THE EXHIBITION

“SUPERB!”

“A tremendous success! Barye has never done anything so good before.”

“And the bust of the Nabob! What a marvel. How happy Constance Crenmitz

is! Look at her trotting about!”

“What! That little old lady in the ermine cape is the Crenmitz? I

thought she had been dead twenty years ago.”

Oh, no! Very much alive, on the contrary. Delighted, made young again

by the triumph of her goddaughter, who had made what is decidedly the

success of the exhibition, she passes about among the crowd of artists

and fashionable people, who, wedged together and stifling themselves in

order to get a look at the two points where the works sent by Felicia

are exhibited, form as it were two solid masses of black backs and

jumbled dresses. Constance, ordinarily so timid, edges her way into the

front rank, listens to the discussions, catches, as they fly, disjointed

phrases, formulas which she takes care to remember, approves with a

nod, smiles, raises her shoulders when she hears a stupid remark made,

inclined to murder the first person who should not admire.

Whether it be the good Crenmitz or another, you will always see it at

every opening of the _Salon_, that furtive silhouette, prowling near

wherever a conversation is going on, with an anxious manner and alert

ear; sometimes a simple old fellow, some father, whose glance thanks you

for any kind word said in passing, or assumes a grieved expression by

reason of some epigram, flung at the work of art, that may wound some

heart behind you. A figure not to be forgotten, certainly, if ever

it should occur to any painter with a passion for modernity to fix on

canvas that very typical manifestation of Parisian life, the opening of

an exhibition in that vast conservatory of sculpture, with its paths

of yellow sand, and its immense glass roof beneath which, half-way up,

stand out the galleries of the first floor, lined by heads bent over to

look down, and decorated with improvised flowing draperies.

In a rather cold light, made pallid by those green curtains that

hang all around, in which one would fancy that the light-rays become

rarefied, in order to give to the vision of the people walking about

the room a certain contemplative justice, the slow crowd goes and comes,

pauses, disperses itself over the seats in serried groups, and yet

mixing up different sections of society more thoroughly than any other

assembly, just as the weather, uncertain and changeable at this time of

the year, produces a confusion in the world of clothes, causes to brush

each other as they pass, the black laces, the imperious train of the

great lady come to see how her portrait looks, and the Siberian furs of

the actress just back from Russia and anxious that everybody should know

it.

Here, no boxes, no stalls, no reserved seats, and it is this that gives

to this _premiere_ in full daylight so great a charm of curiosity.

Genuine ladies of fashion are able to form an opinion of those painted

beauties who receive so much commendation in an artificial light;

the little hat, following a new mode of the Marquise de Bois l’Hery,

confronts the more than modest toilette of some artist’s wife or

daughter; while the model who posed for that beautiful Andromeda at the

entrance, goes by victoriously, clad in too short a skirt, in wretched

garments that hide her beauty beneath all the false lines of fashion.

People observe, admire, criticise each other, exchange glances

contemptuous, disdainful, or curious, interrupted suddenly at the

passage of a celebrity, of that illustrious critic whom we seem still to

see, tranquil and majestic, his powerful head framed in its long hair,

making the round of the exhibits in sculpture followed by a dozen young

disciples eager to hear the verdict of his kindly authority. If the

sound of voices is lost beneath that immense dome, sonorous only under

the two vaults of the entrance and the exit, faces take on there an

astonishing intensity, a relief of movement and animation concentrated

especially in the huge, dark bay where refreshments are served, crowded

to overflowing and full of gesticulation, the brightly coloured hats

of the women and the white aprons of the waiters gleaming against the

background of dark clothes, and in the great space in the middle where

the oval swarming with visitors makes a singular contrast with

the immobility of the exhibited statues, producing the insensible

palpitation with which their marble whiteness and their movements as of

apotheosis are surrounded.

