Amedee,” wrote the traveller,

“and your success was my first greeting. I must embrace you quickly and

tell you how happy I am. Come to see me at four o’clock in my den in the

Rue Monsieur-le-Prince. We will dine and pass the evening together.”

Ah! how the poet loved life that morning, how good and sweet it seemed

to him! Clothed in his best, he gayly descended the Rue St.-Jacques,

where boxes of asparagus and strawberries perfumed the fruit-stalls,

and went to the Boulevard St. Michel, where he purchased an elegant gray

felt hat and a new cravat. Then he went to the Cafe Voltaire, where

he lunched. He changed his second hundred-franc bill, so that he might

feel, with the pleasure of a child, the beautiful louis d’or which he

owed to his work and its success. At the office the head clerk--a good

fellow, who sang well at dinners--complimented Amedee upon his poem. The

young man had only made his appearance to ask for leave that afternoon,

so as to take his manuscript to the publisher.

Once more in the street in the bright May sun, after the fashion of

nabobs, he took an open carriage and was carried to Massif, in the

Passage des Princes. The editor of the Jeunes was seated in his office,

which was decorated with etchings and beautiful bindings. He is well

known by his magnificent black beard and his large bald head, upon

which a wicked jester once advised him to paste his advertisements; he

publishes the works of audacious authors and sensational books, and had

the honor of sharing with Charles Bazile, the poet, an imprisonment

at St.-Pelagie. He received this thin-faced rhymer coldly. Amedee

introduced himself, and at once there was a broad smile, a handshake,

and a connoisseur’s greedy sniffling. Then Massif opened the manuscript.

“Let us see! Ah, yes, with margins and false titles we can make out two

hundred and fifty pages.”

The business was settled quickly. A sheet of stamped paper--an

agreement! Massif will pay all the expenses of the first edition of

one thousand, and if there is another edition--and of course there will

be!--he will give him ten cents a copy. Amedee signs without reading.

All that he asks is that the volume should be published without delay.

“Rest easy, my dear poet! You will receive the first proofs in three

days, and in one month it will appear.”

Was it possible? Was Amedee not dreaming? He, poor Violette’s son,

the little office clerk--his book would be published, and in a month!

Readers and unknown friends will be moved by his agitation, will suffer

in his suspense; young people will love him and find an echo of their

sentiments in his verses; women will dreamily repeat--with one finger

in his book--some favorite verse that touches their hearts! Ah! he must

have a confidant in his joy, he must tell some true friend.

“Driver, take me to the Rue Monsieur-le-Prince.”

He mounted, four steps at a time, the stairs leading to Maurice’s

room. The key is in the door. He enters and finds the traveller there,

standing in the midst of the disorder of open trunks.

“Maurice!”

“Amedee!”

What an embrace! How long they stood hand in hand, looking at each other

with happy smiles!

Maurice is more attractive and gracious than ever. His beauty is more

manly, and his golden moustache glistens against his sun-browned skin.

What a fine fellow! How he rejoiced at his friend’s first success!

“I am certain that your book will turn everybody’s head. I always told

you that you were a genuine poet. We shall see!”

As to himself, he was happy too. His mother had let him off from

studying law and allowed him to follow his vocation. He was going to

have a studio and paint. It had all been decided in Italy, where Madame

Roger had witnessed her son’s enthusiasm over the great masters. Ah,

Italy! Italy! and he began to tell of his trip, show knickknacks and

souvenirs of all kinds that littered the room. He turned in his hands,

that he might show all its outlines, a little terra-cotta reduction of

the Antinous in the Museum of Naples. He opened a box, full to bursting,

of large photographs, and passed them to his friend with exclamations of

retrospective admiration.

“Look! the Coliseum! the ruins of Paestum--and this antique from the

Vatican! Is it not beautiful?”

While looking at the pictures he recalled the things that he had seen

and the impressions he had experienced. There was a band of collegians

in little capes and short trousers taking their walk; they wore buckled

shoes, like the abbes of olden times, and nothing could be more droll

than to see these childish priests play leapfrog. There, upon the Riva

dei Schiavoni, he had followed a Venetian. “Shabbily dressed, and fancy,

my friend, bare-headed, in a yellow shawl with ragged green fringe! No,

I do not know whether she was pretty, but she possessed in her person

all the attractions of Giorgione’s goddesses and Titian’s courtesans

combined!”

Maurice is still the same wicked fellow. But, bah! it suits him; he even

boasts of it with such a joyous ardor and such a youthful dash, that it

is only one charm the more in him. The clock struck seven, and they went

to dine. They started off through the Latin Quarter. Maurice gave his

arm to Amedee and told him of his adventures on the other side of the

Alps. Maurice, once started on this subject, could not stop, and while

the dinner was being served the traveller continued to describe his

escapades. This kind of conversation was dangerous for Amedee; for it

must not be forgotten that for some time the young poet’s innocence had

weighed upon him, and this evening he had some pieces of gold in his

pocket that rang a chime of pleasure. While Maurice, with his elbow

upon the table, told him his tales of love, Amedee gazed out upon the

sidewalk at the women who passed by in fresh toilettes, in the gaslight

which illuminated the green foliage, giving a little nod of the head to

those whom they knew. There was voluptuousness in the very air, and it

was Amedee who arose from the table and recalled to Maurice that it was

Thursday, and that there was a fete that night at Bullier’s; and he also

was the one to add, with a deliberate air:

“Shall we take a turn there?”

“Willingly,” replied his gay friend. “Ah, ha! we are then beginning to

enjoy ourselves a little, Monsieur Violette! Go to Bullier’s? so be

it. I am not sorry to assure myself whether or not I still love the

Parisians.”

They started off, smoking their cigarettes. Upon the highway, going

in the same direction as themselves, were victorias carrying women in

spring costumes and wearing bonnets decked with flowers. From time to

time the friends were elbowed by students shouting popular refrains and

walking in Indian-file.

Here is Bullier’s! They step into the blazing entrance, and go thence

to the stairway which leads to the celebrated public ballroom. They are

stifled by the odor of dust, escaping gas, and human flesh. Alas! there

are in every village in France doctors in hansom cabs, country lawyers,

and any quantity of justices of the peace, who, I can assure you, regret

this stench as they take the fresh air in the open country under the

starry heavens, breathing the exquisite perfume of new-mown hay; for

it is mingled with the little poetry that they have had in their lives,

with their student’s love-affairs, and their youth.

All the same, this Bullier’s is a low place, a caricature of the

Alhambra in pasteboard. Three or four thousand moving heads in a cloud

of tobacco-smoke, and an exasperating orchestra playing a quadrille in

which dancers twist and turn, tossing their legs with calm faces and

audacious gestures.

“What a mob!” said Amedee, already a trifle disgusted. “Let us go into

the garden.”

They were blinded by the gas there; the thickets looked so much like

old scenery that one almost expected to see the yellow breastplates of

comic-opera dragoons; and the jet of water recalled one of those little

spurts of a shooting-gallery upon which an empty egg-shell dances. But

they could breathe there a little.

“Boy! two sodas,” said Maurice, striking the table with his cane; and

the two friends sat down near the edge of a walk where the crowd passed

and repassed. They had been there about ten minutes when two women

stopped before them.

“Good-day, Maurice,” said the taller, a brunette with rich coloring, the

genuine type of a tavern girl.

