And immediately, talking to hear himself talk, and to exercise his

terrible organ, he belched out, like the noise from an opened dam, a

torrent of commonplace things. He praised Scribe’s works, which they

had put on the stage again; he announced that the famous Guillery, his

senior in the comedy line, would be execrable in this performance, and

would make a bungle of it. He complained of being worried to death

by the pursuit of a great lady--“You know, stage box Number Six,” and

showed, with a conceited gesture, a letter, tossed in among the jars of

paint and pomade, which smelled of musk. Then, ascending to subjects

of a more elevated order, he scored the politics of the Tuileries, and

scornfully exposed the imperial corruption while recognizing that this

“poor Badingue,” who, three days before, had paid a little compliment to

the actor, was of more account than his surroundings.

The poet went home and retired, bewildered by such gossip. When he

awoke, the agony of his thoughts about Maria had become still more

painful. When should he see Louise again? Would her reply be favorable?

In spite of the fine autumn morning his heart was troubled, and he felt

that he had no courage. His administrative work had never seemed more

loathsome than on that day. His fellow-clerk, an amateur in hunting,

had just had two days’ absence, and inflicted upon him, in an unmerciful

manner, his stories of slaughtered partridges, and dogs who pointed,

so wonderfully well, and of course punctuated all this with numerous

Pan-Pans! to imitate the report of a double-barrelled gun.

When he left the office Amedee regained his serenity a little; he

returned home by the quays, hunting after old books and enjoying the

pleasures of a beautiful evening, watching, in the golden sky, around

the spires of Ste.-Chapelle, a large flock of swallows assembling for

their approaching departure.

At nightfall, after dining, he resolved to baffle his impatience by

working all the evening and retouching one act of his drama with which

he was not perfectly content. He went to his room, lighted his lamp, and

seated himself before his open manuscript. Now, then! to work! He had

been silly ever since the night before. Why should he imagine that

misfortune was in the air? Do such things as presentiments exist?

Suddenly, three light, but hasty and sharp knocks were struck upon his

door. Amedee arose, took his lamp, and opened it. He jumped back--there

stood Louise Gerard in her deep mourning!

“You?--At my rooms?--At this hour?--What has happened?”

She entered and dropped into the poet’s armchair. While he put the lamp

upon the table he noticed that the young girl was as white as wax. Then

she seized his hands and pressing them with all her strength, she said,

in a voice unlike her own--a voice hoarse with despair:

“Amedee, I come to you by instinct, as toward our only friend, as to

a brother, as to the only man who will be able to help us repair the

frightful misfortune which overwhelms us!” She stopped, stifled with

emotion.

“A misfortune!” exclaimed the young man. “What misfortune? Maria?”

“Yes! Maria!”

“An accident?--An illness?”

Louise made a rapid gesture with her arm and head which signified: “If

it were only that!” With her mouth distorted by a bitter smile and with

lowered eyes, talking confusedly, she said:

“Monsieur Maurice Roger--yes--your friend Maurice! A miserable

wretch!--he has deceived and ruined the unhappy child! Oh! what

infamy!--and now--now--”

Her deathly pale face flushed and became purple to the roots of her

hair.

“Now Maria will become a mother!”

At these words the poet gave a cry like some enraged beast; he reeled,

and would have fallen had the table not been near. He sat down on the

edge of it, supporting himself with his hands, completely frozen as if

from a great chill. Louise, overcome with shame, sat in the armchair,

hiding her face in her hands while great tears rolled down between the

fingers of her ragged gloves.

BOOK 4.

CHAPTER XIV. TOO LATE!

It had been more than three months since Maria and Maurice had met

again. One day the young man went to the Louvre to see his favorite

pictures of the painters of the Eighteenth Century. His attention was

attracted by the beautiful hair of a young artist dressed in black, who

was copying one of Rosalba’s portraits. It was our pretty pastel artist

whose wonderful locks disturbed all the daubers in the museum, and which

made colorists out of Signol’s pupils themselves. Maurice approached the

copyist, and then both exclaimed at once:

“Mademoiselle Maria!”

“Monsieur Maurice!”

She had recognized him so quickly and with such a charming smile, she

had not, then, forgotten him? When he used to visit Pere Gerard he had

noticed that she was not displeased with him; but after such a long

time, at first sight, to obtain such a greeting, such a delighted

exclamation--it was flattering!

The young man standing by her easel, with his hat off, so graceful

and elegant in his well-cut garments, began to talk with her. He spoke

first, in becoming and proper terms, of her father’s death; inquired for

her mother and sister, congratulated himself upon having been recognized

thus, and then yielding to his bold custom, he added:

“As to myself, I hesitated at first. You have grown still more beautiful

in two years.”

As she blushed, he continued, in a joking way, which excused his

audacity:

“Amedee told me that you had become delicious, but now I hardly dare ask

him for news of you. Ever since you have lived at Montmartre--and I know

that he sees you every Sunday--he has never offered to take me with him

to pay my respects. Upon my word of honor, Mademoiselle Maria, I believe

that he is in love with you and as jealous as a Turk.”

She protested against it, confused but still smiling.

Ah! if he had known of the dream that Maria had kept concealed in one

corner of her heart ever since their first meeting. If he had known that

her only desire was to be chosen and loved by this handsome Maurice, who

had gone through their house and among poor Papa Gerard’s bric-a-brac

like a meteor! Why not, after all? Did she not possess that great power,

beauty? Her father, her mother, and even her sister, the wise Louise,

had often said so to her. Yes! from the very first she had been charmed

by this young man with the golden moustache, and the ways of a young

lord; she had hoped to please him, and later, in spite of poverty and

death, she had continued to be intoxicated with this folly and to dream

of this narcotic against grief, of the return of this Prince Charming.

Poor Maria, so good and so artless, who had been told too many times

that she was pretty! Poor little spoiled child!

When he left you yesterday, little Maria, after half an hour’s pleasing

conversation, Maurice said to you jokingly: “Do not tell Violette, above

all, that we have met. I should lose my best friend.” You not only said

nothing to Amedee, but you told neither your mother nor your sister. For

Louise and Madame Gerard are prudent and wise, and they would tell you

to avoid this rash fellow who has accosted you in a public place, and

has told you at once that you are beautiful and beloved. They would

scold you; they would tell you that this young man is of a rich and

distinguished family; that his mother has great ambitions for him; that

you have only your old black dress and beautiful eyes, and to-morrow,

when you return to the Louvre, Madame Gerard will establish herself near

your easel and discourage the young gallant.

But, little Maria, you conceal it from your mother and Louise! You have

a secret from your family! To-morrow when you make your toilette before

the mirror and twist up your golden hair, your heart will beat with hope

and vanity. In the Louvre your attention will be distracted from your

work when you hear a man’s step resound in a neighboring gallery, and

when Maurice arrives you will doubtless be troubled, but very much

surprised and not displeased, ah! only too much pleased. Little Maria,

little Maria, he talks to you in a low tone now. His blond moustache is

very near your cheek, and you do well to lower your eyes, for I see a

gleam of pleasure under your long lashes. I do not hear what he says,

nor your replies; but how fast he works, how he gains your confidence!

You will compromise yourself, little Maria, if you keep him too long by

your easel. Four o’clock will soon strike, and the watchman in the green

coat, who is snoozing before Watteau’s designs, will arouse from his

torpor, stretch his arms, look at his watch, get up from his seat, and

call out “Time to close.” Why do you allow Maurice to help you arrange

your things, to accompany you through the galleries, carrying your box

of pastels? The long, lanky girl in the Salon Carre, who affects the

English ways, the one who will never finish copying the “Vierge au

coussin vert,” has followed you into the Louvre court. Take care! She

has noticed, envious creature, that you are very much moved as you take

leave of your companion, and that you let your hand remain for a second

in his! This old maid ‘a l’anglaise’ has a viper’s tongue. To-morrow you

will be the talk of the Louvre, and the gossip will spread to the ‘Ecole

des Beaux-Arts’, even to Signol’s studio, where the two daubers, your

respectful admirers, who think of cutting their throats in your honor,

will accost each other with a “Well, the pretty pastellist! Yes, I know,

she has a lover.”

If it was only a lover! But the pretty pastellist has been very

careless, more foolish than the old maid or the two young fellows dream

of. It is so sweet to hear him say: “I love you!” and so delicious to

listen for the question: “And you, do you love me a little?” when she is

dying to say, “Yes!” Bending her head and blushing with confusion under

Maurice’s ardent gaze, the pretty Maria ends by murmuring the fatal

“Yes.” Then she sees Maurice turn pale with joy, and he says to her, “I

must talk to you alone; not before these bores.” She replies: “But how?

It is impossible!” Then he asks whether she does not trust him, whether

she does not believe him to be an honest man, and the young girl’s looks

say more than any protestation would.

“Well! to-morrow morning at ten o’clock--instead of coming to the

Louvre--will you? I will wait for you on the Quai d’Orsay, before the

Saint-Cloud pier.”

She was there at the appointed hour, overwhelmed with emotion and ready

to faint. He took her by the arm and led her aboard the boat.

“Do you see, now we are almost alone. Give me the pleasure of wandering

through the fields with you. It is such beautiful weather. Be tranquil,

we shall return early.”

Oh, the happy day! Maria sees pass before her, as she is seated beside

Maurice, who is whispering in her ear loving words and whose glances

cover her with caresses, as if in a dream, views of Paris that were not

familiar to her, high walls, arches of bridges, then the bare suburbs,

the smoking manufactories of Grenelle, the Bas Meudon, with its boats

and public-houses. At last, on the borders of the stream, the park with

its extensive verdure appeared.

They wandered there for a long time under the chestnut-trees, loaded

with their fruit in its green shells. The sun, filtering through the

foliage, dotted the walks with patches of light, and Maurice continued

to repeat to Maria that he loved her; that he had never loved any one

but her! that he had loved her from the very first time that he saw her

at Pere Gerard’s, and that neither time nor absence had been able to

drive away the remembrance of her. And at this moment he imagined that

it was true. He did not think that he was telling a lie. As to poor

Maria, do not be too severe upon her! think of her youth, her poverty

and imprisonment--she was overwhelmed with happiness. She could think

of nothing to say, and, giving herself up into the young man’s arms, she

had hardly the strength to turn upon him, from time to time, her eyes

tortured with love.

Is it necessary to tell how she succumbed? how they went to a restaurant

and dined? Emotion, the heavy heat of the afternoon, champagne, that

golden wine that she tasted for the first time, stunned the imprudent

child. Her charming head slips down upon the sofa-pillow, she is nearly

fainting.

“You are too warm,” said Maurice. “This bright light makes you ill.”

