abandoned his search for employment. As it was necessary for him to
remain away from home, he loitered in front of the shop-windows on the
quays, leaned for hours on the parapets, watching the river and the
boats discharging their cargoes. He became one of those idlers whom we
see in the front rank of all street crowds, taking refuge from a shower
under porches, drawing near the stoves on which the asphalters boil
their tar in the open air, to warm themselves, and sinking on benches
along the boulevard when their feet can no longer carry them.
What an excellent way of lengthening one's days, to do nothing!
On certain days, however, when M. Joyeuse was too tired or the weather
too inclement, he waited at the end of the street until the young
ladies had closed their window, then went back to the house, hugging
the walls, hurried upstairs, holding his breath as he passed his own
door, and took refuge with the photographer, André Maranne, who, being
aware of his catastrophe, offered him the compassionate welcome which
poor devils extend to one another. Customers are rare so near the
barriers. He would sit for many hours in the studio, talking in an
undertone, reading by his friend's side, listening to the rain on the
window-panes or the wind whistling as in mid-ocean, rattling the old
doors and window-frames in the graveyard of demolished buildings below.
On the next floor he heard familiar sounds, full of charm for him,
snatches of song accompanying the work of willing hands, a chorus of
laughter, the piano lesson given by _Grandmamma_, the tic-tac of the
metronome, a delicious domestic hurly-burly that warmed his heart. He
lived with his darlings, who certainly had no idea that they had him so
near at hand.
Once, while Maranne was out, M. Joyeuse, acting as a faithful custodian
of the studio and its brand-new equipment, heard two little taps on the
ceiling of the fourth floor, two separate, very distinct taps, then a
cautious rumbling like the scampering of a mouse. The intimacy between
the photographer and his neighbors justified this prisoner-like method
of communication, but what did that mean? How should he answer what
seemed like a call? At all hazards he repeated the two taps, the soft
drumming sound, and the interview stopped there. When André Maranne
returned, he explained it. It was very simple: sometimes, during the
day, the young ladies, who never saw their neighbor except in the
evening, took that means of inquiring for his health and whether
business was improving. The signal he had heard signified: "Is business
good to-day?" and M. Joyeuse had instinctively but unwittingly replied:
"Not bad for the season." Although young Maranne blushed hotly as he
said it, M. Joyeuse believed him. But the idea of frequent
communication between the two households made him fear lest his secret
should be divulged, and thereafter he abstained from what he called his
"artistic days." However, the time was drawing near when he could no
longer conceal his plight, for the end of the month was at hand,
complicated by the end of the year.
Paris was already assuming the usual festal aspect of the last weeks of
December. That is about all that is left in the way of national or
popular merrymaking. The revels of the carnival died with Gavarni, the
religious festivals, the music of which we scarcely hear above the din
of the streets, seclude themselves behind the heavy church doors, the
Fifteenth of August has never been aught but the Saint-Charlemagne of
the barracks; but Paris has retained its respect for the first day of
the year.
Early in December a violent epidemic of childishness is apparent in the
streets. Wagons pass, laden with gilded drums, wooden horses,
playthings by the score. In the manufacturing districts, from top to
bottom of the five-story buildings, former palaces of the Marais, where
the shops have such lofty ceilings and stately double doors, people
work all night, handling gauze, flowers and straw, fastening labels on
satin-covered boxes, sorting out, marking and packing; the innumerable
details of the toy trade, that great industry upon which Paris places
the sign-manual of its refined taste. There is a smell of green wood,
of fresh paint, of glistening varnish, and in the dust of the garrets,
on the rickety stairways where the common people deposit all the mud
through which they have tramped, chips of rosewood are strewn about,
clippings of satin and velvet, bits of tinsel, all the débris of the
treasures employed to dazzle childish eyes. Then the shop-windows array
themselves. Behind the transparent glass the gilt binding of gift-books
ascends like a gleaming wave under the gas-lights, rich stuffs of
kaleidoscopic, tempting hues display their heavy, graceful folds, while
the shop-girls, with their hair piled high upon their heads and ribbons
around their necks, puff their wares with the little finger in the air,
or fill silk bags, into which the bonbons fall like a shower of pearls.