“What, Margot!” exclaimed the young man. “Will you take something?

Sit down a moment, and your friend too. Do you know, your friend is

charming? What is her name?”

“Rosine,” replied the stranger, modestly, for she was only about

eighteen, and, in spite of the blond frizzles over her eyes, she was not

yet bold, poor child! She was making her debut, it was easy to see.

“Well, Mademoiselle Rosine, come here, that I may see you,” continued

Maurice, seating the young girl beside him with a caressing gesture.

“You, Margot, I authorize to be unfaithful to me once more in favor of

my friend Amedee. He is suffering with lovesickness, and has a heart

to let. Although he is a poet, I think he happens to have in his pocket

enough to pay for a supper.”

Everywhere and always the same, the egotistical and amiable Maurice

takes the lion’s share, and Amedee, listening only with one ear to the

large Margot, who is already begging him to make an acrostic for her,

thinks Rosine is charming, while Maurice says a thousand foolish

things to her. In spite of himself, the poet looks upon Maurice as

his superior, and thinks it perfectly natural that he should claim the

prettier of the two women. No matter! Amedee wanted to enjoy himself

too. This Margot, who had just taken off her gloves to drink her wine,

had large, red hands, and seemed as silly as a goose, but all the same

she was a beautiful creature, and the poet began to talk to her, while

she laughed and looked at him with a wanton’s eyes. Meanwhile the

orchestra burst into a polka, and Maurice, in raising his voice to speak

to his friend, called him several times Amedee, and once only by his

family name, Violette. Suddenly little Rosine started up and looked at

the poet, saying with astonishment:

“What! Is your name Amedee Violette?”

“Certainly.”

“Then you are the boy with whom I played so much when I was a child.”

“With me?”

“Yes! Do you not remember Rosine, little Rosine Combarieu, at Madame

Gerard’s, the engraver’s wife, in the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs? We

played games with his little girls. How odd it is, the way one meets old

friends!”

What is it that Amedee feels? His entire childhood rises before him.

The bitterness of the thought that he had known this poor girl in her

innocence and youth, and the Gerards’ name spoken in such a place,

filled the young man’s heart with a singular sadness. He could only say

to Rosine, in a voice that trembled a little with pity:

“You! Is it you?”

Then she became red and very embarrassed, lowering her eyes.

Maurice had tact; he noticed that Rosine and Amedee were agitated, and,

feeling that he was de trop, he arose suddenly and said:

“Now then, Margot. Come on! these children want to talk over their

childhood, I think. Give up your acrostic, my child. Take my arm, and

come and have a turn.”

When they were alone Amedee gazed at Rosine sadly. She was pretty, in

spite of her colorless complexion, a child of the faubourg, born with

a genius for dress, who could clothe herself on nothing-a linen gown, a

flower in her hat. One who lived on salads and vegetables, so as to buy

well-made shoes and eighteen-button gloves.

The pretty blonde looked at Amedee, and a timid smile shone in her

nut-brown eyes.

“Now, Monsieur Amedee,” said she, at last, “it need not trouble you to

meet at Bullier’s the child whom you once played with. What would have

been astonishing would be to find that I had become a fine lady. I am

not wise, it is true, but I work, and you need not fear that I go with

the first comer. Your friend is a handsome fellow, and very amiable, and

I accepted his attentions because he knew Margot, while with you it is

very different. It gives me pleasure to talk with you. It recalls Mamma

Gerard, who was so kind to me. What has become of her, tell me? and her

husband and her daughters?”

“Monsieur Gerard is dead,” replied Amedee; “but the ladies are well, and

I see them often.”

“Do not tell them that you met me here, will you? It is better not. If

I had had a good ‘mother, like those girls, things would have turned out

differently for me. But, you remember, papa was always interested in his

politics. When I was fifteen years old he apprenticed me to a florist.

He was a fine master, a perfect monster of a man, who ruined me! I say,

Pere Combarieu has a droll trade now; he is manager of a Republican

journal--nothing to do--only a few months in prison now and then. I

am always working in flowers, and I have a little friend, a pupil at

Val-de-Grace, but he has just left as a medical officer for Algeria.

I was lonely all by myself, and this evening big Margot, whom I got

acquainted with in the shop, brought me here to amuse myself. But

you--what are you doing? Your friend said just now that you were a poet.

Do you write songs? I always liked them. Do you remember when I used to

play airs with one finger upon the Gerards’ old piano? You were such

a pretty little boy then, and as gentle as a girl. You still have your

nice blue eyes, but they are a little darker. I remember them. No, you

can not know how glad I am to see you again!”

They continued to chatter, bringing up old reminiscences, and when she

spoke of the Gerard ladies she put on a respectful little air which

pleased Amedee very much. She was a poor feather-headed little thing,

he did not doubt; but she had kept at least the poor man’s treasure, a

simple heart. The young man was pleased with her prattling, and as

he looked at the young girl he thought of the past and felt a sort of

compassion for her. As she was silent for a moment, the poet said to

her, “Do you know that you have become very pretty? What a charming

complexion you have! such a lovely pallor!”

The grisette, who had known what poverty was, gave a bitter little

laugh:

“Oh, my pallor! that is nothing! It is not the pallor of wealth.”

Then, recovering her good-humor at once, she continued:

“Tell me, Monsieur Amedee, does this big Margot, whom you began to pay

attentions to a little while ago, please you?”

Amedee quickly denied it. “That immense creature? Never! Now then,

Rosine, I came here to amuse myself a little, I will admit. That is

not forbidden at my age, is it? But this ball disgusts me. You have no

appointment here? No? Is it truly no? Very well, take my arm and let us

go. Do you live far from here?”

“In the Avenue d’Orleans, near the Montrouge church.”

“Will you allow me to escort you home, then?”

She would be happy to, and they arose and left the ball. It seemed to

the young poet as if the pretty girl’s arm trembled a little in his;

but once upon the boulevard, flooded by the light from the silvery moon,

Rosine slackened her steps and became pensive, and her eyes were lowered

when Amedee sought a glance from them in the obscurity. How sweet was

this new desire that troubled the young man’s heart! It was mixed with

a little sentiment; his heart beat with emotion, and Rosine was not less

moved. They could both find only insignificant things to say.

“What a beautiful night!”

“Yes! It does one good to breathe the fresh air.”

They continued their walk without speaking. Oh, how fresh and sweet it

was under these trees!

At last they reached the door of Rosine’s dwelling. With a slow movement

she pressed her hand upon the bell-button. Then Amedee, with a great

effort, and in a confused, husky voice, asked whether he might go up

with her and see her little room.

She looked at him steadily, with a tender sadness in her eyes, and then

said to him, softly:

“No, certainly not! One must be sensible. I please you this evening,

and you know very well that I think you are charming. It is true we knew

each other when we were young, and now that we have met again, it seems

as if it would be pleasant to love each other. But, believe me, we

should commit a great folly, perhaps a wrong. It is better, I assure

you, to forget that you ever met me at Bullier’s with big Margot, and

only remember your little playmate of the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs. It

will be better than a caprice, it will be something pure that you

can keep in your heart. Do not let us spoil the remembrance of our

childhood, Monsieur Amedee, and let us part good friends.”