He draws the curtains; they are in the darkness, and he takes the young

girl in his arms, covering her hands, eyes, and lips with kisses.

Doubtless he swears to her that she shall be his wife. He asks only a

little time, a few weeks, in which to prepare his mother, the ambitious

Madame Roger, for his unexpected marriage. Maria never doubts him, but

overcome by her fault, she feels an intense shame, and buries her face

on her lover’s shoulder. She thinks then, the guilty girl, of her past;

of her innocence and poverty, of her humble but honest home; her dead

father, her mother and sister---her two mothers, properly speaking---who

yet call her “little one” and always consider her as a child, an infant

in all its purity. She feels impressed with her sin, and wishes that she

might die there at once.

Oh! I beg of you, be charitable to the poor, weak Maria, for she is

young and she must suffer!

Maurice was not a rascal, after all; he was in earnest when he promised

to marry her without delay. He even meant to admit all to his mother the

next day; but when he saw her she never had appeared so imposing to him,

with her gray hair under her widow’s cap. He shivered as he thought of

the tearful scenes, the reproaches and anger, and in his indolence he

said to himself: “Upon my honor, I will do it later!” He loves Maria

after his fashion. He is faithful to her, and when she steals away an

hour from her work to come to see him, he is uneasy at the least delay.

She is truly adorable, only Maurice does not like the unhappy look that

she wears when she asks him, in a trembling voice: “Have you spoken to

your mother?” He embraces her, reassures her. “Be easy. Leave me time

to arrange it.” The truth is, that now he begins to be perplexed at the

idea of this marriage. It is his duty, he knows that very well; but he

is not twenty three years old yet. There is no hurry. After all, is it

duty? the little one yielded easily enough. Has he not the right to test

her and wait a little? It is what his mother would advise him, he is

certain. That is the only reasonable way to look at it.

Alas, egotists and cowards always have a reason for everything!

How dearly poor Maria’s foolish step has cost her! How heavily such

a secret weighs upon the child’s heart! For a few moments of uneasy

intoxication with this man, whom she already doubts and who sometimes

makes her afraid, she must lie to her mother without blushing or

lowering her eyes, and enter Maurice’s house veiled and hiding like a

thief. But that is nothing yet. After some time of this agonizing life

her health is troubled. Quickly she goes to find Maurice! She arrives

unexpectedly and finds him lying upon the sofa smoking a cigar. Without

giving him time to rise, she throws herself into his arms, and, bursting

into sobs, makes her terrible avowal. At first he only gives a start of

angry astonishment, a harsh glance.

“Bah! you must be mistaken.”

“I am sure of it, I tell you, I am sure of it!”

She has caught his angry glance and feels condemned in advance. However,

he gives her a cold kiss, and it is with a great effort that she

stammers:

“Maurice--you must--speak to your mother--”

He rises with an impatient gesture and Maria seats herself--her strength

is leaving her--while he walks up and down the room.

“My poor Maria,” he begins in a hesitating manner, “I dared not tell

you, but my mother will not consent to our marriage--now, at least.”

He lies! He has not spoken to his mother; she knows it. Ah! unhappy

creature! he does not love her! and, discouraged, with a rumbling noise

in her ears, she listens to Maurice as he speaks in his soft voice.

“Oh! be tranquil. I shall not abandon you, my poor child. If what you

say is true-if you are sure of it, then the best thing that you can do,

you see, is to leave your family and come and live with me. At first we

will go away from Paris; you can be confined in the country. We can

put the child out to nurse; they will take care of the little brat, of

course. And later, perhaps, my mother will soften and will understand

that we must marry. No, truly, the more I think of it, the more I

believe that that is the best way to do. Yes! I know very well it will

be hard to leave your home, but what can you do, my darling? You can

write your mother a very affectionate letter.”

And going to her he takes her, inert and heartbroken, into his arms, and

tries to show himself loving.

“You are my wife, my dear little wife, I repeat it. Are you not glad,

eh! that we can live together?”

This is what he proposes to do. He thinks to take her publicly to his

house and to blazon her shame before the eyes of everybody! Maria feels

that she is lost. She rises abruptly and says to him in the tone of a

somnambulist: “That will do. We will talk of it again.”

She goes away and returns to Montmartre at a crazy woman’s pace, and

finds her mother knitting and her sister ready to lay the table-yes!

as if nothing at all was the matter. She takes their hands and falls at

their feet!

Ah, poor women!

They had already been very much tried. The decay of this worthy family

was lamentable; but in spite of all, yesterday even, they endured their

fate with resignation. Yes! the economy, the degrading drudgery, the

old, mended gowns--they accepted all this without a murmur. A noble

sentiment sustained and gave them courage. All three--the old mother in

a linen cap doing the cooking and the washing, the elder sister giving

lessons at forty sous, and the little one working in pastels--were

vaguely conscious of representing something very humble, but sacred and

noble--a family without a blemish on their name. They felt that they

moved in an atmosphere of esteem and respect. “Those ladies upon the

first floor have so many accomplishments,” say the neighbors. Their

apartment--with its stained woodwork, its torn wall, paper, but where

they were all united in work and drawn closer and closer to each other

in love--had still the sweetness of a home; and upon their ragged

mourning, their dilapidated furniture, the meagre meat soup at night,

the pure light of honor gleamed and watched over them. Now, after this

guilty child’s avowal, all this was ended, lost forever! There was a

blemish upon their life of duty and poverty, upon their irreproachable

past, even upon the father’s memory. Certainly the mother and elder

sister excused the poor creature who sobbed under their kisses and

begged their pardon. However, when they gazed at each other with red

eyes and dry lips, they measured the fall of the family; they saw for

the first time how frightful were their destitution and distress; they

felt the unbearable feeling of shame glide into their hearts like

a sinister and unexpected guest who, at the first glance, makes one

understand that he has come to be master of the lodging. This was the

secret, the overwhelming secret, which the distracted Louise Gerard

revealed that evening to her only friend, Amedee Violette, acting thus

by instinct, as a woman with too heavy a burden throws it to the ground,

crying for help.

When she had ended her cruel confidence, to which the poet listened

with his face buried in his hands, and he uncovered his face creased and

furrowed by the sudden wrinkles of despair, Louise was frightened.

“How I have wounded him!” she thought. “How he loves Maria!”

But she saw shining in the young man’s eyes a gloomy resolution.

“Very well, Louise,” muttered he, between his teeth. “Do not tell me any

more, I beg of you. I do not know where to find Maurice at this hour,

but he will see me to-morrow morning, rest easy. If the evil is not

repaired--and at once!”

He did not finish; his voice was stifled with grief and rage, and upon

an almost imperious gesture to leave, Louise departed, overcome by her

undertaking.

No, Maurice Roger was not a villain. After Maria’s departure he felt

ashamed and displeased with himself. A mother! poor little thing!

Certainly he would take charge of her and the child; he would behave

like a gentleman. But, to speak plainly, he did not now love her as much

as he did. His vagabond nature was already tired of his love-affair.

This one was watered too much by tears. Bah! he was usually lucky, and

this troublesome affair would come out all right like the others. Truly,

it was as bad an accident as if one had fallen into a hole and broken

his leg. But then, who could tell? Chance and time arrange many things.

The child might not live, perhaps; at any rate, it was perfectly natural

that he should wait and see what happened.

The next morning the reckless Maurice--who had not slept badly--was

tranquilly preparing his palette while awaiting his model, when he saw

Amedee Violette enter his studio. At the first glance he saw that the

poet knew all.

“Maurice,” said Amedee, in a freezing tone, “I received a visit from

Mademoiselle Louise Gerard last evening. She told me everything--all, do

you understand me perfectly? I have come to learn whether I am mistaken

regarding you--whether Maurice Roger is an honest man.”

A flame darted from the young artist’s eyes. Amedee, with his livid

complexion and haggard from a sleepless night and tears, was pitiful to

see. And then it was Amedee, little Amedee whom Maurice sincerely loved,

for whom he had kept, ever since their college days, a sentiment, all

the more precious that it flattered his vanity, the indulgent affection

and protection of a superior.

“Oh! Grand, melodramatic words already!” said he, placing his palette

upon the table. “Amedee, my dear boy, I do not recognize you, and if you

have any explanation that you wish to ask of your old friend, it is not

thus that you should do it. You have received, you tell me, Mademoiselle

Gerard’s confidence. I know you are devoted to those ladies. I

understand your emotion and I think your intervention legitimate; but

you see I speak calmly and in a friendly way. Calm yourself in your turn

and do not forget that, in spite of your zeal for those ladies, I am the

best and dearest companion of your youth. I am, I know, in one of the

gravest situations of my life. Let us talk of it. Advise me; you

have the right to do so; but not in that tone of voice--that angry,

threatening tone which I pardon, but which hurts and makes me doubt,

were it possible, your love for me.”

“Ah! you know very well that I love you,” replied the unhappy Amedee,

“but why do you need my advice? You are frank enough to deny nothing.

You admit that it is true, that you have seduced a young girl. Does not

your conscience tell you what to do?”

“To marry her? That is my intention. But, Amedee, do you think of my

mother? This marriage will distress her, destroy her fond hopes and

ambitions. I hope to be able to gain her consent; only I must have time

to turn myself. Later--very soon. I do not say--if the child lives.”

This word, torn from Maurice by the cynicism which is in the heart of

all egotists, made Amedee angry.

“Your mother!” exclaimed he. “Your mother is the widow of a French

officer who died facing the enemy. She will understand it, I am sure,

as a matter of honor and duty. Go and find her, tell her that you have

ruined this unfortunate child. Your mother will advise you to marry her.

She will command you to do it.”

This argument was forcible and direct, and impressed Maurice; but his

friend’s violence irritated him.

“You go to work badly, Amedee, I repeat it,” said he, raising his tone.

“You have no right to prejudge my mother’s opinion, and I receive no

orders from anybody. After all, nothing authorizes you to do it; if it

is because you were in love with Maria--”

A furious cry interrupted him. Amedee, with wild eyes and shaking his

fists, walked toward Maurice, speaking in a cutting tone:

“Well, yes! I loved her,” said he, “and I wished to make her my wife.

You, who no longer love her, who took her out of caprice, as you have

taken others, you have destroyed all of my dreams for the future. She

preferred you, and, understand me, Maurice, I am too proud to complain,

too just to hold spite against you. I am only here to prevent your

committing an infamy. Upon my honor! If you repulse me, our friendship

is destroyed forever, and I dare not think of what will happen between

us, but it will be terrible! Alas! I am wrong, I do not talk to you as

I ought. Maurice, there is time yet! Only listen to your heart, which I

know is generous and good. You have wronged an innocent child and driven

a poor and worthy family to despair. You can repair the evil you have

caused. You wish to. You will! I beg of you, do it out of respect for

yourself and the name you bear. Act like a brave man and a gentleman!