But face to face with this bourgeois industry, firmly established and
intrenched behind its gorgeous shop fronts, is the ephemeral industry
carried on in the stalls built of plain boards, open to the wind from
the street, standing in a double row which gives the boulevard the
aspect of a foreign market place. There are to be found the real
interest, the poetry of New Year's gifts. Luxurious in the Madeleine
quarter, less ostentatious toward Boulevard Saint-Denis, cheaper and
more tawdry as you approach the Bastille, these little booths change
their character to suit their customers, estimate their chances of
success according to the condition of the purses of the passers-by.
Between them stand tables covered with trifles, miracles of the petty
Parisian trades, made of nothing, fragile and insignificant, but
sometimes whirled away by fashion in one of its fierce gusts, because
of their very lightness. And lastly, along the sidewalks, lost in the
line of vehicles which brush against them as they stroll along, the
orange-women put the final touch to this ambulatory commerce, heaping
up the sun-colored fruit under their red lanterns, and crying: "La
Valence!" in the fog, the uproar, the excessive haste with which Paris
rushes to meet the close of the year.
Ordinarily M. Joyeuse made a part of the happy crowd that throngs the
streets with a jingling of money in the pockets and packages in every
hand. He would run about with _Grandmamma_ in quest of presents for the
young ladies, stopping in front of the booths of the small shopkeepers
whom the slightest indication of a customer excites beyond measure, for
they are unfamiliar with the art of selling and have based upon that
brief season visions of extraordinary profits. And there would be
consultations and meditations, a never-ending perplexity as to the
final selection in that busy little brain, always in advance of the
present and of the occupation of the moment.
But that year, alas! there was nothing of the sort. He wandered sadly
through the joyous city, sadder and more discouraged by reason of all
the activity around him, jostled and bumped like all those who impede
the circulation of the industrious, his heart beating with constant
dread, for _Grandmamma_, for several days past, had been making
significant, prophetic remarks at table on the subject of New Year's
gifts. For that reason he avoided being left alone with her and had
forbidden her coming to meet him at the office. But, struggle as he
would, the time was drawing near, he felt it in his bones, when further
mystery would be impossible and his secret would be divulged. Was this
_Grandmamma_ of whom M. Joyeuse stood in such fear such a terrible
creature, pray? _Mon Dieu_, no! A little stern, that was all, with a
sweet smile which promised instant pardon to every culprit. But M.
Joyeuse was naturally cowardly and timid; twenty years of housekeeping
with a masterful woman, "a person of gentle birth," had enslaved him
forever, like those convicts who are subjected to surveillance for a
certain period after their sentences have expired. And he was subjected
to it for life.
One evening the Joyeuse family was assembled in the small salon, the
last relic of its splendor, where there still were two stuffed
arm-chairs, an abundance of crochet-work, a piano, two Carcel lamps
with little green caps, and a small table covered with trivial
ornaments.
The true family exists only among the lowly.
For economy's sake only one fire was lighted for the whole house, and
only one lamp around which all their occupations, all their diversions
were grouped; an honest family lamp, whose old-fashioned shade--with
night scenes, studded with brilliant points--had been the wonder and
the delight of all the girls in their infancy. Emerging gracefully from
the shadow of the rest of the room, four youthful faces, fair or dark,
smiling or engrossed, bent forward in the warm, cheerful rays, which
illumined them to the level of the eyes and seemed to feed the fire of
their glances, the radiant youth beneath their transparent brows, to
watch over them, to shelter them, to protect them from the black cold
wind without, from ghosts, pitfalls, misery and terror, from all the
sinister things that lurk in an out-of-the-way quarter of Paris on a
winter's night.
Thus assembled in a small room near the top of the deserted house, in
the warmth and security of its neatly kept and comfortable home, the
Joyeuse family resembles a family of birds in a nest at the top of a
tall tree. They sew and read and talk a little. A burst of flame, the
crackling of the fire, are the only sounds to be heard, save for an
occasional exclamation from M. Joyeuse, who sits just outside of his
little circle, hiding in the shadow his anxious brow and all the
vagaries of his imagination. Now he fancies that, in the midst of the
distress by which he is overwhelmed, the absolute necessity of
confessing everything to his children to-night, to-morrow at latest,
unforeseen succor comes to him. Hemerlingue, seized with remorse, sends
to him, to all the others who worked on the Tunisian loan, the
accustomed December bonus. It is brought by a tall footman: "From
Monsieur le Baron." The _Imaginaire_ says this aloud. The pretty faces
turn to look at him; they laugh and move about, and the poor wretch
wakes with a start.