Before the young man could find a reply, the bell pealed again, and

Rosine gave Amedee a parting smile, lightly kissing the tips of her

fingers, and disappeared behind the doer, which fell together, with

a loud bang. The poet’s first movements was one of rage. Giddy

weather-cock of a woman! But he had hardly taken twenty steps upon the

sidewalk before he said to himself, with a feeling of remorse, “She was

right!” He thought that this poor girl had kept in one corner of her

heart a shadow of reserve and modesty, and he was happy to feel rise

within him a sacred respect for woman!

Amedee, my good fellow, you are quite worthless as a man of pleasure.

You had better give it up!

CHAPTER XII. SOCIAL TRIUMPHS

For one month now Amedee Violette’s volume of verses, entitled Poems

from Nature, had embellished with its pale-blue covers the shelves of

the book-shops. The commotion raised by the book’s success, and the

favorable criticisms given by the journals, had not yet calmed down at

the Cafe de Seville.

This emotion, let it be understood, did not exist except among the

literary men. The politicians disdained poets and poetry, and did not

trouble them selves over such commonplace matters. They had affairs of a

great deal more importance to determine the overthrow of the government

first, then to remodel the map of Europe! What was necessary to over

throw the Empire? First, conspiracy; second, barricades. Nothing was

easier than to conspire. Every body conspired at the Seville. It is

the character of the French, who are born cunning, but are light

and talkative, to conspire in public places. As soon as one of our

compatriots joins a secret society his first care is to go to his

favorite restaurant and to confide, under a bond of the most absolute

secrecy, to his most intimate friend, what he has known for about five

minutes, the aim of the conspiracy, names of the actors, the day, hour,

and place of the rendezvous, the passwords and countersigns. A little

while after he has thus relieved himself, he is surprised that the

police interfere and spoil an enterprise that has been prepared with so

much mystery and discretion. It was in this way that the “beards” dealt

in dark deeds of conspiracy at the Cafe de Seville. At the hour for

absinthe and mazagran a certain number of Fiesques and Catilines were

grouped around each table. At one of the tables in the foreground five

old “beards,” whitened by political crime, were planning an infernal

machine; and in the back of the room ten robust hands had sworn upon

the billiard-table to arm themselves for regicide; only, as with all

“beards,” there were necessarily some false ones among them, that is

to say, spies. All the plots planned at the Seville had miserably

miscarried.

The art of building barricades was also--you never would suspect

it!--very ardently and conscientiously studied. This special branch

of the science of fortification reckoned more than one Vauban and

Gribeauval among its numbers. “Professor of barricading,” was a title

honored at the Cafe de Seville, and one that they would willingly have

had engraved upon their visiting-cards. Observe that the instruction was

only theoretical; doubtless out of respect for the policemen, they could

not give entirely practical lessons to the future rioters who formed the

ground-work of the business. The master or doctor of civil war could not

go out with them, for instance, and practise in the Rue Drouot. But he

had one resource, one way of getting out of it; namely, dominoes.

No! you never would believe what a revolutionary appearance these

inoffensive mutton-bones took on under the seditious hands of the

habitues of the Cafe de Seville. These miniature pavements simulated

upon the marble table the subjugation of the most complicated of

barricades, with all sorts of bastions, redans, and counterscarps. It

was something after the fashion of the small models of war-ships that

one sees in marine museums. Any one, not in the secret, would have

supposed that the “beards” simply played dominoes. Not at all! They were

pursuing a course of technical insurrection. When they roared at the top

of their lungs “Five on all sides!” certain players seemed to order

a general discharge, and they had a way of saying, “I can not!” which

evidently expressed the despair of a combatant who has burned his

last cartridge. A “beard” in glasses and a stovepipe hat, who had been

refused in his youth at the Ecole Polytechnique, was frightful in the

rapidity and mathematical precision with which he added up in three

minutes his barricade of dominoes. When this man “blocked the six,”

you were transported in imagination to the Rue Transnonain, or to the

Cloitre St. Merry. It was terrible!

As to foreign politics, or the remodelling of the map of Europe, it was,

properly speaking, only sport and recreation to the “beards.” It added

interest to the game, that was all. Is it not agreeable, when you are

preparing a discard, at the decisive moment, with one hundred at piquet,

which gives you ‘quinte’ or ‘quatorze’, to deliver unhappy Poland; and

when one has the satisfaction to score a king and take every trick, what

does it cost to let the Russians enter Constantinople?

Nevertheless, some of the most solemn “beards” of the Cafe de Seville

attached themselves to international questions, to the great problem of

European equilibrium. One of the most profound of these diplomats--who

probably had nothing to buy suspenders with, for his shirt always hung

out between his waistcoat and trousers--was persuaded that an indemnity

of two million francs would suffice to obtain from the Pope the transfer

of Rome to the Italians; and another Metternich on a small scale assumed

for his specialty the business of offering a serious affront to England

and threatening her, if she did not listen to his advice, with a loss in

a short time of her Indian Empire and other colonial possessions.

Thus the “beards,” absorbed by such grave speculations, did not trouble

themselves about the vanity called literature, and did not care a pin

for Amedee Violette’s book. Among the long-haired ones, however, we

repeat, the emotion was great. They were furious, they were agitated,

and bristled up; the first enthusiasm over Amedee Violette’s verses

could not be lasting and had been only a mere flash. The young man saw

these Merovingians as they really were toward a man who succeeded, that

is, severe almost to cruelty. What! the first edition of Poems from

Nature was exhausted and Massif had another in press! What! the

bourgeoisie, far from being “astonished” at this book, declared

themselves delighted with it, bought it, read it, and perhaps had it

rebound! They spoke favorably of it in all the bourgeois journals,

that is to say, in those that had subscribers! Did they not say that

Violette, incited by Jocquelet, was working at a grand comedy in verse,

and that the Theatre-Francais had made very flattering offers to the

poet? But then, if he pleased the bourgeoisie so much he was--oh,

horror!--a bourgeois himself. That was obvious. How blind they had been

not to see it sooner! When Amedee had read his verses not long since at

Sillery’s, by what aberration had they confounded this platitude with

simplicity, this whining with sincere emotion, these stage tricks with

art? Ah! you may rest assured, they never will be caught again!

As the poets’ tables at the Cafe de Seville had been for some time

transformed into beds of torture upon which Amedee Violette’s poems were

stretched out and racked every day from five to seven, the amiable Paul

Sillery, with a jeering smile upon his lips, tried occasionally to cry

pity for his friend’s verses, given up to such ferocious executioners.

But these literary murderers, ready to destroy a comrade’s book, are

more pitiless than the Inquisition. There were two inquisitors more

relentless than the others; first, the little scrubby fellow who claimed

for his share all the houris of a Mussulman’s palace; another, the great

elegist from the provinces. Truly, his heartaches must have made him

gain flesh, for very soon he was obliged to let out the strap on his

waistcoat.

Of course, when Amedee appeared, the conversation was immediately

changed, and they began to talk of insignificant things that they had

read in the journals; for example, the fire-damp, which had killed

twenty-five working-men in a mine, in a department of the north; or of

the shipwreck of a transatlantic steamer in which everything was lost,

with one hundred and fifty passengers and forty sailors--events of no

importance, we must admit, if one compares them to the recent discovery

made by the poet inquisitors of two incorrect phrases and five weak

rhymes in their comrade’s work.

Amedee’s sensitive nature soon remarked the secret hostility of which

he was the object in this group of poets, and he now came to the Cafe

de Seville only on rare occasions, in order to take Paul Sillery by the

hand, who, in spite of his ironical air, had always shown himself a good

and faithful friend.