Give this young girl--whose only wrong has been in loving you too

much--give the mother of your child your name, your heart, your love.

You will be happy with her and through her. Go! I shall not be jealous

of your happiness, but only too glad to have found my friend, my loyal

Maurice once more, and to be able still to love and admire him as

heretofore.”

Stirred by these warm words, and fatigued by the discussion and

struggle, the painter reached out his hands to his friend, who pressed

them in his. Suddenly he looked at Amedee and saw his eyes shining with

tears, and, partly from sorrow, but more from want of will and from

moral weakness, to end it he exclaimed:

“You are right, after all. We will arrange this matter without delay.

What do you wish me to do?”

Ah, how Amedee bounded upon his neck!

“My good, my dear Maurice! Quickly dress yourself. Let us go to those

ladies and embrace and console that dear child. Ah! I knew very well

that you would understand me and that your heart was in the right place.

How happy the poor women will be! Now then, my old friend, is it not

good to do one’s duty?”

Yes, Maurice found that it was good now; excited and carried away by his

friend, he hurried toward the good action that was pointed out to him as

he would to a pleasure-party, and while putting on his coat to go out,

he said:

“After all, my mother can only approve, and since she always does as I

wish, she will end by adoring my little Maria. It is all right; there

is no way of resisting you, Violette. You are a good and persuasive

Violette. Now, then, here I am, ready--a handkerchief--my hat. Off we

go!”

They went out and took a cab which carried them toward Montmartre. The

easy-going Maurice, reconciled to his future, sketched out his plan of

life. Once married, he would work seriously. At first, immediately after

the ceremony, he would leave with his wife to pass the winter in the

South, where she could be confined. He knew a pretty place in the

Corniche, near Antibes, where he should not lose his time, as he could

bring back marine and landscape sketches. But it would not be until the

next winter that he would entirely arrange his life. The painter Laugeol

was going to move; he would hire his apartment--“a superb studio, my

dear fellow, with windows looking out upon the Luxembourg.” He could

see himself there now, working hard, having a successful picture in the

Salon, wearing a medal. He chose even the hangings in the sleeping-rooms

in advance. Then, upon beautiful days, how convenient the garden would

be for the child and the nurse.

Suddenly, in the midst of this chattering, he noticed Amedee’s sad face

as he shrank into the back of the carriage.

“Forgive me, my dear friend,” said he, taking him affectionately by the

hand. “I forgot what you told me just now. Ah! fate is ridiculous, when

I think that my happiness makes you feel badly.”

The poet gave his friend a long, sad look.

“Be happy with Maria and make her happy, that is all I ask for you

both.”

They had reached the foot of Montmartre, and the carriage went slowly up

the steep streets.

“My friend,” said Amedee, “we shall arrive there soon. You will go in

alone to see these ladies, will you not? Oh! do not be afraid. I know

Louise and the mother. They will not utter one word of reproach. Your

upright act will be appreciated by them as it merits--but you will

excuse me from going with you, do you see? It would be too painful for

me.”

“Yes, I understand, my poor Amedee. As it pleases you. Now then,

courage, you will be cured of it. Everything is alleviated in time,”

replied Maurice, who supposed everybody to have his fickle nature. “I

shall always remember the service that you have rendered me, for I blush

now as I think of it. Yes, I was going to do a villainous act. Amedee,

embrace me.”

They threw their arms about each other’s neck, and the carriage stopped.

Once on the sidewalk, Amedee noticed his friend’s wry face as he saw

the home of the Gerards, a miserable, commonplace lodging-house, whose

crackled plastered front made one think of the wrinkles on a poor man’s

face. On the right and on the left of the entrance-door were two shops,

one a butcher’s, the other a fruiterer’s, exhaling their fetid odors.

But Amedee paid no attention to the delicate Maurice’s repugnance,

saying:

“Do you see that little garden at the end of the walk? It is there. Au

revoir.”

They separated with a last grasp of the hand. The poet saw Maurice enter

the dark alley, cross the narrow court and push the gate open into the

garden, and then disappear among the mass of verdure. How many times

Amedee had passed through there, moved at the thought that he was going

to see Maria; and Maurice crossed this threshold for the first time

in his life to take her away. He wanted her! He had himself given his

beloved to another! He had begged, almost forced his rival, so to speak,

to rob him of his dearest hope! What sorrow!

Amedee gave his address to the driver and entered the carriage again. A

cold autumn rain had commenced to fall, and he was obliged to close

the windows. As he was jolted harshly through the streets of Paris at

a trot, the young poet, all of a shiver, saw carriages streaming with

water, bespattered pedestrians under their umbrellas, a heavy gloom fall

from the leaden sky; and Amedee, stupefied with grief, felt a strange

sensation of emptiness, as if somebody had taken away his heart.

When he entered his room, the sight of his furniture, his engravings,

his books on their shelves, and his table covered with its papers

distressed him. His long evenings of study near this lamp, the long

hours of thought over some difficult work, the austere and cheerless

year that he had lived there, all had been dedicated to Maria. It was

in order to obtain her some day, that he had labored so assiduously

and obstinately! And now the frivolous and guilty child was doubtless

weeping for joy in Maurice’s arms, her husband to-morrow?

Seated before his table, with his head buried in his hands, Amedee sank

into the depths of melancholy. His life seemed such a failure, his fate

so disastrous, his future so gloomy, he felt so discouraged and lonely,

that for the moment the courage to live deserted him. It seemed to him

that an invisible hand touched him upon the shoulder with compassion,

and he had at once a desire and a fear to turn around and look; for he

knew very well that this hand was that of the dead. He did not fancy it

under the hideous aspect of a skeleton, but as a calm, sad, but yet very

sweet face which drew him against its breast with a mother’s tenderness,

and made him and his grief sleep--a sleep without dreams, profound and

eternal. Suddenly he turned around and uttered a frightful cry. For

a moment he thought he saw, extended at his feet, and still holding a

razor in his hand, the dead body of his unhappy father, a horrible wound

in his throat, and his thin gray hair in a pool of blood!

He was still trembling with this frightful hallucination when somebody

knocked at his door. It was the concierge, who brought him two letters.

The first was stamped with the celebrated name:

“Comedie Francaise, 1680.” The manager announced in the most gracious

terms that he had read with the keenest pleasure his drama in verse,

entitled L’Atelier, and he hoped that the reading committee would accept

this work.

“Too late!” thought the young poet, as he tore open the other envelope.

This second letter bore the address of a Paris notary, and informed M.

Amedee Violette that M. Isidore Gaufre had died without leaving a will,

and that, as nephew of the defunct, he would receive a part of the

estate, still difficult to appraise, but which would not be less than

two hundred and fifty or three hundred thousand francs.

Success and fortune! Everything came at once! Amedee was at first

overwhelmed with surprise; but with all these unhoped-for favors of

fortune, which did not give him the power to repair his misfortune, the

noble poet deeply realized that riches and glory were not equal to a

great love or a beautiful dream, and, completely upset by the irony of

his fate, he broke into a harsh burst of laughter.

CHAPTER XV. REPARATION

The late M. Violette was not mistaken when he supposed M. Gaufre capable

of disinheriting his family in favor of his servant-mistress, but

Berenice was wanting in patience. The rough beard and cap of an

irresistible sergeant-major were the ruin of the girl. One Sunday, when

M. Gaufre, as usual, recited vespers at St. Sulpice, he found that for

the first time in his life he had forgotten his snuff-box. The holy

offices were unbearable to this hypocritical person unless frequently

broken by a good pinch of snuff. Instead of waiting for the final

benediction and then going to take his usual walk, he left his church

warden’s stall and returned unexpectedly to the Rue Servandoni, where he

surprised Berenice in a loving interview with her military friend. The

old man’s rage was pitiful to behold. He turned the Normandy beauty

ignominiously out of doors, tore up the will he had made in her favor,

and died some weeks after from indigestion, and left, in spite of

himself, all his fortune to his natural heirs.

Amedee’s drama had been accepted by the Comedie Francaise, but was not

to be brought out until spring. The notary in charge of his uncle’s

estate had advanced him a few thousand francs, and, feeling sad and not

having the courage to be present at the marriage of Maurice and Maria,

the poet wished at least to enjoy, in a way, his new fortune and the

independence that it gave him; so he resigned his position and left for

a trip to Italy, in the hope of dissipating his grief.

Ah, never travel when the heart is troubled! You sleep with the echo of

a dear name in your thoughts, and the half sleep of nights on a train

is feverish and full of nightmares. Amedee suffered tortures from it.

In the midst of the continual noise of the cars he thought he could hear

sad voices crying loudly the name of a beloved lost one. Sometimes the

tumult would become quiet for a little; brakes, springs, wheels, all

parts of the furious cast-iron machine seemed to him tired of howling

the deafening rhythmical gallop, and the vigorously rocked traveller

could distinguish in the diminished uproar a strain of music, at first

confused like a groan, then more distinct, but always the same cruel,

haunting monotone--the fragment of a song that Maria once sang when

they were both children. Suddenly a mournful and prolonged whistle would

resound through the night. The express rushed madly into a tunnel. Under

the sonorous roof, the frightful concert redoubled, exasperating him

among all these metallic clamors; but Amedee still heard a distant sound

like that of a blacksmith’s hammer, and each heavy blow made his heart

bound painfully.

Ah! never travel, and above all, never travel alone, if your heart is

sad! How hostile and inhospitable the first sensation is that one feels

then when entering an unknown city! Amedee was obliged to submit to the

tiresome delay of looking after his baggage in a commonplace station;

the hasty packing into an omnibus of tired-out travellers, darting

glances of bad humor and suspicion; to the reception upon the hotel

steps by the inevitable Swiss porter with his gold-banded cap, murdering

all the European languages, greeting all the newcomers, and getting

mixed in his “Yes, sir,” “Ja, wohl,” and “Si, signor.” Amedee was an

inexperienced tourist, who did not drag along with him a dozen trunks,

and had not a rich and indolent air; so he was quickly despatched by the

Swiss polyglot into a fourth-story room, which looked out into an open

well, and was so gloomy that while he washed his hands he was afraid

of falling ill and dying there without help. A notice written in four

languages hung upon the wall, and, to add to his cheerfulness, it

advised him to leave all his valuables at the office of the hotel--as

if he had penetrated a forest infested with brigands. The rigid writing

warned him still further that they looked upon him as a probable

sharper, and that his bill would be presented every five days.