Oh! how he reviles himself now for his delay in confessing everything,
for the fallacious security which he has encouraged in his home and
which he will have to destroy at one blow. Why need he have criticised
that Tunisian loan? He even blames himself now for having declined a
position at the _Caisse Territoriale_. Had he the right to decline it?
Ah! what a pitiful head of a family, who lacked strength to maintain
or to defend the welfare of his dear ones. And, in presence of the
charming group sitting within the rays of the lamp, whose tranquil
aspect is in such glaring contrast to his inward agitation, he is
seized with remorse, which assails his feeble mind so fiercely that
his secret comes to his lips, is on the point of escaping him in
an outburst of sobs, when a ring at the bell--not an imaginary
ring--startles them all and checks him as he is about to speak.
Who could have come at that hour? They had lived in seclusion since the
mother's death, receiving almost no visitors. André Maranne, when he
came down to pass a few moments with them, knocked familiarly after the
manner of those to whom a door is always open. Profound silence in the
salon, a long colloquy on the landing. At last the old servant--she had
been in the family as long as the lamp--introduced a young man, a
perfect stranger, who stopped suddenly, spellbound, at sight of the
charming picture presented by the four darlings grouped about the
table. He entered with an abashed, somewhat awkward air. However, he
set forth very clearly the purpose of his call. He was recommended to
apply to M. Joyeuse by a worthy man of his acquaintance, old Passajon,
to give him lessons in book-keeping. A friend of his was involved in
some large financial enterprises, a stock company of some size. He was
anxious to be of service to him by keeping an eye upon the employment
of his funds and the rectitude of his associates' operations; but he
was a lawyer, with a very imperfect knowledge of financial matters and
the vernacular of the banking business. Could not M. Joyeuse, in a few
months, with three or four lessons a week--"
"Why, yes indeed, monsieur, yes indeed," stammered the father, dazed by
this unhoped-for chance; "I will willingly undertake to fit you in a
month or two for this work of examining accounts. Where shall we have
the lessons?"
"Here, if you please," said the young man, "for I am anxious that
nobody should know that I am working at it. But I shall be very sorry
if I am to put everybody to flight every time I appear, as I seem to
have done this evening."
It was a fact that, as soon as the visitor opened his mouth, the four
curly heads had disappeared, with much whispering and rustling of
skirts, and the salon appeared very bare now that the great circle of
white light was empty.
Always quick to take alarm where his daughters were concerned, M.
Joyeuse replied that "the young ladies always retired early," in a
short, sharp tone which said as plainly as could be: "Let us confine
our conversation to our lessons, young man, I beg."
Thereupon they agreed upon the days and the hours in the evening.
As for the terms, that would be for monsieur to determine.
Monsieur named a figure.
The clerk turned scarlet; it was what he earned at Hemerlingue's.
"Oh! no, that is too much."
But the other would not listen; he hemmed and hawed and rolled his
tongue around as if he were trying to say something that it was very
difficult to say; then with sudden resolution:
"Here is your first month's pay."
"But, monsieur--"
The young man insisted. He was a stranger. It was fair that he should
pay in advance. Evidently Passajon had told him. M. Joyeuse understood
and said, beneath his breath: "Thanks, oh! thanks!" so deeply moved
that words failed him. Life, it meant life for a few months, time to
turn around, to find a situation. His darlings would be deprived of
nothing. They would have their New Year's gifts. O Providence!
"Until Wednesday, then, Monsieur Joyeuse."
"Until Wednesday, Monsieur--?"
"De Géry--Paul de Géry."
They parted, equally dazzled, enchanted, one by the appearance of that
unexpected saviour, the other by the lovely tableau of which he had
caught a glimpse, all those maidens grouped around the table covered
with books and papers and skeins, with an air of purity, of
hard-working probity. That sight opened up to de Géry a whole new
Paris, brave, domestic, very different from that with which he was
already familiar, a Paris of which the writers of feuilletons and the
reporters never speak, and which reminded him of his province, with an
additional element, namely, the charm which the surrounding hurly-burly
and turmoil impart to the peaceful shelter that they do not reach.