It was there that he recognized one evening his classmate of the

Lycee, Arthur Papillon, seated at one of the political tables. The poet

wondered to himself how this fine lawyer, with his temperate opinions,

happened to be among these hot-headed revolutionists, and what interest

in common could unite this correct pair of blond whiskers to the

uncultivated, bushy ones. Papillon, as soon as he saw Amedee, took leave

of the group with whom he was talking and came and offered his hearty

congratulations to the author of Poems from Nature, leading him out upon

the boulevard and giving him the key to the mystery.

All the old parties were united against the Empire, in view of the

coming elections; Orleanists and Republicans were, for the time being,

close friends. He, Papillon, had just taken his degree, and had attached

himself to the fortunes of an old wreck of the July government; who,

having rested in oblivion since 1852, had consented to run as candidate

for the Liberal opposition in Seine-et-Oise. Papillon was flying around

like a hen with her head cut off, to make his companion win the day.

He came to the Seville to assure himself of the neutral goodwill of the

unreconciled journalists, and he was full of hope.

“Oh! my dear friend, how difficult it is to struggle against an official

candidate! But our candidate is an astonishing man. He goes about all

day upon the railroads in our department, unfolding his programme before

the travelling countrymen and changing compartments at each station.

What a stroke of genius! a perambulating public assembling. This idea

came to him from seeing a harpist make the trip from Havre to Honfleur,

playing ‘Il Bacio’ all the time. Ah, one must look alive! The prefect

does not shrink from any way of fighting us. Did he not spread through

one of our most Catholic cantons the report that we were Voltairians,

enemies to religion and devourers of priests? Fortunately, we have yet

four Sundays before us, from now until the voting-day, and the patron

will go to high mass and communion in our four more important parishes.

That will be a response! If such a man is not elected, universal

suffrage is hopeless!”

Amedee was not at that time so disenchanted with political matters as he

became later, and he asked himself with an uneasy feeling whether this

model candidate, who was perhaps about to give himself sacrilgious

indigestion, and who showed his profession of faith as a cutler shows

his knives, was not simply a quack.

Arthur Papillon did not give him time to devote himself to such

unpleasant reflections, but said to him, in a frank, protecting tone:

“And you, my boy, let us see, where do you stand? You have been very

successful, have you not? The other evening at the house of Madame

la Comtesse Fontaine, you know--the widow of one of Louis Philippe’s

ministers and daughter of Marshal Lefievre--Jocquelet recited your

‘Sebastopol’ with enormous success. What a voice that Jocquelet has!

We have not his like at the Paris bar. Fortunate poet! I have seen your

book lying about in the boudoir of more than one beautiful woman. Well,

I hope that you will leave the Cafe de Seville and not linger with

all these badly combed fellows. You must go into society; it is

indispensable to a man of letters, and I will present you whenever you

wish.”

For the time being Amedee’s ardor was a little dampened concerning the

Bohemians with whom he enjoyed so short a favor, and who had also in

many ways shocked his delicacy. He was not desirous to be called “thou”

by Pere Lebuffle.

But to go into society! His education had been so modest! Should he

know how to appear, how to conduct himself properly? He asked this of

Papillon. Our poet was proud, he feared ridicule, and would not consent

to play an inferior role anywhere; and then his success just then was

entirely platonic. He was still very poor and lived in the Faubourg

St.-Jacques. Massif ought to pay him in a few days five hundred francs

for the second edition of his book; but what is a handful of napoleons?

“It is enough,” said the advocate, who thought of his friend’s

dress. “It is all that is necessary to buy fine linen, and a well cut

dress-coat, that is the essential thing. Good form consists, above all

things, in keeping silent. With your fine and yielding nature you will

become at once a gentleman; better still, you are not a bad-looking

fellow; you have an interesting pallor. I am convinced that you will

please. It is now the beginning of July, and Paris is almost empty, but

Madame la Comtesse Fontaine does not go away until the vacations, as

she is looking after her little son, who is finishing his studies at

the Lycee Bonaparte. The Countess’s drawing-rooms are open every evening

until the end of the month, and one meets there all the chic people

who are delayed in Paris, or who stop here between two journeys. Madame

Fontaine is a very amiable and influential old lady; she has a fancy for

writers when they are good company. Do not be silly, but go and order

yourself some evening clothes. By presenting you there, my dear fellow,

I assure you, perhaps in fifteen years, a seat in the Academy. It is

agreed! Get ready for next week.”

Attention! Amedee Violette is about to make his first appearance in

society.

Although his concierge, who aided him to finish his toilette and saw him

put on his white cravat, had just said to him, “What a love of a husband

you would make!” the poet’s heart beat rapidly when the carriage in

which he was seated beside Arthur Papillon stopped before the steps

of an old house in the Rue de Bellechasse, where Madame la Comtesse

Fontaine lived.

In the vestibule he tried to imitate the advocate’s bearing, which was

full of authority; but quickly despaired of knowing how to swell out his

starched shirt-front under the severe looks of four tall lackeys in silk

stockings. Amedee was as much embarrassed as if he were presented

naked before an examining board. But they doubtless found him “good for

service,” for the door opened into a brightly lighted drawing-room into

which he followed Arthur Papillon, like a frail sloop towed in by an

imposing three-master, and behold the timid Amedee presented in due form

to the mistress of the house! She was a lady of elephantine proportions,

in her sixtieth year, and wore a white camellia stuck in her

rosewood-colored hair. Her face and arms were plastered with enough

flour to make a plate of fritters; but for all that, she had a grand

air and superb eyes, whose commanding glance was softened by so kindly a

smile that Amedee was a trifle reassured.

She had much applauded M. Violette’s beautiful verse, she said, that

Jocquelet had recited at her house on the last Thursday of her season;

and she had just read with the greatest pleasure his Poems from

Nature. She thanked M. Papillon--who bows his head and lets his monocle

fall--for having brought M. Violette. She was charmed to make his

acquaintance.

Amedee was very much embarrassed to know what to reply to this

commonplace compliment which was paid so gracefully. Fortunately he

was spared this duty by the arrival of a very much dressed, tall, bony

woman, toward whom the Countess darted off with astonishing vivacity,

exclaiming, joyfully: “Madame la Marechale!” and Amedee, still following

in the wake of his comrade, sailed along toward the corner of the

drawing-room, and then cast anchor before a whole flotilla of black

coats. Amedee’s spirits began to revive, and he examined the place, so

entirely new to him, where his growing reputation had admitted him.

It was a vast drawing-room after the First Empire style, hung and

furnished in yellow satin, whose high white panels were decorated with

trophies of antique weapons carved in wood and gilded. A dauber from

the Ecole des Beaux-Arts would have branded with the epithet “sham” the

armchairs and sofas ornamented with sphinx heads in bronze, as well as

the massive green marble clock upon which stood, all in gold, a favorite

court personage, clothed in a cap, sword, and fig-leaf, who seemed to be

making love to a young person in a floating tunic, with her hair dressed

exactly like that of the Empress Josephine. But the dauber would have

been wrong, for this massive splendor was wanting neither in grandeur

nor character. Two pictures only lighted up the cold walls; one, signed

by Gros, was an equestrian portrait of the Marshal, Madame Fontaine’s

father, the old drummer of Pont de Lodi, one of the bravest of

Napoleon’s lieutenants. He was represented in full-dress uniform,

with an enormous black-plumed hat, brandishing his blue velvet baton,

sprinkled with golden bees, and under the rearing horse’s legs one

could see in the dim distance a grand battle in the snow, and mouths of

burning cannons. The other picture, placed upon an easel and lighted by

a lamp with a reflector, was one of Ingre’s the ‘chef-d’oeuvres’. It

was the portrait of the mistress of the house at the age of eighteen,

a portrait of which the Countess was now but an old and horrible

caricature.