The tiresome life of railroads and table-d’hotes began for him.

He would be dragged about from city to city, like a bag of wheat or a

cask of wine. He would dwell in pretentious and monumental hotels, where

he would be numbered like a convict; he would meet the same carnivorous

English family, with whom he might have made a tour of the world without

exchanging one word; swallowing every day the tasteless soup, old

fish, tough vegetables, and insipid wine which have an international

reputation, so to speak. But above all, he was to have the horror, every

evening upon going to his room, of passing through those uniform and

desolate corridors, faintly lighted by gas, where before each door are

pairs of cosmopolitan shoes--heavy alpine shoes, filthy German boots,

the conjugal boots of my lord and my lady, which make one think, by

their size, of the troglodyte giants--awaiting, with a fatigued air,

their morning polish.

The imprudent Amedee was destined to all sorts of weariness, all sorts

of deceptions, and all the homesickness of a solitary traveller. At the

sight of the famous monuments and celebrated sites, which have become

in some way looked upon as models for painters and material for

literary development, Amedee felt that sensation of “already seen” which

paralyzes the faculty of admiration. Dare we say it? The dome in Milan,

that enormous quiver of white marble arrows, did not move him. He

was indifferent to the sublime medley of bronze in the Baptistery in

Florence; and the leaning tower at Pisa produced simply the effect of

mystification. He walked miles through the museums and silent galleries,

satiated with art and glutted with masterpieces. He was disgusted to

find that he could not tolerate a dozen “Adorations of the Shepherds,”

or fourteen “Descents from the Cross,” consecutively, even if they

were signed with the most glorious names. The scenes of suffering and

martyrdom, so many times repeated, were particularly distasteful to

him; and he took a still greater dislike even to a certain monk, always

represented on his knees in prayer with an axe sticking in his tonsure,

than to the everlasting St. Sebastian pierced with arrows. His deadened

and depraved attention discerned only the disagreeable and ugly side

of a work of art. In the adorable artless originals he could see only

childish and barbarous drawing, and he thought the old colorists’

yolk-of-an-egg tone monotonous.

He wished to spur his sensations, to see something extraordinary. He

travelled toward Venice, the noiseless city, the city without birds or

verdure, toward that silent country of sky, marble, and water; but once

there, the reality seemed inferior to his dream. He had not that shock

of surprise and enthusiasm in the presence of St. Mark’s and the Doges’

palace which he had hoped for. He had read too many descriptions of all

these wonders; seen too many more or less faithful pictures, and in his

disenchantment he recalled a lamp-shade which once, in his own home, had

excited his childish imagination--an ugly lampshade of blue pasteboard

upon which was printed a nocturnal fete, the illuminations upon the

ducal palace being represented by a row of pin-pricks.

Once more I repeat it, never travel alone, and above all, never go

to Venice alone and without love! For young married people in their

honeymoon, or a pair of lovers, the gondola is a floating boudoir, a

nest upon the waters like a kingfisher’s. But for one who is sad, and

who stretches himself upon the sombre cushions of the bark, the gondola

is a tomb.

Toward the last of January, Amedee suddenly returned to Paris. He would

not be obliged to see Maurice or his young bride at once. They had been

married one month and would remain in the South until the end of winter.

He was recalled by the rehearsals of his drama. The notary who had

charge of his affairs gave him twelve thousand pounds’ income, a large

competency, which enabled him to work for the pure and disinterested

love of art, and without concessions to common people. The young poet

furnished an elegant apartment in an old and beautiful house on the

Quai d’Orsay, and sought out some of his old comrades--among others Paul

Sillery, who now held a distinguished place in journalism and reappeared

a little in society, becoming very quickly reconciled with life.

His first call was upon Madame Roger. He was very glad to see Maurice’s

mother; she was a little sad, but indulgent to Maurice, and resigned to

her son’s marriage, because she felt satisfied that he had acted like a

man of honor. He also went at once to Montmartre to embrace Louise and

Madame Gerard, who received him with great demonstrations. They were not

so much embarrassed in money matters, for Maurice was very generous

and had aided his wife’s family. Louise gave lessons now for a proper

remuneration, and Madame Gerard was able to refuse, with tears of

gratitude, the poet’s offer of assistance, who filially opened his purse

to her. He dined as usual with his old friends, and they had tact enough

not to say too much about the newly married ones; but there was one

empty place at the table. He was once more seized with thoughts of the

absent, and returned to his room that evening with an attack of the

blues.

The rehearsal of his piece, which had just begun at the Comedie

Francaise, the long sittings at the theatre, and the changes to be

made from day to day, were a useful and powerful distraction for Amedee

Violette’s grief. L’Atelier, when played the first week in April, did

not obtain more than a respectful greeting from the public; it was

an indifferent success. This vulgar society, these simple, plain,

sentiments, the sweetheart in a calico gown, the respectable old man in

short frock and overalls, the sharp lines where here and there boldly

rang out a slang word of the faubourg; above all, the scene representing

a mill in full activity, with its grumbling workmen, its machines in

motion, even the continual puffing of steam, all displeased the worldly

people and shocked them. This was too abrupt a change from luxurious

drawing-rooms, titled persons, aristocratic adulteresses, and

declarations of love murmured to the heroine in full toilette by a lover

leaning his elbow upon the piano, with all the airs and graces of a

first-class dandy. However, Jocquelet, in the old artisan’s role, was

emphatic and exaggerated, and an ugly and commonplace debutante was an

utter failure. The criticisms, generally routine in character, were

not gracious, and the least surly ones condemned Amedee’s attempt,

qualifying it as an honorable effort. There were some slashes;

one “long-haired” fellow from the Cafe de Seville failed in his

criticism--the very one who once wrote a description of the violation of

a tomb--to crush the author of L’Atelier in an ultra-classical article,

wherein he protested against realism and called to witness all the

silent, sculptured authors in the hall.

It was a singular thing, but Amedee was easily consoled over his

failure. He did not have the necessary qualities to succeed in the

theatrical line? Very well, he would give it up, that was all! It

was not such a great misfortune, upon the whole, to abandon the most

difficult art of all, but not the first; which did not allow a poet to

act his own free liking. Amedee began to compose verses for himself--for

his own gratification; to become intoxicated with his own rhymes and

fancies; to gather with a sad pleasure the melancholy flowers that his

trouble had caused to blossom in his heart.

Meanwhile summer arrived, and Maurice returned to Paris with his wife

and a little boy, born at Nice, and Amedee must go to see them, although

he knew in advance that the visit would make him unhappy.

The amateur painter was handsomer than ever. He was alone in his studio,

wearing his same red jacket. He had decorated and even crammed the

room full of luxurious and amusing knickknacks. The careless young man

received his friend as if nothing had happened between them, and after

their greetings and inquiries as to old friends, and the events that had

happened since their last meeting, they lighted their cigarettes.

“Well, what have you done?” asked the poet. “You had great projects of

work. Have you carried out your plans? Have you many sketches to show

me?”

“Upon my word, no! Almost nothing. Do you know, when I was there I

abandoned myself to living; I played the lizard in the sun. Happiness is

very engrossing, and I have been foolishly happy.”

Then placing his hand upon his friend’s, who sat near him, he added:

“But I owe that happiness to you, my good Amedee.”

Maurice said this carelessly, in order to satisfy his conscience. Did

he remember, did he even suspect how unhappy the poet had been, and was

now, on account of this happiness? A bell rang.

“Ah!” exclaimed the master of the house, joyfully.

“It is Maria returning with the baby from a walk in the gardens. This

little citizen will be six weeks old to-morrow, and you must see what a

handsome little fellow he is already.”

Amedee felt stifled with emotion. He was about to see her again! To see

her as a wife and a mother was quite different, of course.

She appeared, raising the portiere with one hand, while behind her

appeared the white bonnet and rustic face of the nurse. No! she was not

changed, but maternity, love, and a rich and easy life had expanded her

beauty. She was dressed in a fresh and charming toilette. She blushed

when she first recognized Amedee; and he felt with sadness that his

presence could only awaken unpleasant recollections in the young woman’s

mind.

“Kiss each other, like old acquaintances,” said the painter, laughing,

with the air of a man who is loved and sure of himself.

But Amedee contented himself with kissing the tips of her glove, and

the glance with which Maria thanked him for this reserve was one more

torture for him to endure. She was grateful to him and gave him a kind

smile.

“My mother and my sister,” said she, graciously, “often have the

pleasure of a visit from you, Monsieur Amedee. I hope that you will not

make us jealous, but come often to see Maurice and me.”

“Maurice and me!” How soft and tender her voice and eyes became as she

said these simple words, “Maurice and me!” Ah, were they not one! How

she loved him! How she loved him!

Then Amedee must admire the baby, who was now awake in his nurse’s arms,

aroused by his father’s noisy gayety. The child opened his blue eyes, as

serious as those of an old man’s, and peeped out from the depth of lace,

feebly squeezing the finger that the poet extended to him.

“What do you call him?” asked Amedee, troubled to find anything to say.

“Maurice, after his father,” quickly responded Maria, who also put a

mint of love into these words.

Amedee could endure no more. He made some pretext for withdrawing and

went away, promising that he would see them again soon.

“I shall not go there very often!” he said to himself, as he descended

the steps, furious with himself that he was obliged to hold back a sob.

He went there, however, and always suffered from it. He was the one who

had made this marriage; he ought to rejoice that Maurice, softened

by conjugal life and paternity, did not return to his recklessness of

former days; but, on the contrary, the sight of this household, Maria’s

happy looks, the allusions that she sometimes made of gratitude to

Amedee; above all Maurice’s domineering way in his home, his way of

speaking to his wife like an indulgent master to a slave delighted

to obey, all displeased and unmanned him. He always left Maurice’s

displeased with himself, and irritated with the bad sentiments that he

had in his heart; ashamed of loving another’s wife, the wife of his old

comrade; and keeping up all the same his friendship for Maurice, whom he

was never able to see without a feeling of envy and secret bitterness.

He managed to lengthen the distance between his visits to the young

pair, and to put another interest into his life. He was now a man of

leisure, and his fortune allowed him to work when he liked and

felt inspired. He returned to society and traversed the midst of

miscellaneous parlors, greenrooms, and Bohemian society. He loitered

about these places a great deal and lost his time, was interested by all

the women, duped by his tender imagination; always expending too much

sensibility in his fancies; taking his desires for love, and devoting

himself to women.

