CHAPTER V.

"Love Knoweth No Laws."

Before twelve o'clock next day he had bought a box of colours,

paintbrushes, and an easel. Pellerin consented to give him lessons, and

Frederick brought him to his lodgings to see whether anything was

wanting among his painting utensils.

Deslauriers had come back, and the second armchair was occupied by a

young man. The clerk said, pointing towards him:

"'Tis he! There he is! Sénécal!" Frederick disliked this young man. His

forehead was heightened by the way in which he wore his hair, cut

straight like a brush. There was a certain hard, cold look in his grey

eyes; and his long black coat, his entire costume, savoured of the

pedagogue and the ecclesiastic.

They first discussed topics of the hour, amongst others the _Stabat_ of

Rossini. Sénécal, in answer to a question, declared that he never went

to the theatre.

Pellerin opened the box of colours.

"Are these all for you?" said the clerk.

"Why, certainly!"

"Well, really! What a notion!" And he leaned across the table, at which

the mathematical tutor was turning over the leaves of a volume of Louis

Blanc. He had brought it with him, and was reading passages from it in

low tones, while Pellerin and Frederick were examining together the

palette, the knife, and the bladders; then the talk came round to the

dinner at Arnoux's.

"The picture-dealer, is it?" asked Sénécal. "A nice gentleman, truly!"

"Why, now?" said Pellerin. Sénécal replied:

"A man who makes money by political turpitude!"

And he went on to talk about a well-known lithograph, in which the Royal

Family was all represented as being engaged in edifying occupations:

Louis Philippe had a copy of the Code in his hand; the Queen had a

Catholic prayer-book; the Princesses were embroidering; the Duc de

Nemours was girding on a sword; M. de Joinville was showing a map to his

young brothers; and at the end of the apartment could be seen a bed with

two divisions. This picture, which was entitled "A Good Family," was a

source of delight to commonplace middle-class people, but of grief to

patriots.

Pellerin, in a tone of vexation, as if he had been the producer of this

work himself, observed by way of answer that every opinion had some

value. Sénécal protested: Art should aim exclusively at promoting

morality amongst the masses! The only subjects that ought to be

reproduced were those which impelled people to virtuous actions; all

others were injurious.

"But that depends on the execution," cried Pellerin. "I might produce

masterpieces."

"So much the worse for you, then; you have no right----"

"What?"

"No, monsieur, you have no right to excite my interest in matters of

which I disapprove. What need have we of laborious trifles, from which

it is impossible to derive any benefit--those Venuses, for instance,

with all your landscapes? I see there no instruction for the people!

Show us rather their miseries! arouse enthusiasm in us for their

sacrifices! Ah, my God! there is no lack of subjects--the farm, the

workshop----"

Pellerin stammered forth his indignation at this, and, imagining that he

had found an argument:

"Molière, do you accept him?"

"Certainly!" said Sénécal. "I admire him as the precursor of the French

Revolution."

"Ha! the Revolution! What art! Never was there a more pitiable epoch!"

"None greater, Monsieur!"

Pellerin folded his arms, and looking at him straight in the face:

"You have the appearance of a famous member of the National Guard!"

His opponent, accustomed to discussions, responded:

"I am not, and I detest it just as much as you. But with such principles

we corrupt the crowd. This sort of thing, however, is profitable to the

Government. It would not be so powerful but for the complicity of a lot

of rogues of that sort."

The painter took up the defence of the picture-dealer, for Sénécal's

opinions exasperated him. He even went so far as to maintain that Arnoux

was really a man with a heart of gold, devoted to his friends, deeply

attached to his wife.

"Oho! if you offered him a good sum, he would not refuse to let her

serve as a model."

Frederick turned pale.

"So then, he has done you some great injury, Monsieur?"

"Me? no! I saw him once at a café with a friend. That's all."

Sénécal had spoken truly. But he had his teeth daily set on edge by the

announcements in _L'Art Industriel_. Arnoux was for him the

representative of a world which he considered fatal to democracy. An

austere Republican, he suspected that there was something corrupt in

every form of elegance, and the more so as he wanted nothing and was

inflexible in his integrity.

They found some difficulty in resuming the conversation. The painter

soon recalled to mind his appointment, the tutor his pupils; and, when

they had gone, after a long silence, Deslauriers asked a number of

questions about Arnoux.