Arthur Papillon talked in a low voice with Amedee, explaining to him how

Madame Fontaine’s drawing-room was neutral ground, open to people of

all parties. As daughter of a Marshal of the First Empire, the Countess

preserved the highest regard for the people at the Tuileries, although

she was the widow of Count Fontaine, who was one of the brood

of Royer-Collard’s conservatives, a parliamentarian ennobled by

Louis-Philippe, twice a colleague of Guizot on the ministerial bench,

who died of spite and suppressed ambition after ‘48 and the coup d’etat.

Besides, the Countess’s brother, the Duc d’Eylau, married, in 1829, one

of the greatest heiresses in the Faubourg St. Germain; for his father,

the Marshal, whose character did not equal his bravery, attached himself

to every government, and carried his candle in the processions on Corpus

Christi Day under Charles X, and had ended by being manager of the

Invalides at the beginning of the July monarchy. Thanks to this

fortunate combination of circumstances, one met several great lords,

many Orleanists, a certain number of official persons, and even some

republicans of high rank, in this liberal drawing-room, where the

Countess, who was an admirable hostess, knew how to attract learned men,

writers, artists, and celebrities of all kinds, as well as young and

pretty women. As the season was late, the gathering this evening was not

large. However, neglecting the unimportant gentlemen whose ancestors

had perhaps been fabricated by Pere Issacar, Papillon pointed out to

his friend a few celebrities. One, with the badge of the Legion of

Honor upon his coat, which looked as if it had come from the stall of an

old-clothes man, was Forgerol, the great geologist, the most grasping of

scientific men; Forgerol, rich from his twenty fat sinecures, for

whom one of his confreres composed this epitaph in advance: “Here lies

Forgerol, in the only place he did not solicit.”

That grand old man, with the venerable, shaky head, whose white, silky

hair seemed to shed blessings and benedictions, was M. Dussant du Fosse,

a philanthropist by profession, honorary president of all charitable

works; senator, of course, since he was one of France’s peers, and who

in a few years after the Prussians had left, and the battles were over,

would sink into suspicious affairs and end in the police courts.

That old statesman, whose rough, gray hairs were like brushes for

removing cobwebs, a pedant from head to foot, leaning in his favorite

attitude against the mantel decorated only with flowers, by his mulish

obstinacy contributed much to the fall of the last monarchy. He was

respectfully listened to and called “dear master” by a republican

orator, whose red-hot convictions began to ooze away, and who, soon

after, as minister of the Liberal empire, did his best to hasten the

government’s downfall.

Although Amedee was of an age to respect these notabilities, whom

Papillon pointed out to him with so much deference, they did not impress

him so much as certain visitors who belonged to the world of art and

letters. In considering them the young man was much surprised and a

little saddened at the want of harmony that he discovered between the

appearance of the men and the nature of their talents. The poet Leroy

des Saules had the haughty attitude and the Apollo face corresponding

to the noble and perfect beauty of his verses; but Edouard Durocher,

the fashionable painter of the nineteenth century, was a large,

common-looking man with a huge moustache, like that of a book agent; and

Theophile de Sonis, the elegant story-writer, the worldly romancer, had

a copper-colored nose, and his harsh beard was like that of a chief in a

custom-house.

What attracted Amedee’s attention, above all things, were the women--the

fashionable women that he saw close by for the first time. Some of them

were old, and horrified him. The jewels with which they were loaded made

their fatigued looks, dark-ringed eyes, heavy profiles, thick flabby

lips, like a dromedary’s, still more distressing; and with their bare

necks and arms--it was etiquette at Madame Fontaine’s receptions--which

allowed one to see through filmy lace their flabby flesh or bony

skeletons, they were as ridiculous as an elegant cloak would be upon an

old crone.

As he saw these decrepit, painted creatures, the young man felt the

respect that he should have for the old leave him. He would look only

at the young and beautiful women, those with graceful figures and

triumphant smiles upon their lips, flowers in their hair, and diamonds

upon their necks. All this bare flesh intimidated Amedee; for he had

been brought up so privately and strictly that he was distressed enough

to lower his eyes at the sight of so many arms, necks, and shoulders.

He thought of Maria Gerard as she looked the other day, when he met her

going to work in the Louvre, so pretty in her short high-necked dress,

her magnificent hair flying out from her close bonnet, and her box

of pastels in her hand. How much more he preferred this simple rose,

concealed among thorns, to all these too full-blown peonies!

Soon the enormous and amiable Countess came to the poet and begged him,

to his great confusion, to recite a few verses. He was forced to do it.

It was his turn to lean upon the mantel. Fortunately it was a success

for him; all the full-blown peonies, who did not understand much of

his poetry, thought him a handsome man, with his blue eyes, and their

ardent, melancholy glance; and they applauded him as much as they

could without bursting their very tight gloves. They surrounded him and

complimented him. Madame Fontaine presented him to the poet Leroy des

Saules, who congratulated him with the right word, and invited him with

a paternal air to come and see him. It would have been a very happy

moment for Amedee, if one of the old maids with camel-like lips, whose

stockings were probably as blue as her eyelids, had not monopolized him

for a quarter of an hour, putting him through a sort of an examination

on contemporary poets. At last the poet retired, after receiving a cup

of tea and an invitation to dinner for the next Tuesday. Then he was

once more seated in the carriage with Arthur Papillon, who gave him a

slap on the thigh, exclaiming, joyfully:

“Well, you are launched!”

It was true; he was launched, and he will wear out more than one suit

of evening clothes before he learns all that this action “going into

society,” which seems nothing at all at first, and which really is

nothing, implies, to an industrious man and artist, of useless activity

and lost time. He is launched! He has made a successful debut! A dinner

in the city! At Madame Fontaine’s dinner on the next Tuesday, some

abominable wine and aged salmon was served to Amedee by a butler named

Adolphe, who ought rather to have been called Exili or Castaing, and

who, after fifteen years’ service to the Countess, already owned two

good paying houses in Paris. At the time, however, all went well,

for Amedee had a good healthy stomach and could digest buttons from

a uniform; but when all the Borgias, in black-silk stockings and

white-silk gloves, who wish to become house-owners, have cooked their

favorite dishes for him, and have practised only half a dozen winters,

two or three times a week upon him, we shall know more as to his

digestion. Still that dinner was enjoyable. Beginning with the

suspicious salmon, the statesman with the brush-broom head, the one who

had overthrown Louis-Philippe without suspecting it, started to explain

how, if they had listened to his advice, this constitutional king’s

dynasty would yet be upon the throne; and at the moment when the

wretched butler poured out his most poisonous wine, the old lady

who looked like a dromedary with rings in its ears, made Amedee--her

unfortunate neighbor--undergo a new oral examination upon the poets of

the nineteenth century, and asked him what he thought of Lamartine’s

clamorous debts, and Victor Hugo’s foolish pride, and Alfred de Musset’s

intemperate habits.