The first of his loves was a beautiful Madame, whom he met in the

Countess Fontaine’s parlors. She was provided with a very old husband

belonging to the political and financial world; a servant of several

regimes, who having on many occasions feathered his own nest, made false

statements of accounts, and betrayed his vows, his name could not be

spoken in public assemblies without being preceded by the epithet of

honorable. A man so seriously occupied in saving the Capitol, that is to

say, in courageously sustaining the stronger, approving the majorities

in all of their mean actions and thus increasing his own ground,

sinecures, tips, stocks, and various other advantages, necessarily

neglected his charming wife, and took very little notice of the ridicule

that she inflicted upon him often, and to which he seemed predestined.

The fair lady--with a wax doll’s beauty, not very young, confining

herself to George Sand in literature, making three toilettes a day, and

having a large account at the dentist’s--singled out the young poet with

a romantic head, and rapidly traversed with him the whole route through

the country of Love. Thanks to modern progress, the voyage is now made

by a through train. After passing the smaller stations, “blushing

behind the fan,” a “significant pressure of the hand,” “appointment in a

museum,” etc., and halting at a station of very little importance called

“scruples” (ten minutes’ pause), Amedee reached the terminus of the line

and was the most enviable of mortals. He became Madame’s lapdog, the

essential ornament in her drawing-room, figured at all the dinners,

balls, and routs where she appeared, stifled his yawns at the back of

her box at the Opera, and received the confidential mission of going

to hunt for sweetmeats and chocolates in the foyer. His recompense

consisted in metaphysical conversations and sentimental seances, in

which he was not long in discovering that his heart was blinded by his

emotions. At the end of a few months of this commonplace happiness,

the rupture took place without any regrets on either side, and Amedee

returned, without a pang, the love-tokens he had received, namely: a

photograph, a package of letters in imitation of fashionable romances,

written in long, angular handwriting, after the English style, upon very

chic paper; and, we must not forget, a white glove which was a little

yellowed from confinement in the casket, like the beautiful Madame

herself.

A tall girl, with a body like a goddess, who earned three hundred francs

a month by showing her costumes on the Vaudeville stage, and who gave

one louis a day to her hairdresser, gave Amedee a new experience in

love, more expensive, but much more amusing than the first. There were

no more psychological subtleties or hazy consciences; but she had fine,

strong limbs and the majestic carriage of a cardinal’s mistress going

through the Rue de Constance in heavy brocade garments, to see Jean

Huss burned; and her voluptuous smile showed teeth made to devour

patrimonies. Unfortunately, Mademoiselle Rose de Juin’s--that was the

young lady’s theatrical name--charming head was full of the foolishness

and vanity of a poor actress. Her attacks of rage when she read an

article in the journals which cut her up, her nervous attacks and

torrents of tears when they gave her parts with only fifteen lines in a

new piece, had begun to annoy Amedee, when chance gave him a new rival

in the person of Gradoux, an actor in the Varietes, the ugly clown

whose chronic cold in the head and ugly face seemed for twenty years so

delicious to the most refined public in the world. Relieved of a large

number of bank-notes, Violette discreetly retired.

He next carried on a commonplace romance with a pretty little girl whose

acquaintance he made one evening at a public fete. Louison was twenty

years old, and earned her living at a famous florist’s, and was as pink

and fresh as an almond-bush in April. She had had only two lovers, gay

fellows--an art student first--then a clerk in a novelty store, who had

given her the not very aristocratic taste for boating. It was on the

Marne, seated near Louison in a boat moored to the willows on the Ile

d’Amour, that Amedee obtained his first kiss between two stanzas of

a boating song, and this pretty creature, who never came to see

him without bringing him a bouquet, charmed the poet. He remembered

Beranger’s charming verses, “I am of the people as well, my love!” felt

that he loved, and was softened. In reality, he had turned this naive

head. Louison became dreamy, asked for a lock of his hair, which she

always carried with her in her ‘porte-monnaie’, went to get her fortune

told to know whether the dark-complexioned young man, the knave of

clubs, would be faithful to her for a long time. Amedee trusted this

simple heart for some time, but at length he became tired of her

vulgarities. She was really too talkative, not minding her h’s and

punctuating her discourse with “for certain” and “listen to me, then,”

calling Amedee “my little man,” and eating vulgar dishes. One day she

offered to kiss him, with a breath that smelled of garlic. She was the

one who left him, from feminine pride, feeling that he no longer loved

her, and he almost regretted her.

Thus his life passed; he worked a little and dreamed much. He went

as rarely as possible to Maurice Roger’s house. Maurice had decidedly

turned out to be a good husband, and was fond of his home and playing

with his little boy. Every time that Amedee saw Maria it meant several

days of discouragement, sorrow, and impossibility of work.

“Well! well!” he would murmur, throwing down his pen, when the young

woman’s face would rise between his thoughts and his page; “I am

incurable; I shall always love her.”

In the summer of 1870 Amedee, being tired of Paris, thought of a new

trip, and he was upon the point of going again, unfortunate fellow! to

see the Swiss porters who speak all the languages in the world, and to

view the melancholy boots in the hotel corridors, when the war broke

out. The poet’s passage through the midst of the revolutionary “beards”

in the Cafe de Seville, and the parliamentary cravats in the Countess’s

drawing-room, had disgusted him forever with politics. He also was very

suspicious of the Liberal ministers and all the different phases of

the malady that was destroying the Second Empire. But Amedee was a good

Frenchman. The assaults upon the frontiers, and the first battles lost,

made a burning blush suffuse his face at the insult. When Paris was

threatened he asked for arms, like the others, and although he had not a

military spirit, he swore to do his duty, and his entire duty, too. One

beautiful September morning he saw Trochu’s gilded cap passing among the

bayonets; four hundred thousand Parisians were there, like himself,

full of good-will, who had taken up their guns with the resolve to die

steadfast. Ah, the misery of defeat! All these brave men for five months

could only fidget about the place and eat carcases. May the good God

forgive the timid and the prattler! Alas! Poor old France! After so much

glory! Poor France of Jeanne d’Arc and of Napoleon!

CHAPTER XVI. IN TIME OF WAR

The great siege lasted nearly three months. Upon the thirtieth of

November they had fought a battle upon the banks of the Marne, then for

twenty-four hours the fight had seemed to slacken, and there was a heavy

snow-storm; but they maintained that the second of December would be

decisive. That morning the battalion of the National Guard, of which

Amedee Violette was one, went out for the first time, with the order

simply to hold themselves in reserve in the third rank, by the fort’s

cannons, upon a hideous plain at the east of Paris.

Truly this National Guard did not make a bad appearance. They were a

trifle awkward, perhaps, in their dark-blue hooded cloaks, with their

tin-plate buttons, and armed with breech-loading rifles, and encumbered

with canteens, basins, and pouches, all having an unprepared and too-new

look. They all came from the best parts of the city, with accelerated

steps and a loud beating of drums, and headed, if you please, by their

major on horseback, a truss-maker, who had formerly been quartermaster

of the third hussars. Certainly they only asked for service; it was not

their fault, after all, if one had not confidence in them, and if they

were not sent to the front as soon as they reached the fortifications.

While crossing the drawbridge they had sung the Marseillaise like men

ready to be shot down. What spoiled their martial appearance, perhaps,

were their strong hunting-boots, their leather leggings, knit gloves,

and long gaiters; lastly, that comfortable air of people who have

brought with them a few dainties, such as a little bread with something

eatable between, some tablets of chocolate, tobacco, and a phial filled

with old rum. They had not gone two kilometres outside the ramparts, and

were near the fort, where for the time being the artillery was silent,

when a staff officer who was awaiting them upon an old hack of a horse,

merely skin and bones, stopped them by a gesture of the hand, and said

sharply to their major to take position on the left of the road, in

an open field. They then stacked their arms there and broke ranks, and

rested until further orders.

What a dismal place! Under a canopy of dull clouds, the earth bare with

half-melted snow, with the low fort rising up before them as if in an

attitude of defence, here and there groups of ruined houses, a mill

whose tall chimney and walls had been half destroyed by shells, but

where one still read, in large black letters, these words, “Soap-maker

to the Nobility;” and through this desolated country was a long and

muddy road which led over to where the battle field lay, and in the

midst of which, presenting a symbol of death, lay the dead body of a

horse.

In front of the National Guard, on the other side of the road, a

battalion, which had been strongly put to the test the night before,

were cooking. They had retreated as far as this to rest a little,

and had spent all that night without shelter under the falling snow.

Exhausted, bespattered, in rags, they were dolefully crouched around

their meagre green-wood fires; the poor creatures were to be pitied.

Underneath their misshapen caps they all showed yellow, wrinkled, and

unshaven faces. The bitter, cold wind that swept over the plain

made their thin shoulders, stooping from fatigue, shiver, and their

shoulder-blades protruded under their faded capes. Some of them were

wounded, too slightly to be sent away in the ambulance, and wore about

their wrists and foreheads bands of bloody linen. When an officer passed

with his head bent and a humiliated air, nobody saluted him. These

men had suffered too much, and one could divine an angry and insolent

despair in their gloomy looks, ready to burst out and tell of their

injuries. They would have disgusted one if they had not excited one’s

pity. Alas, they were vanquished!

The Parisians were eager for news as to recent military operations, for

they had only read in the morning papers--as they always did during

this frightful siege--enigmatical despatches and bulletins purposely

bristling with strategic expressions not comprehensible to the outsider.

But all, or nearly all, had kept their patriotic hopes intact, or, to

speak more plainly, their blind fanatical patriotism, and were certain

against all reason of a definite victory; they walked along the road in

little groups, and drew near the red pantaloons to talk a little.

“Well, it was a pretty hot affair on the thirtieth, wasn’t it? Is it

true that you had command of the Marne? You know what they say in Paris,

my children? That Trochu knows something new, that he is going to make

his way through the Prussian lines and join hands with the helping

armies--in a word that we are going to strike the last blow.”

At the sight of these spectres of soldiers, these unhappy men broken

down with hunger and fatigue, the genteel National Guards, warmly clad

and wrapped up for the winter, commenced to utter foolish speeches and

big hopes which had been their daily food for several months: “Break

the iron circle;” “not one inch, not a stone;” “war to the knife;” “one

grand effort,” etc. But the very best talkers were speedily discouraged

by the shrugging of shoulders and ugly glances of the soldiers, that

were like those of a snarling cur.

Meanwhile, a superb sergeant-major of the National Guard, newly

equipped, a big, full-blooded fellow, with a red beard, the husband of

a fashionable dressmaker, who every evening at the beer-house, after

his sixth glass of beer would show, with matches, an infallible plan

for blocking Paris and crushing the Prussian army like pepper, and was

foolish enough to insist upon it.