There are wings poised in giant flight, a sphere supported by four

allegorical figures whose attitude of turning suggests some vague

waltz-measure--a total effect of equilibrium well conveying the illusion

of the sweeping onward of the earth; and there are arms raised to give

the signal, bodies heroically risen, containing an allegory, a symbol

which stamps them with death and immortality, secures to them a place in

history, in legend, in that ideal world of museums which is visited by

the curiosity or the admiration of the nations.

Although Felicia’s group in bronze had not the proportions of these

large pieces, its exceptional merit had caused it to be selected to

adorn one of the open spaces in the middle, from which at this moment

the public was holding itself at a respectful distance, watching, over

the hedge of custodians and policemen, the Bey of Tunis and his suite,

an array of long bernouses falling in sculptural folds, which had the

effect of placing living statues opposite the other ones.

The Bey, who had been in Paris since a few days before, and was the

lion of all the _premieres_, had desired to see the opening of the

exhibition. He was “an enlightened prince, a friend of art,” who

possessed at the Bardo a gallery of remarkable Turkish paintings and

chromo-lithographic reproductions of all the battles of the First

Empire. The moment he entered, the sight of the big Arab greyhound

had struck him as he passed. It was the _sleughi_ all over, the true

_sleughi_, delicate and nervous, of his own country, the companion of

all his hunting expeditions. He laughed in his black beard, felt the

loins of the animal, stroked its muscles, seemed to want to urge it on

still faster, while with nostrils open, teeth showing, all its

limbs stretched out and unwearying in their vigorous elasticity, the

aristocratic beast, the beast of prey, ardent in love and the chase,

intoxicated with their double intoxication, its eyes fixed, was already

enjoying a foretaste of its capture with a little end of its tongue

which hung and seemed to sharpen the teeth with a ferocious laugh. When

you only looked at the hound you said to yourself, “He has got him!” But

the sight of the fox reassured you immediately. Beneath the velvet of

his lustrous coat, cat-like almost lying along the ground, covering it

rapidly without effort, you felt him to be a veritable fairy; and his

delicate head with its pointed ears, which as he ran he turned towards

the hound, had an expression of ironical security which clearly marked

the gift received from the gods.

While an Inspector of Fine Arts, who had rushed up in all haste, with

his official dress in disorder, and a head bald right down to his back,

explained to Mohammed the apologue of “The Dog and the Fox,” related in

the descriptive catalogue with these words inscribed beneath, “Now it

happened that they met,” and the indication, “The property of the Duc

de Mora,” the fat Hemerlingue, perspiring and puffing by his Highness’s

side, had great difficulty to convince him that this masterly piece

of sculpture was the work of the beautiful young lady whom they had

encountered the previous evening riding in the Bois. How could a woman,

with her feeble hands, thus mould the hard bronze, and give to it the

very appearance of the living body? Of all the marvels of Paris, this

was the one which caused the Bey the most astonishment. He inquired

consequently from the functionary if there was nothing else to see by

the same artist.

“Yes, indeed, monseigneur, another masterpiece. If your Highness will

deign to step this way I will conduct you to it.”

The Bey commenced to move on again with his suite. They were all

admirable types, with chiselled features and pure lines, warm pallors of

complexion of which even the reflections were absorbed by the whiteness

of their _haiks_. Magnificently draped, they contrasted with the busts

ranged on either side of the aisle they were following, which, perched

on their high columns, looking slender in the open air, exiled from

their own home, from the surroundings in which doubtless they would

have recalled severe labours, a tender affection, a busy and courageous

existence, had the sad aspect of people gone astray in their path, and

very regretful to find themselves in their present situation. Excepting

two or three female heads, with opulent shoulders framed in petrified

lace, and hair rendered in marble with that softness of touch which

gives it the lightness of a powdered wig, excepting, too, a few profiles

of children with their simple lines, in which the polish of the stone

seems to resemble the moistness of the living flesh, all the rest

were only wrinkles, crow’s-feet, shrivelled features and grimaces, our

excesses in work and in movement, our nervousness and our feverishness,

opposing themselves to that art of repose and of beautiful serenity.