The worthy Amedee is launched! He will go and pay visits of indigestion;

appear one day at Madame such a one’s, and at the houses of several

other “Madames.” At first he will stay there a half-hour, the simpleton!

until he sees that the cunning ones only come in and go out exactly as

one does in a booth at a fair. He will see pass before him--but this

time in corsages of velvet or satin-all the necks and shoulders of his

acquaintances, those that he turned away from with disgust and those

that made him blush. Each Madame this one, entering Madame that one’s

house, will seat herself upon the edge of a chair, and will always say

the same inevitable thing, the only thing that can be or should be said

that day; for example, “So the poor General is dead!” or “Have you heard

the new piece at the Francais? It is not very strong, but it is well

played!” “This will be delicious;” and Amedee will admire, above all

things, Madame this one’s play of countenance, when Madame G------ tells

her that Madame B------‘s daughter is to marry Madame C----‘s nephew.

While she hardly knows these people, she will manifest as lively a joy

as if they had announced the death of an old aunt, whose money she is

waiting for to renew the furniture in her house. And, on the contrary,

when Madame D---- announces that Madame E----‘s little son has the

whooping-cough, at once, without transition, by a change of expression

that would make the fortune of an actress, the lady of the house puts

on an air of consternation, as if the cholera had broken out the night

before in the Halles quarter.

Amedee is launched, I repeat it. He is still a little green and will

become the dupe, for a long time, of all the shams, grimaces, acting,

and false smiles, which cover so many artificial teeth. At first sight

all is elegance, harmony, and delicacy. Since Amedee does not know that

the Princess Krazinska’s celebrated head of hair was cut from the heads

of the Breton girls, how could he suspect that the austere defender of

the clergy, M. Lemarguillier, had been gravely compromised in a love

affair, and had thrown himself at the feet of the chief of police,

exclaiming, “Do not ruin me!” When the king of society is announced, the

young Duc de la Tour-Prends-Garde, whose one ancestor was at the battle

of the bridge, and who is just now introducing a new style in trousers,

Amedee could not suspect that the favorite amusement of this fashionable

rake consisted in drinking in the morning upon an empty stomach, with

his coachman, at a grog-shop on the corner. When the pretty Baroness

des Nenuphars blushed up to her ears because someone spoke the word

“tea-spoon” before her, and she considered it to be an unwarrantable

indelicacy--nobody knows why--it is assuredly not our young friend

who will suspect that, in order to pay the gambling debts of her third

lover, this modest person had just sold secretly her family jewels.

Rest assured Amedee will lose all these illusions in time. The day

will come when he will not take in earnest this grand comedy in white

cravats. He will not have the bad taste to show his indignation. No! he

will pity these unfortunate society people condemned to hypocrisy and

falsehood. He will even excuse their whims and vices as he thinks of the

frightful ennui that overwhelms them. Yes, he will understand how

the unhappy Duc de la Tour-Prends-Garde, who is condemned to hear La

Favorita seventeen times during the winter, may feel at times the need

of a violent distraction, and go to drink white wine with his servant.

Amedee will be full of indulgence, only one must pardon him for his

plebeian heart and native uncouthness; for at the moment when he shall

have fathomed the emptiness and vanity of this worldly farce, he will

keep all of his sympathy for those who retain something like nature. He

will esteem infinitely more the poorest of the workmen--a wood-sawyer or

a bell-hanger--than a politician haranguing from the mantel, or an old

literary dame who sparkles like a window in the Palais-Royal, and is

tattooed like a Caribbean; he will prefer an old; wrinkled, village

grand-dame in her white cap, who still hoes, although sixty years old,

her little field of potatoes.

CHAPTER XIII. A SERPENT AT THE FIRESIDE

A little more than a year has passed. It is now the first days of

October; and when the morning mist is dissipated, the sky is of so

limpid a blue and the air so pure and fresh, that Amedee Violette is

almost tempted to make a paper kite and fly it over the fortifications,

as he did in his youth. But the age for that has passed; Amedee’s real

kite is more fragile than if it had been made of sticks and pieces of

old paper pasted on one over another; it does not ascend very high yet,

and the thread that sails it is not very strong. Amedee’s kite is his

growing reputation. He must work to sustain it; and always with the

secret hope of making little Maria his wife. Amedee works. He is not so

poor now, since he earns at the ministry two hundred francs a month, and

from time to time publishes a prose story in journals where his copy is

paid for. He has also left his garret in the Faubourg St.-Jacques and

lives on the Ile St. Louis, in one room only, but large and bright, from

whose window he can see, as he leans out, the coming and going of boats

on the river and the sun as it sets behind Notre-Dame.

Amedee has been working mostly upon his drama, for the Comedie-Francaise

this summer, and it is nearly done; it is a modern drama in verse,

entitled L’Atelier. The action is very simple, like that of a tragedy,

but he believes it is sympathetic and touching, and it ends in a

popular way. Amedee thinks he has used for his dialogue familiar but

nevertheless poetic lines, in which he has not feared to put in certain

graphic words and energetic speeches from the mouths of working-people.

The grateful poet has destined the principal role for Jocquelet, who has

made a successful debut in the ‘Fourberies de Scapin’, and who, since

then, has won success after success. Jocquelet, like all comic actors,

aspires to play also in drama. He can do so in reality, but under

particular conditions; for in spite of his grotesque nose, he has strong

and spirited qualities, and recites verses very well. He is to represent

an old mechanic, in his friend’s work, a sort of faubourg Nestor, and

this type will accommodate itself very well to the not very aristocratic

face of Jocquelet, who more and more proves his cleverness at

“making-up.” However, at first the actor was not satisfied with his

part. He fondles the not well defined dream of all actors, he wishes,

like all the others, the “leading part.” They do not exactly know what

they mean by it, but in their dreams is vaguely visible a wonderful

Almanzor, who makes his first entrance in an open barouche drawn by

four horses harnessed a la Daumont, and descends from it dressed in

tight-fitting gray clothes, tasselled boots, and decorations. This

personage is as attractive as Don Juan, brave as Murat, a poet like

Shakespeare, and as charitable as St. Vincent de Paul. He should have,

before the end of the first act, crushed with love by one single glance,

the young leading actress; dispersed a dozen assassins with his sword;

addressed to the stars--that is to say, the spectators in the upper

gallery--a long speech of eighty or a hundred lines, and gathered up two

lost children under the folds of his cloak.

A “fine leading part” should also, during the rest of the piece,

accomplish a certain number of sublime acts, address the multitude from

the top of a staircase, insult a powerful monarch to his face, dash into

the midst of a conflagration--always in the long-topped boots. The ideal

part would be for him to discover America, like Christopher Columbus;

win pitched battles, like Bonaparte, or some other equally senseless

thing; but the essential point is, never to leave the stage and to talk

all the time--the work, in reality, should be a monologue in five acts.

This role of an old workman, offered to Jocquelet by Amedee, obtained

only a grimace of displeasure from the actor. However, it ended by

his being reconciled to the part, studying it, and, to use his own

expression, “racking his brains over it,” until one day he ran to

Violette’s, all excited, exclaiming:

“I have the right idea of my old man now! I will dress him in a

tricot waistcoat with ragged sleeves and dirty blue overalls. He is an

apprentice, is he not? A fellow with a beard! Very well! in the great

scene where they tell him that his son is a thief and he defies the

whole of the workmen, he struggles and his clothes are torn open,

showing a hairy chest. I am not hairy, but I will make myself so--does

that fill the bill? You will see the effect.”