“Now then, you, my good fellow,” said he, addressing an insignificant

corporal just about to eat his stew, as if he were questioning an old

tactician or a man skilled like Turenne or Davoust; “do you see? you hit

it in this affair of day before yesterday. Give us your opinion. Are the

positions occupied by Ducrot as strong as they pretend? Is it victory

for to-day?”

The corporal turned around suddenly; with a face the color of boxwood,

and his blue eyes shining with rage and defiance, he cried in a hoarse

voice:

“Go and see for yourselves, you stay-at-homes!”

Saddened and heart-broken at the demoralization of the soldiers, the

National Guards withdrew.

“Behold the army which the Empire has left us!” said the dressmaker’s

husband, who was a fool.

Upon the road leading from Paris, pressing toward the cannon’s mouth

which was commencing to grumble again in the distance, a battalion of

militia arrived, a disorderly troop. They were poor fellows from the

departments in the west, all young, wearing in their caps the Brittany

coat-of-arms, and whom suffering and privation had not yet entirely

deprived of their good country complexions. They were less worn out than

the other unfortunate fellows whose turn came too often, and did

not feel the cold under their sheepskins, and still respected their

officers, whom they knew personally, and were assured in case of

accident of absolution given by one of their priests, who marched in the

rear file of the first company, with his cassock tucked up and his

Roman hat over his eyes. These country fellows walked briskly, a little

helter-skelter, like their ancestors in the time of Stofflet and M. de

la Rochejaquelin, but with a firm step and their muskets well placed

upon their shoulders, by Ste. Anne! They looked like soldiers in

earnest.

When they passed by the National Guard, the big blond waved his cap in

the air, furiously shouting at the top of his lungs:

“Long live the Republic!”

But once more the fanatical patriot’s enthusiasm fell flat. The Bretons

were marching into danger partly from desire, but more from duty and

discipline. At the very first shot these simple-minded creatures reach

the supreme wisdom of loving one’s country and losing one’s life for

it, if necessary, without interesting themselves in the varied

mystifications one calls government. Four or five of the men, more or

less astonished at the cry which greeted them, turned their placid,

countrified faces toward the National Guard, and the battalion passed

by.

The dressmaker’s husband--he did nothing at his trade, for his wife

adored him, and he spent at cafes all the money which she gave him--was

extremely scandalized. During this time Amedee Violette was dreamily

walking up and down before the stacks of guns. His warlike ardor of

the first few days had dampened. He had seen and heard too many foolish

things said and done since the beginning of this horrible siege; had

taken part too many times in one of the most wretched spectacles in

which a people can show vanity in adversity. He was heart broken to see

his dear compatriots, his dear Parisians, redouble their boasting

after each defeat and take their levity for heroism. If he admired the

resignation of the poor women standing in line before the door of a

butcher’s shop, he was every day more sadly tormented by the bragging

of his comrades, who thought themselves heroes when playing a game of

corks. The official placards, the trash in the journals, inspired him

with immense disgust, for they had never lied so boldly or flattered the

people with so much low meanness. It was with a despairing heart and the

certitude of final disaster that Amedee, needing a little sleep after

the fatigue, wandered through Paris’s obscure streets, barely lighted

here and there by petroleum lamps, under the dark, opaque winter sky,

where the echoes of the distant cannonading unceasingly growled like the

barking of monstrous dogs.

What solitude! The poet had not one friend, not one comrade to whom he

could confide his patriotic sorrows. Paul Sillery was serving in the

army of the Loire. Arthur Papillon, who had shown such boisterous

enthusiasm on the fourth of September, had been nominated prefet in a

Pyrenean department, and having looked over his previous studies, the

former laureate of the university examinations spent much of his time

therein, far from the firing, in making great speeches and haranguing

from the top of the balconies, in which speeches the three hundred

heroes of antiquity in a certain mountain-pass were a great deal too

often mentioned. Amedee sometimes went to see Jocquelet in the theatres,

where they gave benefit performances for the field hospitals or to

contribute to the molding of a new cannon. The actor, wearing a short

uniform and booted to the thighs, would recite with enormous success

poems of the times in which enthusiasm and fine sentiments took the

place of art and common sense. What can one say to a triumphant actor

who takes himself for a second Tyrtee, and who after a second recall is

convinced that he is going to save the country, and that Bismarck and

old William had better look after their laurels.

As to Maurice Roger, at the beginning of the campaign he sent his

mother, wife, and child into the country, and, wearing the double

golden stripe of a lieutenant upon his militia jacket, he was now at the

outposts near his father’s old friend, Colonel Lantz.

Owing to a scarcity of officers, they had fished up the old Colonel

from the depths of his engineer’s office, and had torn him away from his

squares and compasses. Poor old fellow! His souvenirs of activity went

as far back as the Crimea and Sebastopol. Since that time he had not

even seen a pickaxe glisten in the sun, and, behold, they asked this

worthy man to return to the trench, and to powder his despatches

with earth ploughed up by bombs, like Junot at Toulon in the fearless

battery.

Well, he did not say “No,” and after kissing his three portionless

daughters on the forehead, he took his old uniform, half-eaten up by

moths, from a drawer, shook the grains of pepper and camphor from it,

and, with his slow, red-tapist step, went to make his excavators work

as far as possible from the walls and close by the Prussians. I can

tell you, the men of the auxiliary engineers and the gentlemen with the

American-caps had not joked for some time over his African cape or his

superannuated cap, which seemed to date from Pere Bugeaud. One day,

when a German bomb burst among them, and they all fell to the ground

excepting Colonel Lantz, who had not flinched. He tranquilly settled his

glasses upon his nose and wiped off his splashed beard as coolly as he

had, not long since, cleaned his India-ink brushes. Bless me! it gave

you a lesson, gentlemen snobs, to sustain the honor of the special army,

and taught you to respect the black velvet plastron and double red

bands on the trousers. In spite of his appearance of absence of mind

and deafness, the Colonel had just before heard murmured around him the

words “old Lantz,” and “old dolphin.” Very well, gentlemen officers, you

know now that the old army was composed of good material!

Maurice Roger was ordered from his battalion to Colonel Lantz, and did

his duty like a true soldier’s son, following his chief into the most

perilous positions, and he no longer lowered his head or bent his

shoulders at the whistling of a bomb. It was genuine military blood that

flowed in his veins, and he did not fear death; but life in the open

air, absence from his wife, the state of excitement produced by the

war, and this eagerness for pleasure common to all those who risk

their lives, had suddenly awakened his licentious temperament. When

his service allowed him to do so, he would go into Paris and spend

twenty-four hours there, profiting by it to have a champagne dinner at

Brebant’s or Voisin’s, in company with some beautiful girl, and to eat

the luxurious dishes of that time, such as beans, Gruyere cheese, and

the great rarity which had been secretly raised for three months on the

fifth floor, a leg of mutton.

One evening Amedee Violette was belated upon the boulevards, and saw

coming out of a restaurant Maurice in full uniform, with one of the

pretty comedienes from the Varietes leaning upon his arm. This meeting

gave Amedee one heart-ache the more. It was for such a husband as this,

then, that Maria, buried in some country place, was probably at this

very time overwhelmed with fears about his safety. It was for this

incorrigible rake that she had disdained her friend from childhood, and

scorned the most delicate, faithful, and tender of lovers.

Finally, to kill time and to flee from solitude, Amedee went to the Cafe

de Seville, but he only found a small group of his former acquaintances

there. No more literary men, or almost none. The “long-haired” ones had

to-day the “regulation cut,” and wore divers head-gears, for the most

of the scattered poets carried cartridge-boxes and guns; but some of the

political “beards” had not renounced their old customs; the war and

the fall of the Empire had been a triumph for them, and the fourth of

September had opened every career for them. Twenty of these “beards”

had been provided with prefectures; at least all, or nearly all, of them

occupied public positions. There was one in the Government of National

Defence, and three or four others, chosen from among the most rabid

ones, were members of the Committee on Barricades; for, improbable as

the thing may seem today, this commission existed and performed its

duties, a commission according to all rules, with an organized office, a

large china inkstand, stamped paper, verbal reports read and voted upon

at the beginning of each meeting; and, around a table covered with green

cloth, these professional instigators of the Cafe de Seville, these

teachers of insurrection, generously gave the country the benefit of the

practical experience that they had acquired in practising with the game

of dominoes.

The “beards” remaining in Paris were busied with employments more or

less considerable in the government, but did not do very much, the

offices in which they worked for France’s salvation usually closed at

four o’clock, and they went as usual to take their appetizers at the

Cafe de Seville. It was there that Amedee met them again, and mixed anew

in their conversations, which now dwelt exclusively upon patriotic and

military subjects. These “beards” who would none of them have been able

to command “by the right flank” a platoon of artillery, had all at once

been endowed by some magical power with the genius of strategy. Every

evening, from five to seven, they fought a decisive battle upon each

marble table, sustained by the artillery of the iced decanter which

represented Mount Valerien, a glass of bitters, that is to say,

Vinoy’s brigade, feigned to attack a saucer representing the Montretout

batteries; while the regular army and National Guard, symbolized by a

glass of vermouth and absinthe, were coming in solid masses from the

south, and marching straight into the heart of the enemy, the match-box.

There were scheming men among these “beards,” and particularly terrible

inventors, who all had an infallible way of destroying at a blow

the Prussian army, and who accused General Trochu of treason, and of

refusing their offers, giving as a reason the old prejudices of military

laws among nations. One of these visionary people had formerly been

physician to a somnambulist, and took from his pocket--with his tobacco

and cigarette papers--a series of bottles labelled: cholera, yellow

fever, typhus fever, smallpox, etc., and proposed as a very simple thing

to go and spread these epidemics in all the German camps, by the aid of

a navigable balloon, which he had just invented the night before upon

going to bed. Amedee soon became tired of these braggarts and lunatics,

and no longer went to the Cafe de Seville. He lived alone and shut

himself up in his discouragement, and he had never perhaps had it weigh

more heavily upon his shoulders than this morning of the second of

December, the last day of the battle of Champigny, while he was sadly

promenading before the stacked guns of his battalion.

The dark clouds, heavy with snow, were hurrying by, the tormenting

rumble of the cannons, the muddy country, the crumbling buildings, and

these vanquished soldiers shivering under their rags, all threw the poet

into the most gloomy of reveries. Then humanity so many ages, centuries,

perhaps, old, had only reached this point: Hatred, absurd war,

fratricidal murder! Progress? Civilization? Mere words! No rest, no

peaceful repose, either in fraternity or love! The primitive brute

always reappears, the right of the stronger to hold in its clutches

the pale cadaver of justice! What is the use of so many religions,

philosophies, all the noble dreams, all the grand impulses of the

thought toward the ideal and good? This horrible doctrine of the

pessimists was true then! We are, then, like animals, eternally

condemned to kill each other in order to live? If that is so, one might

as well renounce life, and give up the ghost!