The ugliness of the Nabob had at least energy in its favour, the vulgar

side of him as an adventurer, and that expression of benevolence, so

well rendered by the artist, who had taken care to underlay her plaster

with a layer of ochre, which gave it almost the weather-beaten and

sunburned tone of the model. The Arabs, when they saw it, uttered a

stifled exclamation, “Bou-Said!” (the father of good fortune). This was

the surname of the Nabob in Tunis, the label, as it were, of his luck.

The Bey, for his part, thinking that some one had wished to play a trick

on him in thus leading him to inspect the bust of the hated trader,

regarded his guide with mistrust.

“Jansoulet?” said he in his guttural voice.

“Yes, Highness: Bernard Jansoulet, the new deputy for Corsica.”

This time the Bey turned to Hemerlingue, with a frown on his brow.

“Deputy?”

“Yes, monseigneur, since this morning; but nothing is yet settled.”

And the banker, raising his voice, added with a stutter:

“No French Chamber will ever admit that adventurer.”

No matter. The stroke had fallen on the blind faith of the Bey in his

baron financier. The latter had so confidently affirmed to him that the

other would never be elected and that their action with regard to him

need not be fettered or in any way hampered by the least fear. And

now, instead of a man ruined and overthrown, there rose before him

a representative of the nation, a deputy whose portrait in stone the

Parisians were coming to admire; for in the eyes of the Oriental, an

idea of distinction being mingled in spite of everything with this

public exhibition, that bust had the prestige of a statue dominating

a square. Still more yellow than usual, Hemerlingue internally accused

himself of clumsiness and imprudence. But how could he ever have dreamed

of such a thing? He had been assured that the bust was not finished. And

in fact it had been there only since morning, and seemed quite at

home, quivering with satisfied pride, defying its enemies with the

good-tempered smile of its curling lip. A veritable silent revenge for

the disaster of Saint-Romans.

For some minutes the Bey, cold and impassible as the sculptured image,

gazed at it without saying anything, his forehead divided by a straight

crease wherein his courtiers alone could read his anger; then, after

two quick words in Arabic, to order the carriages and to reassemble his

scattered suite, he directed his steps gravely towards the door of exit,

without consenting to give even a glance to anything else. Who shall

say what passes in these august brains surfeited with power? Even our

sovereigns of the West have incomprehensible fantasies; but they are

nothing compared with Oriental caprices. Monsieur the Inspector of Fine

Arts, who had made sure of taking his Highness all round the

exhibition and of thus winning the pretty red-and-green ribbon of the

Nicham-Iftikahr, never knew the secret of this sudden flight.

At the moment when the white _haiks_ were disappearing under the porch,

just in time to see the last wave of their folds, the Nabob made his

entry by the middle door. In the morning he had received the news,

“Elected by an overwhelming majority”; and after a sumptuous luncheon,

at which the new deputy for Corsica had been extensively toasted, he

came, with some of his guests, to show himself, to see himself also, to

enjoy all his new glory.

The first person whom he saw as he arrived was Felicia Ruys, standing,

leaning on the pedestal of a statue, surrounded by compliments and

tributes of admiration, to which he made haste to add his own. She was

simply dressed, clad in a black costume embroidered and trimmed with

jet, tempering the severity of her attire with a glittering of reflected

lights, and with a delightful little hat all made of downy plumes, the

play of colour in which her hair, curled delicately on her forehead and

drawn back to the neck in great waves, seemed to continue and to soften.

A crowd of artists and fashionable people were assiduous in their

attentions to so great a genius allied to so much beauty; and Jenkins,

bareheaded, and puffing with warm effusiveness, was going from one to

the other, stimulating their enthusiasm but widening the circle around

this young fame of which he constituted himself at once the guardian and

the trumpeter. His wife during this time was talking to the young girl.