While reserving the right to dissuade Jocquelet from making himself

up in this way, Amedee carried his manuscript to the director of the

Theatre Francais, who asked a little time to look it over, and also

promised the young poet that he would read it aloud to the committee.

Amedee is very anxious, although Maurice Roger, to whom he has read the

piece, act by act, predicts an enthusiastic acceptance.

The handsome Maurice has been installed for more than a year in a studio

on the Rue d’Assas and leads a jolly, free life there. Does he work?

Sometimes; by fits and starts. And although he abandons his sketches

at the first attack of idleness, there is a charm about these sketches,

suspended upon the wall; and he will some day show his talent. One

of his greatest pleasures is to see pass before him all his beautiful

models, at ten francs an hour. With palette in hand, he talks with the

young women, tells them amusing stories, and makes them relate all their

love-affairs. When friends come to see him, they can always see a model

just disappearing behind a curtain. Amedee prefers to visit his friend

on Sunday afternoons, and thus avoid meeting these models; and then,

too, he meets there on that day Arthur Papillon, who paves the way for

his political career by pleading lawsuits for the press. Although he is,

at heart, only a very moderate Liberalist, this young man, with the very

chic side whiskers, defends the most republican of “beards,” if it can

be called defending; for in spite of his fine oratorical efforts, his

clients are regularly favored with the maximum of punishment. But they

are all delighted with it, for the title of “political convict” is one

very much in demand among the irreconcilables. They are all convinced

that the time is near when they will overthrow the Empire, without

suspecting, alas! that in order to do that twelve hundred thousand

German bayonets will be necessary. The day after the triumph, the month

of imprisonment will be taken into account, and St. Pelagie is not the

‘carcere duro’. Papillon is cunning and wishes to have a finger in every

pie, so he goes to dine once a week with those who owe their sojourn in

this easy-going jail to him, and regularly carries them a lobster.

Paul Sillery, who has also made Maurice’s acquaintance, loiters in this

studio. The amiable Bohemian has not yet paid his bill to Pere Lebuffle,

but he has cut his red fleece close to his head, and publishes every

Sunday, in the journals, news full of grace and humor. Of course they

will never pardon him at the Cafe de Seville; the “long-haired” ones

have disowned this traitor who has gone over to the enemy, and is now

only a sickening and fetid bourgeois; and if the poetical club were able

to enforce its decrees, Paul Sillery, like an apostate Jew in the times

of the Inquisition, would have been scourged and burned alive. Paul

Sillery does not trouble himself about it, however; and from time to

time returns to the “Seville” and treats its members to a bumper all

around, which he pays for with the gold of his dishonor. Sometimes

Jocquelet appears, with his smooth-shaved face; but only rarely, for he

is at present a very busy man and already celebrated. His audacious nose

is reproduced in all positions and displayed in photographers’ windows,

where he has for neighbors the negatives most in demand; for instance,

the fatherly and benevolent face of the pope; Pius IX, or the

international limbs of Mademoiselle Ketty, the majestic fairy,

in tights. The journals, which print Jocquelet’s name, treat him

sympathetically and conspicuously, and are full of his praises. “He is

good to his old aunt,” “gives alms,” “picked up a lost dog in the street

the other evening.” An artist such as he, who stamps immortality on all

the comic repertory, and takes Moliere under his wing, has no time to go

to visit friends, that is understood. However, he still honors Maurice

Roger with short visits. He only has time to make all the knickknacks

and china on the sideboard tremble with the noise of his terrible voice;

only time to tell how, on the night before, in the greenroom, when

still clothed in Scapin’s striped cloak, he deigned to receive, with

the coldest dignity, the compliments of a Royal Highness, or some other

person of high rank. A prominent society lady has been dying of love for

him the past six months; she occupies stage box Number Six--and then off

he goes. Good riddance!

Amedee enjoys himself in his friend’s studio, where gay and witty

artists come to talk. They laugh and amuse themselves, and this

Sunday resting-place is the most agreeable of the hard-working poet’s

recreations. Amedee prolongs them as long as possible, until at last he

is alone with his friend; then the young men stretch themselves out upon

the Turkish cushions, and they talk freely of their hopes, ambitions,

and dreams for the future.

Amedee, however, keeps one secret to himself; he never has told of his

love for Maria Gerard. Upon his return from Italy the traveller

inquired several times for the Gerards, sympathized politely with their

misfortune, and wished to be remembered to them through Amedee. The

latter had been very reserved in his replies, and Maurice no longer

broaches the subject in their conversation. Is it through neglect? After

all, he hardly knew the ladies; still, Amedee is not sorry to talk

of them no longer with his friend, and it is never without a little

embarrassment and unacknowledged jealousy that he replies to Maria when

she asks for news of Maurice.

She no longer inquires. The pretty Maria is cross and melancholy, for

now they talk only of one thing at the Gerards; it is always the same,

the vulgar and cruel thought, obtaining the means to live; and within a

short time they have descended a few steps lower on the slippery ladder

of poverty. It is not possible to earn enough to feed three mouths with

a piano method and a box of pastels--or, at least, it does not hold out.

Louise has fewer pupils, and Pere Issacar has lessened his orders. Mamma

Gerard, who has become almost an old woman, redoubles her efforts; but

they can no longer make both ends meet. Amedee sees it, and how it makes

him suffer!

The poor women are proud, and complain as little as possible; but the

decay inside this house, already so modest, is manifested in many ways.

Two beautiful engravings, the last of their father’s souvenirs, had been

sold in an hour of extreme want; and one could see, by the clean spots

upon the wall, where the frames once hung. Madame Gerard’s and her

daughters’ mourning seemed to grow rusty, and at the Sunday dinner

Amedee now brings, instead of a cake, a pastry pie, which sometimes

constitutes the entire meal. There is only one bottle of old wine in

the cellar, and they drink wine by the pot from the grocer’s. Each new

detail that proves his friends’ distress troubles the sensitive Amedee.

Once, having earned ten Louis from some literary work, he took the

poor mother aside and forced her to accept one hundred francs. The

unfortunate woman, trembling with emotion, while two large tears rolled

down her cheeks, admitted that the night before, in order to pay the

washerwoman, they had pawned the only clock in the house.

What can he do to assist them, to help them to lead a less terrible

life? Ah! if Maria would have it so, they could be married at once,

without any other expense than the white dress, as other poor people

do; and they would all live together. He has his salary of twenty-four

hundred francs, besides a thousand francs that he has earned in

other ways. With Louise’s lessons this little income would be almost

sufficient. Then he would exert himself to sell his writings; he

would work hard, and they could manage. Of course it would be quite

an undertaking on his part to take all this family under his charge.

Children might be born to them. Had he not begun to gain a reputation;

had he not a future before him? His piece might be played and meet with

success. This would be their salvation. Oh! the happy life that the

four would lead together! Yes, if Maria could love him a little, if he

persisted in hoping, if she had the courage, it was the only step to

take.

Becoming enthusiastic upon this subject, Amedee decided to submit the

question to the excellent Louise, in whom he had perfect confidence, and

considered to be goodness and truth personified. Every Thursday, at six

o’clock, she left a boarding-school in the Rue de la Rochechouart, where

she gave lessons to young ladies in singing. He would go and wait

for her as she came out that very evening. And there he met her. Poor

Louise! her dress was lamentable; and what a sad countenance! What a

tired, distressed look!