VI.
FELICIA RUYS.
"By the way, what have you done with your son, Jenkins? Why do we never
see him at your house now? He was an attractive boy."
As she said this in the tone of disdainful acerbity in which she always
addressed the Irishman, Felicia was at work on the bust of the Nabob
which she had just begun, adjusting her model, taking up and putting
down the modelling tool, wiping her hands with a quick movement on the
little sponge, while the light and peace of a lovely Sunday afternoon
flooded the circular glass-walled studio. Felicia "received" every
Sunday, if receiving consisted in leaving her door open and allowing
people to come and go and sit down a moment, without stirring from her
work for them, or even breaking off a discussion she might have begun,
to welcome new arrivals. There were artists with shapely heads and
bright red beards, and here and there the white poll of an old man,
sentimental friends of the elder Ruys; then there were connoisseurs,
men of the world, bankers, brokers, and some young swells who came
rather to see the fair sculptress than her sculpture, so that they
would have the right to say that evening at the club: "I was at
Felicia's to-day." Among them Paul de Géry, silent, engrossed by an
admiration which sank a little deeper in his heart day by day, strove
to comprehend the beautiful sphinx, arrayed in purple cashmere and
unbleached lace, who worked bravely away in the midst of her clay, a
burnisher's apron--reaching nearly to the neck--leaving naught visible
save the proud little face with those transparent tones, those gleams
as of veiled rays with which intellect and inspiration give animation
to the features. Paul never forgot what had been said of her in his
presence, he tried to form an opinion for himself, was beset by doubt
and perplexity, yet fascinated; vowed every time that he would never
come again, yet never missed a Sunday. There was another fixture,
always in the same spot, a little woman with gray, powdered hair and a
lace handkerchief around her pink face; a pastel somewhat worn by
years, who smiled sweetly in the discreet light of a window recess, her
hands lying idly upon her lap, in fakir-like immobility. Jenkins,
always in good humor, with his beaming face, his black eyes, and his
apostolic air, went about from one to another, known and loved by all.
He too never missed one of Felicia's days; and in very truth he
displayed great patience, for all the sharp words of the artist and of
the pretty woman as well were reserved for him alone. Without seeming
to notice it, with the same smiling indulgent serenity, he continued to
court the society of the daughter of his old friend Ruys, of whom he
had been so fond and whom he had attended until his last breath.
On this occasion, however, the question that Felicia propounded to him
on the subject of his son seemed to him extremely disagreeable; and
there was a frown upon his face, a genuine expression of ill-humor, as
he replied:
"Faith, I know no more than you as to what has become of him. He has
turned his back upon us altogether. He was bored with us. He cares for
nothing but his Bohemia--"
Felicia gave a bound which made them all start, and with flashing eye
and quivering nostril retorted:
"That is too much. Look you, Jenkins, what do you call Bohemia? A
charming word, by the way, which should evoke visions of long wandering
jaunts in the sunlight, halting in shady nooks, the first taste of
luscious fruits and sparkling fountains, taken at random on the
highroads. But since you have made of the word with all the charm
attaching to it a stigma and an insult, to whom do you apply it? To
certain poor long-haired devils, in love with freedom in rags and
tatters, who starve to death on fifth floors, looking at the sky at too
close quarters, or seeking rhymes under tiles through which the rain
drips; to those idiots, fewer and fewer in number, who in their horror
of the conventional, the traditional, of the dense stupidity of life,
have taken a standing jump over the edge. But that's the way it used to
be, I tell you. That's the Bohemia of Murger, with the hospital at the
end, the terror of children, the comfort of kindred, Little Red Riding
Hood eaten by the wolf. That state of things came to an end a long
while ago. To-day you know perfectly well that artists are the most
well-behaved people on earth, that they earn money, pay their debts and
do their best to resemble the ordinary man. There is no lack of genuine
Bohemians, however; our society is made up of them, but they are found
more particularly in your circle. _Parbleu!_ they are not labelled
on the outside, and no one distrusts them; but so far as the
uncertainty of existence and lack of order are concerned, they have no
reason to envy those whom they so disdainfully call 'irregulars.' Ah!
if one knew all the baseness, all the unheard-of, monstrous experiences
that may be masked by a black coat, the most correct of your horrible
modern garments! Jenkins, at your house the other evening, I amused
myself counting all those adventurers of high--"
The little old lady, pink-cheeked and powdered, said to her softly from
her seat:
"Felicia--take care--"
But she went on without listening to her:
"Who is this Monpavon, Doctor? And Bois-l'Héry? And Mora himself?