Poor Mme. Jenkins! She had heard that savage voice, which she alone

knew, say to her, “You must go and greet Felicia.” And she had gone to

do so, controlling her emotion; for she knew now what it was that hid

itself at the bottom of that paternal affection, although she avoided

all discussion of it with the doctor, as if she had been fearful of the

issue.

After Mme. Jenkins, it is the turn of the Nabob to rush up, and taking

the artist’s two long, delicately-gloved hands between his fat paws, he

expresses his gratitude with a cordiality which brings the tears to his

own eyes.

“It is a great honour that you have done me, mademoiselle, to associate

my name with yours, my humble person with your triumph, and to prove

to all this vermin gnawing at my heels that you do not believe the

calumnies which have been spread with regard to me. Yes, truly, I shall

never forget it. In vain I may cover this magnificent bust with gold and

diamonds, I shall still be your debtor.”

Fortunately for the good Nabob, with more feeling than eloquence, he is

obliged to make way for all the others attracted by a dazzling talent,

the personality in view; extravagant enthusiasms which, for want of

words to express themselves, disappear as they come; the conventional

admirations of society, moved by good-will, by a lively desire to

please, but of which each word is a douche of cold water; and then the

hearty hand-shakes of rivals, of comrades, some very frank, others that

communicate to you the weakness of their grasp; the pretentious great

booby, at whose idiotic eulogy you must appear to be transported with

gladness, and who, lest he should spoil you too much, accompanies it

with “a few little reserves,” and the other, who, while overwhelming

you with compliments, demonstrates to you that you have not learned the

first word of your profession; and the excellent busy fellow, who stops

just long enough to whisper in your ear “that so-and-so, the famous

critic, does not look very pleased.” Felicia listened to it all with the

greatest calm, raised by her success above the littleness of envy, and

quite proud when a glorious veteran, some old comrade of her father,

threw to her a “You’ve done very well, little one!” which took her back

to the past, to the little corner reserved for her in the old days in

her father’s studio, when she was beginning to carve out a little glory

for herself under the protection of the renown of the great Ruys. But,

taken altogether, the congratulations left her rather cold, because

there lacked one which she desired more than any other, and which she

was surprised not to have yet received. Decidedly he was more often in

her thoughts than any other man had ever been. Was it love at last, the

great love which is so rare in an artist’s soul, incapable as that is

of giving itself entirely up to the sway of sentiment, or was it perhaps

simply a dream of honest _bourgeoise_ life, well sheltered against

_ennui_, that spiritless _ennui_, the precursor of storms, which she had

so much reason to dread? In any case, she was herself taken in by it,

and had been living for some days past in a state of delicious trouble,

for love is so strong, so beautiful a thing, that its semblances, its

mirages, allure and can move us as deeply as itself.

Has it ever happened to you in the street, when you have been

preoccupied with thoughts of some one dear to you, to be warned of his

approach by meeting persons with a vague resemblance to him, preparatory

images, sketches of the type to appear directly afterward, which stand

out for you from the crowd like successive appeals to your overexcited

attention? Such presentiments are magnetic and nervous impressions at

which one should not be too disposed to smile, since they constitute

a faculty of suffering. Already, in the moving and constantly renewed

stream of visitors, Felicia had several times thought to recognise the

curly head of Paul de Gery, when suddenly she uttered a cry of joy. It

was not he, however, this time again, but some one who resembled him

closely, whose regular and peaceful physiognomy was always now connected

in her mind with that of her friend Paul through the effect of a

likeness more moral than physical, and the gentle authority which both

exercised over her thoughts.

“Aline!”

“Felicia!”