“What, you, Amedee!” said she, with a happy smile, as he met her.

“Yes, my dear Louise. Take my arm and let me accompany you part of the

way. We will talk as we walk; I have something very serious to say to

you, confidentially--important advice to ask of you.”

The poet then began to make his confession. He recalled their childhood

days in the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, when they played together; it

was as long ago as that that he had first begun to be charmed by little

Maria. As soon as he became a young man he felt that he loved the dear

child, and had always cherished the hope that he might inspire her with

a tender sentiment and marry her some day. If he had not spoken sooner

it was because he was too poor, but he had always loved her, he loved

her now, and never should love any other woman. He then explained

his plan of life in simple and touching terms; he would become Madame

Gerard’s son and his dear Louise’s brother; the union of their two

poverties would become almost comfort. Was it not very simple and

reasonable? He was very sure that she would approve of it, and she was

wisdom itself and the head of the family.

While he was talking Louise lowered her eyes and looked at her feet. He

did not feel that she was trembling violently. Blind, blind Amedee!

You do not see, you will never see, that she is the one who loves you!

Without hope! she knows that very well; she is older than you, she is

not pretty, and she will always be in your eyes an adopted elder

sister, who once showed you your alphabet letters with the point of her

knitting-needle. She has suspected for a long time your love for Maria;

she suffers, but she is resigned to it, and she will help you, the brave

girl! But this confession that you make, Maria’s name that you murmur

into her ear in such loving accents, this dream of happiness in which,

in your artless egotism, you reserve for her the role of an old maid who

will bring up your children, is cruel, oh! how cruel! They have reached

the Boulevard Pigalle; the sun has set; the sky is clear and bright as

a turquoise, and the sharp autumn wind detaches the last of the dried

leaves from the trees. Amedee is silent, but his anxious glance solicits

and waits for Louise’s reply.

“Dear Amedee,” said she, raising her frank, pure eyes to his face, “you

have the most generous and best of hearts. I suspected that you loved

Maria, and I would be glad to tell you at once that she loves you,

so that we might hereafter be but one family--but frankly I can not.

Although the dear child is a little frivolous, her woman’s instinct must

suspect your feeling for her, but she has never spoken of it to mamma or

to me. Have confidence; I do not see anything that augurs ill for you

in that. She is so young and so innocent that she might love you without

suspecting it herself. It is very possible, probable even, that your

avowal will enlighten her as to the state of her own heart. She will

be touched by your love, I am sure, as well as by your devotion to the

whole family. I hope, with all my heart, Amedee, that you will succeed;

for, I can say it to you, some pleasure must happen in poor Maria’s life

soon. She has moments of the deepest sadness and attacks of weeping that

have made me uneasy for some time. You must have noticed, too, that she

is overwhelmed with ennui. I can see that she suffers more than mamma

or I, at the hard life that we lead. It is not strange that she feels as

she does, for she is pretty and attractive, and made for happiness;

and to see the present and the future so sad! How hard it is! You can

understand, my friend, how much I desire this marriage to take place.

You are so good and noble, you will make Maria happy; but you have said

it, I am the one who represents wisdom in our house. Let me have then

a few days in which to observe Maria, to obtain her confidence, to

discover perhaps a sentiment in her heart of which she is ignorant; and

remember that you have a sure and faithful ally in me.”

“Take your own time, dear Louise,” replied the poet. “I leave everything

to you. Whatever you do will be for the best.”

He thanked her and they parted at the foot of the Rue Lepic. It was a

bitter pleasure for the slighted one to give the young man her poor,

deformed, pianist’s hand, and to feel that he pressed it with hope and

gratitude.

She desired and must urge this marriage. She said this over and over

again to herself, as she walked up the steep street, where crowds of

people were swarming at the end of their day’s work. No! no! Maria did

not care for Amedee. Louise was very sure of it; but at all events it

was necessary that she should try to snatch her young sister from the

discouragements and bad counsel of poverty. Amedee loved her and would

know how to make her love him. In order to assure their happiness these

two young people must be united. As to herself, what matter! If they had

children she would accept in advance her duties as coddling aunt and

old godmother. Provided, of course, that Maria would be guided, or, at

least, that she would consent. She was so pretty that she was a trifle

vain. She was nourishing, perhaps, nobody knew what fancy or vain hope,

based upon her beauty and youth. Louise had grave fears. The poor girl,

with her thin, bent shoulders wrapped up in an old black shawl, had

already forgotten her own grief and only thought of the happiness of

others, as she slowly dragged herself up Montmartre Hill. When

she reached the butcher’s shop in front of the mayor’s office, she

remembered a request of her mother’s; and as is always the case with the

poor, a trivial detail is mixed with the drama of life. Louise, without

forgetting her thoughts, while sacrificing her own heart, went into the

shop and picked out two breaded cutlets and had them done up in brown

paper, for their evening’s repast.

The day after his conversation with Louise, Amedee felt that distressing

impatience that waiting causes nervous people. The day at the office

seemed unending, and in order to escape solitude, at five o’clock he

went to Maurice’s studio, where he had not been for fifteen days. He

found him alone, and the young artist also seemed preoccupied. While

Amedee congratulated him upon a study placed upon an easel, Maurice

walked up and down the room with his hands in his pocket, and eyes upon

the floor, making no reply to his friend’s compliments. Suddenly he

stopped and looking at Amedee said:

“Have you seen the Gerard ladies during the past few days?”

Maurice had not spoken of these ladies for several months, and the poet

was a trifle surprised.

“Yes,” he replied. “Not later than yesterday I met Mademoiselle Louise.”

“And,” replied Maurice, in a hesitating manner, “were all the family

well?”

“Yes.”

“Ah!” said the artist, in a strange voice, and he resumed his silent

promenade.

Amedee always had a slightly unpleasant sensation when Maurice spoke the

name of the Gerards, but this time the suspicious look and singular

tone of the young painter, as he inquired about them, made the poet

feel genuinely uneasy. He was impressed, above all, by Maurice’s simple

exclamation, “Ah!” which seemed to him to be enigmatical and mysterious.

But nonsense! all this was foolish; his friend’s questions were

perfectly natural.

“Shall we pass the evening together, my dear Maurice?”

“It is impossible this evening,” replied Maurice, still continuing his

walk. “A duty--I have an engagement.”

Amedee had the feeling that he had come at an unfortunate time, and

discreetly took his departure. Maurice had seemed indifferent and less

cordial than usual.

“What is the matter with him?” said the poet to himself several times,

while dining in the little restaurant in the Latin Quarter. He afterward

went to the Comedie Francaise, to kill time, as well as to inquire

after his drama of Jocquelet, who played that evening in ‘Le Legataire

Universel’.

The comedian received him in his dressing-room, being already arrayed

in Crispin’s long boots and black trousers. He was seated in his

shirt-sleeves be fore his toilet-table, and had just pasted over his

smooth lips the bristling moustache of this traditional personage.

Without rising, or even saying “Good-day,” he cried out to the poet as

he recognized him in the mirror.

“No news as to your piece! The manager has not one moment to himself;

we are getting ready for the revival of Camaraderie. But we shall be

through with it in two days, and then--”