Meanwhile the cannonading now redoubled, and with its tragic grumbling

was mingled the dry crackling sound of the musketry; beyond a wooded

hillock, which restricted the view toward the southeast, a very thick

white smoke spread over the horizon, mounting up into the gray sky. The

fight had just been resumed there, and it was getting hot, for soon the

ambulances and army-wagons drawn by artillery men began to pass. They

were full of the wounded, whose plaintive moans were heard as they

passed. They had crowded the least seriously wounded ones into the

omnibus, which went at a foot pace, but the road had been broken up by

the bad weather, and it was pitiful to behold these heads shaken as

they passed over each rut. The sight of the dying extended upon bloody

mattresses was still more lugubrious to see. The frightful procession

of the slaughtered went slowly toward the city to the hospitals, but

the carriages sometimes stopped, only a hundred steps from the position

occupied by the National Guards, before a house where a provisionary

hospital had been established, and left their least transportable ones

there. The morbid but powerful attraction that horrible sights exert

over a man urged Amedee Violette to this spot. This house had been

spared from bombardment and protected from pillage and fire by the

Geneva flag; it was a small cottage which realized the dream of every

shopkeeper after he has made his fortune. Nothing was lacking, not even

the earthen lions at the steps, or the little garden with its glittering

weather-vane, or the rock-work basin for goldfish. On warm days the past

summer passers-by might have seen very often, under the green arbor,

bourgeoisie in their shirt-sleeves and women in light dresses eating

melons together. The poet’s imagination fancied at once this picture of

a Parisian’s Sunday, when suddenly a young assistant appeared at an

open window on the first floor, wiping his hands upon his blood-stained

apron. He leaned out and called to a hospital attendant, that Amedee had

not noticed before, who was cutting linen upon a table in the garden:

“Well, Vidal, you confounded dawdler,” exclaimed he, impatiently, “are

those bandages ready? Good God! are we to have them to-day or tomorrow?”

“Make room, if you please!” said at this moment a voice at Amedee’s

elbow, who stepped aside for two stretchers borne by four brothers

of the Christian doctrine to pass. The poet gave a start and a cry of

terror. He recognized in the two wounded men Maurice Roger and Colonel

Lantz.

Wounded, both of them, yes! and mortally. Only one hour ago.

Affairs had turned out badly for us down there, then, on the borders of

the Marne. They did a foolish thing to rest one day and give the enemy

time to concentrate his forces; when they wished to renew the attack

they dashed against vast numbers and formidable artillery. Two generals

killed! So many brave men sacrificed! Now they beat a retreat once more

and lose the ground. One of the chief generals, with lowered head and

drooping shoulders, more from discouragement than fatigue, stood glass

in hand, observing from a distance our lines, which were breaking.

“If we could fortify ourselves there at least,” said he, pointing to an

eminence which overlooked the river, “and establish a redoubt--in one

night with a hundred picks it could be done. I do not believe that the

enemy’s fire could reach this position--it is a good one.”

“We could go there and see, General,” said some one, very quietly.

It was Pere Lantz, the “old dolphin,” who was standing there with

Maurice beside him and three or four of the auxiliary engineers; and,

upon my word, in spite of his cap, which seemed to date from the time of

Horace Vernet’s “Smala,” the poor man, with his glasses upon his nose,

long cloak, and pepper colored beard, had no more prestige than a

policeman in a public square, one of those old fellows who chase

children off the grass, threatening them with their canes.

“When I say that the German artillery will not reach there,” murmured

the head general, “I am not sure of it. But you are right, Colonel. We

must see. Send two of your men.”

“With your permission, General,” said Pere Lantz, “I will go myself.”

Maurice bravely added at once:

“Not without me, Colonel!”

“As you please,” said the General, who had already pointed his glass

upon another point of the battlefield.

Followed by the only son of his companion in arms in Africa and the

Crimea, this office clerk and dauber in watercolors walked to the front

as tranquilly as he would have gone to the minister’s office with his

umbrella under his arm. At the very moment when the two officers reached

the plateau, a projectile from the Prussian batteries fell upon a chest

and blew it up with a frightful uproar. The dead and wounded were heaped

upon the ground. Pere Lantz saw the foot-soldiers fleeing, and the

artillery men harnessing their wagons.

“What!” exclaimed he, rising up to his full height, “do they abandon the

position?”

The Colonel’s face was transfigured; opening wide his long cloak and

showing his black velvet plastron upon which shone his commander’s

cross, he drew his sword, and, putting his cap upon the tip of it,

bareheaded, with his gray hair floating in the wind, with open arms he

threw himself before the runaways.

“Halt!” he commanded, in a thundering tone. “Turn about, wretches, turn

about! You are here at a post of honor. Form again, my men! Gunners, to

your places! Long life to France!”

Just then a new shell burst at the feet of the Colonel and of Maurice,

and they both fell to the ground.

Amedee, staggering with emotion and a heart bursting with grief and

fear, entered the hospital behind the two litters.

“Put them in the dining-room,” said one of the brothers. “There is

nobody there. The doctor will come immediately.”

The young man with the bloody apron came in at once, and after a look at

the wounded man he gave a despairing shake of the head, and, shrugging

his shoulders, said:

“There is nothing to be done they will not last long.”

In fact, the Colonel was dying. They had thrown an old woollen covering

over him through which the hemorrhage showed itself by large stains of

blood which were constantly increasing and penetrating the cloth. The

wounded man seemed to be coming out of his faint; he half opened his

eyes, and his lips moved.

The doctor, who had just come in, came up to the litter upon which the

old officer was lying and leaned over him.

“Did you wish to say anything?” he asked.

The old Colonel, without moving his head, turned his sad gaze upon the

surgeon, oh! so sad, and in a voice scarcely to be heard he murmured:

“Three daughters--to marry--without a dowry! Three--three--!”

Then he heaved a deep sigh, his blue eyes paled and became glassy.

Colonel Lantz was dead.

Do not despair, old military France! You will always have these

simple-hearted soldiers who are ready to sacrifice themselves for your

flag, ready to serve you for a morsel of bread, and to die for you,

bequeathing their widows and orphans to you! Do not despair, old France

of the one hundred years’ war and of ‘92!

The brothers, who wore upon their black robes the red Geneva cross,

were kneeling around the body and praying in a low tone. The assistant

surgeon noticed Amedee Violette for the first time, standing motionless

in a corner of the room.

“What are you doing here?” he asked him, brusquely.

“I am this poor officer’s friend,” Amedee replied, pointing to Maurice.

“So be it! stay with him--if he asks for a drink you have the tea there

upon the stove. You, gentlemen,” added he, addressing the brothers,

who arose after making the sign of the cross, “you will return to the

battle-field, I suppose?”

They silently bowed their heads, the eldest of them closed the dead

man’s eyes. As they were all going out together, the assistant surgeon

said to them, in a petulant tone of voice:

“Try to bring me some not quite so much used up.”

Maurice Roger was about to die, too. His shirt was stained with blood,

and a stream ran down from his forehead upon his blond moustache, but he

was still beautiful in his marble-like pallor. Amedee carefully raised

up one of the wounded man’s arms and placed it upon the stretcher,

keeping his friend’s hand in his own. Maurice moved slightly at the

touch, and ended by opening his eyes.

“Ah, how thirsty I am!” he groaned.

Amedee went to the stove and got the pot of tea, and leaned over to help

the unfortunate man drink it. Maurice looked at him with surprise. He

recognized Amedee.

“You, Amedee!--where am I, then?”

He attempted in vain to rise. His head dropped slightly to the left, and

he saw, not two steps from him, the lifeless body of his old colonel,

with eyes closed and features already calmed by the first moments of

perfect repose.

“My Colonel!” said he. “Ah! I understand--I remember-! How they ran

away--miserable cowards! But you, Amedee? Why are you here--?”

His friend could not restrain his tears, and Maurice murmured:

“Done for, am I not?”

“No, no!” exclaimed Amedee, with animation. “They are going to dress

your wounds at once--They will come soon! Courage, my good Maurice!

Courage!”

Suddenly the wounded man had a terrible chill; his teeth chattered, and

he said again:

“I am thirsty!--something to drink, my friend!--give me something to

drink!”

A few swallows of tea calmed him a little. He closed his eyes as if

to rest, but a moment after he opened them, and, fixing them upon his

friend’s face, he said to him in a faint voice:

“You know--Maria, my wife--marry her--I confide them to you--she and my

son--”

Then, doubtless tired out by the fatigue of having spoken these words,

he seemed to collapse and sink down into the litter, which was saturated

now with his blood. A moment later he began to pant for breath. Amedee

knelt by his side, and tears fell upon his hands, while between the

dying man’s gasps he could hear in the distance, upon the battlefield,

the uninterrupted rumbling of the cannon as it mowed down others.

CHAPTER XVII. “WHEN YOUTH, THE DREAM, DEPARTS”

The leaves are falling!

This October afternoon is deliciously serene, there is not a cloud in

the grayish-blue sky, where the sun, which has shed a pure and steady

light since morning, has begun majestically to decline, like a good king

who has grown old after a long and prosperous reign. How soft the air

is! How calm and fresh! This is certainly one of the most beautiful

of autumn days. Below, in the valley, the river sparkles like liquid

silver, and the trees which crown the hill-tops are of a lurid gold and

copper color. The distant panorama of Paris is grand and charming, with

all its noted edifices and the dome of the Invalides shining like gold

outlined upon the horizon. As a loving and coquettish woman, who wishes

to be regretted, gives at the moment of departure her most intoxicating

smile to a friend, so the close of autumn had put on for one of her last

days all her splendid charms.

But the leaves are falling!

Amedee Violette is walking alone in his garden at Meudon. It is his

country home, where he has lived for eight years. A short time after

the close of the war he married Maurice’s widow. He is walking upon the

terrace planted with lindens that are now more than half-despoiled of

their leaves, admiring the beautiful picture and thinking.

He is celebrated, he has worked hard and has built up a reputation

by good, sincere books, as a poet. Doubtless, some persons are still

jealous of him, and he is often treated with injustice, but he is

estimated by the dignity of his life, which his love of art fills

entirely, and he occupies a superior position in literature. Although

his resources are modest, they are sufficient to exempt him from

anxieties of a trivial nature. Living far from society, in the close

intimacy of those that he loves, he does not know the miseries of

ambition and vanity. Amedee Violette should be happy.