If nothing is more open to suspicion than the friendship of two

fashionable ladies sharing the prerogatives of drawing-room royalty and

lavishing on each other epithets, and the trivial graces of feminine

fondness, the friendships of childhood keep in the grown woman

a frankness of manner which distinguishes them, and makes them

recognisable among all others, bonds woven naively and firm as the

needlework of little girls in which an experienced hand had been

prodigal of thread and big knots; plants reared in fresh soil, in

flower, but with strong roots, full of vitality and new shoots. And what

a joy, hand in hand--you glad dances of boarding-school days, where are

you?--to retrace some steps of one’s way with somebody who has an equal

acquaintance with it and its least incidents, and the same laugh of

tender retrospection. A little apart, the two girls, for whom it has

been sufficient to find themselves once more face to face to forget five

years of separation, carry on a rapid exchange of recollections, while

the little _pere_ Joyeuse, his ruddy face brightened by a new cravat,

straightens himself in pride to see his daughter thus warmly welcomed by

such an illustrious person. Proud certainly he had reason to be, for

the little Parisian, even in the neighbourhood of her brilliant friend,

holds her own in grace, youth, fair candour, beneath her twenty smooth

and golden years, which the gladness of this meeting brings to fresh

bloom.

“How happy you must be! For my part, I have seen nothing yet; but I hear

everybody saying it is so beautiful.”

“Happy above all to see you again, little Aline. It is so long--”

“I should think so, you naughty girl! Whose the fault?”

And from the saddest corner of her memory, Felicia recalls the date of

the breaking off of their relations, coinciding for her with another

date on which her youth came to its end in an unforgettable scene.

“And what have you been doing, darling, all this time?”

“Oh, I, always the same thing--or, nothing to speak of.”

“Yes, yes, we know what you call doing nothing, you brave little thing!

Giving your life to other people, isn’t it?”

But Aline was no longer listening. She was smiling affectionately to

some one straight in front of her; and Felicia, turning round to see who

it was, perceived Paul de Gery replying to the shy and tender greeting

of Mlle. Joyeuse.

“You know each other, then?”

“Do I know M. Paul! I should think so, indeed. We talk of you very

often. He has never told you, then?”

“Never. He must be a terribly sly fellow.”

She stopped short, her mind enlightened by a flash; and quickly without

heed to de Gery, who was coming up to congratulate her on her triumph,

she leaned over towards Aline and spoke to her in a low voice. That

young lady blushed, protested with smiles and words under her breath:

“How can you think of such a thing? At my age--a ‘grandmamma’!” and

finally seized her father’s arm in order to escape some friendly

teasing.

When Felicia saw the two young people going off together, when she had

realized the fact, which they had not yet grasped themselves, that they

were in love with each other, she felt as it were a crumbling all

around her. Then upon her dream, now fallen to the ground in a thousand

fragments, she set herself to stamp furiously. After all, he was quite

right to prefer this little Aline to herself. Would an honest man

ever dare to marry Mlle. Ruys? She, a home, a family--what nonsense! A

harlot’s daughter you are, my dear; you must be a harlot too if you want

to become anything at all.

The day wore on. The crowd, more active now that there were empty spaces

here and there, commenced to stream towards the door of exit after great

eddyings round the successes of the year, satisfied, rather tired, but

excited still by that air charged with the electricity of art. A great

flood of sunlight, such as sometimes occurs at four o’clock in the

afternoon, fell on the stained-glass rose-window, threw on the sand

tracks of rainbow-coloured lights, softly bathing the bronze or the

marble of the statues, imparting an iridescent hue to the nudity of a

beautiful figure, giving to the vast museum something of the luminous

life of a garden. Felicia, absorbed in her deep and sad reverie, did not

notice the man who advanced towards her, superb, elegant, fascinating,

through the respectfully opened ranks of the public, while the name of

“Mora” was everywhere whispered.

“Well, mademoiselle, you have made a splendid success. I only regret one

thing about it, and that is the cruel symbol which you have hidden in

your masterpiece.”

As she saw the duke before her, she shuddered.