And--"
She was on the point of saying, "And the Nabob?" but checked herself.
"And how many others! Oh! really, I advise you to speak contemptuously
of Bohemia. Why, your clientage as a fashionable physician, O sublime
Jenkins, is made up of nothing else. Bohemia of manufacturing, of
finance, of politics; fallen stars, the tainted of all castes, and the
higher you go the more of them there are, because high rank gives
impunity and wealth closes many mouths."
She spoke with great animation, harshly, her lip curling in fierce
disdain. The other laughed a false laugh and assumed an airy,
condescending tone. "Ah! madcap! madcap!" And his glance, anxious and
imploring, rested upon the Nabob, as if to beseech his forgiveness for
that flood of impertinent paradoxes.
But Jansoulet, far from appearing to be vexed,--he who was so proud to
pose for that lovely artist, so puffed up by the honor conferred upon
him--nodded his head approvingly.
"She is right, Jenkins," he said, "she is right. We are the real
Bohemia. Look at me, for instance, and Hemerlingue, two of the greatest
handlers of money in Paris. When I think where we started from, all the
trades that we tried our hands at! Hemerlingue, an old regimental
sutler; and myself, who carried bags of grain on the wharves at
Marseille for a living. And then the strokes of luck by which our
fortunes were made, as indeed all fortunes are made nowadays. Bless my
soul! Just look under the peristyle at the Bourse from three to five.
But I beg your pardon, mademoiselle, with my mania for gesticulating
when I talk, I've spoiled my pose--let's see, will this do?"
"It's of no use," said Felicia, throwing down her modelling-tool with
the gesture of a spoiled child. "I can do nothing more to-day."
She was a strange girl, this Felicia. A true child of an artist, a
genial and dissipated artist, according to the romantic tradition, such
as Sébastien Ruys was. She had never known her mother, being the fruit
of one of those ephemeral passions which suddenly enter a sculptor's
bachelor life, as swallows enter a house of which the door is always
open, and go out again at once, because they cannot build nests there.
On that occasion the lady, on taking flight, had left with the great
artist, then in the neighborhood of forty, a beautiful child whom he
had acknowledged and reared, and who became the joy and passion of his
life. Felicia had remained with her father until she was thirteen,
importing a childish, refining element into that studio crowded with
idlers, models, and huge greyhounds lying at full length on divans.
There was a corner set aside for her, for her attempts at sculpture, a
complete equipment on a microscopic scale, a tripod and wax; and old
Ruys would say to all who came in:
"Don't go over there. Don't disturb anything. That's the little one's
corner."
The result was that at ten years of age she hardly knew how to read and
handled the modelling-tool with marvellous skill. Ruys would have liked
to keep the child, who never annoyed him in any way, with him
permanently, a tiny member of the great brotherhood. But it was a
pitiful thing to see the little maid exposed to the free and easy
manners of the habitués of the house, the incessant going and coming of
models, the discussions concerning an art that is purely physical, so
to speak; and at the uproarious Sunday dinner-table, too, sitting in
the midst of five or six women, with all of whom her father was on the
most intimate terms, actresses, dancers, singers, who, when dinner was
at an end, smoked with the rest, their elbows on the table, revelling
in the salacious anecdotes so relished by the master of the house.
Luckily, childhood is protected by the resistant power of innocence, a
polished surface over which all forms of pollution glide harmlessly.
Felicia was noisy, uproarious, badly brought up, but was untainted by
all that passed over her little mind because it was so near the ground.
Every summer she went to pass a few days with her godmother, Constance
Crenmitz, the elder Crenmitz, who was for so long a time called by all
Europe the "illustrious dancer," and who was living quietly in
seclusion at Fontainebleau.