His old friend, Paul Sillery, who breakfasted with him that morning

in Meudon, is condemned to daily labor and the exhausting life of a

journalist; and when he was seated in the carriage which took him back

to Paris that morning, to forced labor, to the article to be knocked off

for tomorrow, in the midst of the racket and chattering of an editor’s

office, beside an interrupted cigar laid upon the edge of a table, he

heaved a deep sigh as he thought of Amedee.

Ah, this Violette was to be envied! With money, home, and a family, he

was not obliged to disseminate his ideas right and left. He had leisure,

and could stop when he was not in the spirit of writing; he could think

before he wrote and do some good work. It was not astonishing, to be

sure, that he produced veritable works of art when he is cheered by the

atmosphere of affection. First, he adores his wife, that is easily seen,

and he looks upon Maurice’s little son as his own, the little fellow is

so pretty and attractive with his long, light curls. Certainly, one can

see that Madame Violette has a never-to-be-forgotten grief, but what a

kind and grateful glance she gives her husband! Could anything be more

touching than Louise Gerard, that excellent old maid, the life of the

house, who has the knack of making pleasing order and elegant comfort

reign in the house, while she surrounds her mother, the paralytic

Grandmother Gerard, with every care? Truly, Amedee has arranged his life

well. He loves and is loved: he has procured for mind and body valuable

and certain customs. He is a wise and fortunate man.

While Paul Sillery, buried in the corner of a carriage, allowed himself

to be almost carried away by jealousy of his friend, Amedee, detained by

the charm of this beautiful day which is drawing to a close, walks with

slow, lingering steps under the lindens on the terrace.

The leaves are falling around him!

A very slight breeze is rising, the blue sky is fading a little below;

in the nearest Paris suburb the windows are shining in the oblique rays

of the setting sun. It will soon be night, and upon this carpet of dead

leaves, which crackle under the poet’s tread, other leaves will fall.

They fall rarely, slowly, but continually. The frost of the night before

has blighted them all. Dried up and rusty, they barely hang to the

trees, so that the slightest wind that passes over them gathers them one

after another, detaching them from their branches; whirling an instant

in the golden light, they at last rejoin, with a sad little sound, their

withered sisters, who sprinkle the gravel walks. The leaves fall, the

leaves fall!

Amedee Violette is filled with melancholy.

He ought to be happy. What can he reproach destiny with? Has he not the

one he always desired for his wife? Is she not the sweetest and best of

companions for him? Yes! but he knows very well that she consented to

marry him in order to obey Maurice’s last wish, he knows very well that

Maria’s heart is buried in the soldier’s grave at Champigny. She has set

apart a sanctuary within herself where burns, as a perpetual light,

the remembrance of the adored dead, of the man to whom she gave herself

without reserve, the father of her son, the hero who tore himself from

her arms to shed his blood for his country.

Amedee may be certain of the gratitude and devotion of his wife, but he

never will have her love, for Maurice, a posthumous rival, rises between

them. Ah, this Maurice! He had loved Maria very little or not very

faithfully! She should remember that he had first betrayed her, that but

for Amedee he would have abandoned her and she never would have been his

wife. If she knew that in Paris when she was far away he had deceived

her! But she never would know anything of it, for Amedee has too much

delicacy to hurt the memory of the dead, and he respects and even

admires this fidelity of illusion and love in Maria. He suffers from

it. The one to whom he has given his name, his heart, and his life, is

inconsolable, and he must be resigned to it. Although remarried, she is

a widow at the bottom of her heart, and it is in vain that she puts on

bright attire, her eyes and her smile are in mourning forever.

How could she forget her Maurice when he is before her every day in

her son, who is also named Maurice and whose bright, handsome face

strikingly resembles his father’s? Amedee feels a presentiment that in a

few years this child will be another Maurice, with the same attractions

and vices. The poet does not forget that his dying friend confided the

orphan to him, and he endeavors to be kind and good to him and to bring

him up well. He sometimes has a feeling of sorrow when he discovers

the same instincts and traits in the child as in the man whom he had so

dearly loved and who had made him such trouble; in spite of all, he can

not feel the sentiments of a father for another’s son. His own union has

been sterile.

Poor Amedee! Yet he is envied! The little joy that he has is mingled

with grief and sorrow, and he dares not confide it to the excellent

Louise--who suspects it, however--whose old and secret attachment for

him he surmises now, and who is the good genius of his household. Had he

only realized it before! It might have been happiness, genuine happiness

for him!

The leaves fall! the leaves fall!

After breakfast, while they were smoking their cigars and walking along

beside the masses of dahlias, upon which the large golden spider had

spun its silvery web, Amedee Violette and Paul Sillery had talked

of times past and the comrades of their youth. It was not a very gay

conversation, for since then there had been the war, the Commune. How

many were dead! How many had disappeared! And, then, this retrospective

review proves to one that one can be entirely deceived as to certain

people, and that chance is master.

Such an one, whom they had once considered as a great prose writer, as

the leader of a sect, and whose doctrines of art five or six faithful

disciples spread while copying his waistcoats and even imitating his

manner of speaking with closed teeth, is reduced to writing stories for

obscene journals. “Chose,” the fiery revolutionist, had obtained a good

place; and the modest “Machin,” a man hardly noticed in the clubs, had

published two exquisite books, genuine works of art.

All of the “beards” and “long-haired” men had taken unexpected paths.

But the politicians, above all, were astonishing in the variety of their

destinies. Among the cafe’s frequenters at the hour for absinthe one

could count eight deputies, three ministers, two ambassadors, one

treasurer, and thirty exiles at Noumea awaiting the long-expected

amnesty. The most interesting, everything considered, is that imbecile,

that old fanatic of a Dubief, the man that never drank anything but

sweetened water; for he, at least, was shot on the barricades by the

Versaillese soldiers.

One person of whom the very thought disgusted the two friends was

that jumping-jack of an Arthur Papillon. Universal suffrage, with its

accustomed intelligence, had not failed to elect this nonentity and

bombastic fool, and to-day he flounders about like a fish out of water

in the midst of this political cesspool. Having been enriched by a

large dowry, he has been by turns deputy, secretary, vice-president,

president, head of committees, under secretary of State, in one word,

everything that it was possible to be. For the time being he rants

against the clergy, and his wife, who is ugly, rich, and pious, has just

put their little girl into the Oiseaux school. He has not yet become

minister, but rest assured he will reach that in time. He is very vain,

full of confidence in himself, not more honest than necessary, and very

obtrusive. Unless in the meantime they decide to establish a rotation

providing that all the deputies be ministers by turns, Arthur Papillon

is the inevitable, necessary man mentioned. In such a case, this would

be terrible, for his eloquence would flow in torrents, and he would be

one of the most agitating of microbes in the parliamentary culture.

And Jocquelet? Ah! the two friends only need to speak his name to burst

into peals of laughter, for the illustrious actor now fills the universe

with his glory and ridiculousness. Jocquelet severed the chain some time

ago which bound him to the Parisian theatres. Like the tricolored flag,

he has made the tour of Europe several times; like the English standard,

he has crossed every ocean. He is the modern Wandering Actor, and the

capitals of the Old World and both Americas watch breathless with desire

for him to deign to shower over them the manna of his monologues. At

Chicago, they detached his locomotive, and he intended, at the sight of

this homage proportioned to his merits, to become a naturalized American

citizen. But they proposed a new tour for him in old Europe, and out of

filial remembrance he consented to return once more among us. As usual,

he gathered a cartload of gold and laurels. He was painfully surprised

upon reaching Stockholm by water not to be greeted by the squadrons with

volleys of artillery, as was once done in honor of a famous cantatrice.

Let Diplomacy look sharp! Jocquelet is indifferent to the court of

Sweden!

After Paul Sillery’s departure Amedee turned over in his mind various

other recollections of former days. He has been a trifle estranged from

Madame Roger since his marriage to Maria, but he sometimes takes little

Maurice to see her. She has sheltered and given each of Colonel Lantz’s

daughters a dowry. Pretty Rosine Combarieu’s face rises up before him,

his childhood’s companion, whom he met at Bullier’s and never has seen

since. What has become of the poor little creature? Amedee almost hopes

that she is dead. Ah, how sad these old memories are in the autumn, when

the leaves are falling and the sun is setting!

It has set, it has plunged beneath the horizon, and suddenly all is

dark. Over the darkened landscape in the vast pearl-colored sky spreads

the melancholy chill which follows the farewell of day. The white smoke

from the city has turned gray, the river is like a dulled mirror. A

moment ago, in the sun’s last rays, the dead leaves, as they fell,

looked like a golden rain, now they seem a dark snow.

Where are all your illusions and hopes of other days, Amedee Violette?

You think this evening of the rapid flight of years, of the snowy flakes

of winter which are beginning to fall on your temples. You have the

proof to-day of the impossibility of absolutely requited love in this

world. You know that happiness, or what is called so, exists only by

snatches and lasts only a moment, and how commonplace it often is

and how sad the next day! You depend upon your art for consolation.

Oppressed by the monotonous ennui of living, you ask for the

forgetfulness that only the intoxication of poetry and dreams can give

you. Alas! Poor sentimentalist, your youth is ended!

And still the leaves fall!

ETEXT EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS:

Break in his memory, like a book with several leaves torn out

Dreams, instead of living

Egotists and cowards always have a reason for everything

Eternally condemned to kill each other in order to live

Fortunate enough to keep those one loves

God forgive the timid and the prattler!

Good form consists, above all things, in keeping silent

Happiness exists only by snatches and lasts only a moment

He does not know the miseries of ambition and vanity

He almost regretted her

How sad these old memorics are in the autumn

Inoffensive tree which never had harmed anybody

Intimate friend, whom he has known for about five minutes

It was all delightfully terrible!

Learned that one leaves college almost ignorant

Mild, unpretentious men who let everybody run over them

My good fellow, you are quite worthless as a man of pleasure

Never travel when the heart is troubled!

Not more honest than necessary

Now his grief was his wife, and lived with him

Paint from nature

Poor France of Jeanne d’Arc and of Napoleon

Redouble their boasting after each defeat

Society people condemned to hypocrisy and falsehood

Take their levity for heroism

Tediousness seems to ooze out through their bindings

The leaves fall! the leaves fall!

The sincere age when one thinks aloud

Tired smile of those who have not long to live

Trees are like men; there are some that have no luck

Universal suffrage, with its accustomed intelligence

Upon my word, there are no ugly ones (women)

Very young, and was in love with love

Voice of the heart which alone has power to reach the heart

Were certain against all reason

When he sings, it is because he has something to sing about

End of Project Gutenberg’s A Romance of Youth, Complete, by Francois Coppee