“Ah, yes, the symbol,” she said, lifting her face towards his with a

smile of discouragement; and leaning against the pedestal of the large,

voluptuous statue near which they happened to be standing, with the

closed eyes of a woman who gives or abandons herself, she murmured low,

very low:

“Rabelais lied, as all men lie. The truth is that the fox is utterly

wearied, that he is at the end of his breath and his courage, ready to

fall into the ditch, and that if the greyhound makes another effort----”

Mora started, became a shade paler, all the blood he had in his body

rushing back to his heart. Two sombre flames met with their eyes, two

rapid words were exchanged by lips that hardly moved; then the duke

bowed profoundly, and walked away with a step gay and light, as though

the gods were bearing him.

At that moment there was in the palace only one man as happy as he, and

that was the Nabob. Escorted by his friends, he occupied, quite filled

up, the principal bay with his own party alone, speaking loudly,

gesticulating, proud to such a degree that he looked almost handsome, as

though by dint of naive and long contemplation of his bust he had been

touched by something of the splendid idealization with which the

artist had haloed the vulgarity of his type. The head, raised to the

three-quarters position, standing freely out from the wide, loose

collar, drew contradictory remarks on the resemblance from the

passers-by; and the name of Jansoulet, so many times repeated by the

electoral ballot-boxes, was repeated over again now by the prettiest

mouths, by the most authoritative voices, in Paris. Any other than the

Nabob would have been embarrassed to hear uttered, as he passed,

these expressions of curiosity which were not always friendly. But the

platform, the springing-board, well suited that nature which became

bolder under the fire of glances, like those women who are beautiful or

witty only in society, and whom the least admiration transfigures and

completes.

When he felt this delirious joy growing calmer, when he thought to

have drunk the whole of its proud intoxication, he had only to say to

himself, “Deputy! I am a Deputy!” And the triumphal cup foamed once more

to the brim. It meant the embargo raised from all his possessions, the

awakening from a nightmare that had lasted two months, the puff of cool

wind sweeping away all his anxieties, all his inquietudes, even to the

affront of Saint-Romans, very heavy though that was in his memory.

Deputy!

He laughed to himself as he thought of the baron’s face when he learned

the news, of the stupefaction of the Bey when he had been led up to his

bust; and suddenly, upon the reflection that he was no longer merely

an adventurer stuffed with gold, exciting the stupid admiration of

the crowd, as might an enormous rough nugget in the window of a

money-changer, but that people saw in him, as he passed, one of the

men elected by the will of the nation, his simple and mobile face grew

thoughtful with a deliberate gravity, there suggested themselves to him

projects of a career, of reform, and the wish to profit by the lessons

that had been latterly taught by destiny. Already, remembering the

promise which he had given to de Gery, for the household troop that

wriggled ignobly at his heels, he made exhibition of certain disdainful

coldnesses, a deliberate pose of authoritative contradiction. He called

the Marquis de Bois l’Hery “my good fellow,” imposed silence very

sharply on the governor, whose enthusiasm was becoming scandalous, and

made a solemn vow to himself to get rid as soon as possible of all that

mendicant and promising Bohemian set, when he should have occasion to

begin the process.

Penetrating the crowd which surrounded him, Moessard--the handsome

Moessard, in a sky-blue cravat, pale and bloated like a white embodiment

of disease, and pinched at the waist in a fine frock-coat--seeing that

the Nabob, after having gone twenty times round the hall of sculpture,

was making for the door, dashed forward, and passing his arm through

his, said:

“You are taking me with you, you know.”

Especially of late, since the time of the election, he had assumed, in

the establishment of the Place Vendome, an authority almost equal to

that of Monpavon, but more impudent; for, in point of impudence, the

Queen’s lover was without his equal on the pavement that stretches from

the Rue Drouot to the Madeleine. This time he had gone too far. The

muscular arm which he pressed was shaken violently, and the Nabob

answered very dryly:

“I am sorry, _mon cher_, but I have not a place to offer you.”

No place in a carriage that was as big as a house, and which five of

them had come in!

Moessard gazed at him in stupefaction.

“I had, however, a few words to say to you which are very urgent. With

regard to the subject of my note--you received it, did you not?”

“Certainly; and M. de Gery should have sent you a reply this very

morning. What you ask is impossible. Twenty thousand francs! _Tonnerre

de Dieu!_ You go at a fine rate!”

“Still, it seems to me that my services--” stammered the beauty-man.

“Have been amply paid for. That is how it seems to me also. Two hundred

thousand francs in five months! We will draw the line there, if you

please. Your teeth are long, young man; you will have to file them down

a little.”

They exchanged these words as they walked, pushed forward by the surging

wave of the people going out. Moessard stopped:

“That is your last word?”

The Nabob hesitated for a moment, seized by a presentiment as he looked

at that pale, evil mouth; then he remembered the promise which he had

given to his friend:

“That is my last word.”

“Very well! We shall see,” said the handsome Moessard, whose switch-cane

cut the air with the hiss of a viper; and, turning on his heel, he made

off with great strides, like a man who is expected somewhere on very

urgent business.

Jansoulet continued his triumphal progress. That day much more would

have been required to upset the equilibrium of his happiness; on the

contrary, he felt himself relieved by the so-quickly achieved fulfilment

of his purpose.

The immense vestibule was thronged by a dense crowd of people whom the

approach of the hour of closing was bringing out, but whom one of those

sudden showers, which seem inseparable from the opening of the _Salon_,

kept waiting beneath the porch, with its floor beaten down and sandy

like the entrance to the circus where the young dandies strut about. The

scene that met the eye was curious, and very Parisian.

Outside, great rays of sunshine traversing the rain, attaching to

its limpid beads those sharp and brilliant blades which justify the

proverbial saying, “It rains halberds”; the young greenery of the

Champs-Elysees, the clumps of rhododendrons, rustling and wet, the

carriages ranged in the avenue, the mackintosh capes of the coachmen,

all the splendid harness-trappings of the horses receiving from the

rain and the sunbeams an added richness and effect, and blue everywhere

looming out, the blue of a sky which is about to smile in the interval

between two downpours.

Within, laughter, gossip, greetings, impatience, skirts held up, satins

bulging out above the delicate folds of frills, of lace, of flounces

gathered up in the hands of their wearers in heavy, terribly frayed

bundles. Then, to unite the two sides of the picture, these prisoners

framed in by the vaulted ceiling of the porch and in the gloom of its

shadow, with the immense background in brilliant light, footmen running

beneath umbrellas, crying out names of coachmen or of masters, broughams

coming up at walking pace, and flustered couples getting into them.

“M. Jansoulet’s carriage!”

Everybody turned round, but, as one knows, that did not embarrass him.

And while the good Nabob, waiting for his suite, stood posing a little

amid these fashionable and famous people, this mixed _tout Paris_ which

was there, with its every face bearing a well-known name, a nervous and

well-gloved hand was stretched out to him, and the Duc de Mora, on his

way to his brougham, threw to him, as he passed, these words, with that

effusion which happiness gives to the most reserved of men:

“My congratulations, my dear deputy.”

It was said in a loud voice, and every one could hear it: “My dear

deputy.”

There is in the life of all men one golden hour, one luminous peak,

whereon all that they can hope of prosperity, joy, triumph, waits for

them and is given into their hands. The summit is more or less lofty,

more or less rugged and difficult to climb, but it exists equally for

all, for powerful and humble alike. Only, like that longest day of the

year on which the sun has shone with its utmost brilliance, and of which

the morrow seems a first step towards winter, this _summum_ of human

existences is but a moment given to be enjoyed, after which one can but

redescend. This late afternoon of the first of May, streaked with rain

and sunshine, thou must forget it not, poor man--must fix forever its

changing brilliance in thy memory. It was the hour of thy full summer,

with its flowers in bloom, its fruits bending their golden boughs, its

ripe harvests of which so recklessly thou wast plucking the corn. The

star will now pale, gradually growing more remote and falling, incapable

ere long of piercing the mournful night wherein thy destiny shall be

accomplished.