"You will introduce me there later, will you not, old fellow?"

"Certainly," said Frederick. Then they thought about settling

themselves. Deslauriers had without much trouble obtained the post of

second clerk in a solicitor's office; he had also entered his name for

the terms at the Law School, and bought the indispensable books; and the

life of which they had dreamed now began.

It was delightful, owing to their youth, which made everything assume a

beautiful aspect. As Deslauriers had said nothing as to any pecuniary

arrangement, Frederick did not refer to the subject. He helped to defray

all the expenses, kept the cupboard well stocked, and looked after all

the household requirements; but if it happened to be desirable to give

the door-keeper a rating, the clerk took that on his own shoulders,

still playing the part, which he had assumed in their college days, of

protector and senior.

Separated all day long, they met again in the evening. Each took his

place at the fireside and set about his work. But ere long it would be

interrupted. Then would follow endless outpourings, unaccountable bursts

of merriment, and occasional disputes about the lamp flaring too much or

a book being mislaid, momentary ebullitions of anger which subsided in

hearty laughter.

While in bed they left open the door of the little room where

Deslauriers slept, and kept chattering to each other from a distance.

In the morning they walked in their shirt-sleeves on the terrace. The

sun rose; light vapours passed over the river. From the flower-market

close beside them the noise of screaming reached their ears; and the

smoke from their pipes whirled round in the clear air, which was

refreshing to their eyes still puffed from sleep. While they inhaled it,

their hearts swelled with great expectations.

When it was not raining on Sunday they went out together, and, arm in

arm, they sauntered through the streets. The same reflection nearly

always occurred to them at the same time, or else they would go on

chatting without noticing anything around them. Deslauriers longed for

riches, as a means for gaining power over men. He was anxious to possess

an influence over a vast number of people, to make a great noise, to

have three secretaries under his command, and to give a big political

dinner once a month.

Frederick would have furnished for himself a palace in the Moorish

fashion, to spend his life reclining on cashmere divans, to the murmur

of a jet of water, attended by negro pages. And these things, of which

he had only dreamed, became in the end so definite that they made him

feel as dejected as if he had lost them.

"What is the use of talking about all these things," said he, "when

we'll never have them?"

"Who knows?" returned Deslauriers.

In spite of his democratic views, he urged Frederick to get an

introduction into the Dambreuses' house.

The other, by way of objection, pointed to the failure of his previous

attempts.

"Bah! go back there. They'll give you an invitation!"

Towards the close of the month of March, they received amongst other

bills of a rather awkward description that of the restaurant-keeper who

supplied them with dinners. Frederick, not having the entire amount,

borrowed a hundred crowns from Deslauriers. A fortnight afterwards, he

renewed the same request, and the clerk administered a lecture to him on

the extravagant habits to which he gave himself up in the Arnoux's

society.

As a matter of fact, he put no restraint upon himself in this respect. A

view of Venice, a view of Naples, and another of Constantinople

occupying the centre of three walls respectively, equestrian subjects by

Alfred de Dreux here and there, a group by Pradier over the mantelpiece,

numbers of _L'Art Industriel_ lying on the piano, and works in boards on

the floor in the corners, encumbered the apartment which he occupied to

such an extent that it was hard to find a place to lay a book on, or to

move one's elbows about freely. Frederick maintained that he needed all

this for his painting.

He pursued his art-studies under Pellerin. But when he called on the

artist, the latter was often out, being accustomed to attend at every

funeral and public occurrence of which an account was given in the

newspapers, and so it was that Frederick spent entire hours alone in the

studio. The quietude of this spacious room, which nothing disturbed save

the scampering of the mice, the light falling from the ceiling, or the

hissing noise of the stove, made him sink into a kind of intellectual

ease. Then his eyes, wandering away from the task at which he was

engaged, roamed over the shell-work on the wall, around the objects of

virtù on the whatnot, along the torsos on which the dust that had

collected made, as it were, shreds of velvet; and, like a traveller who

has lost his way in the middle of a wood, and whom every path brings

back to the same spot, continually, he found underlying every idea in

his mind the recollection of Madame Arnoux.

He selected days for calling on her. When he had reached the second

floor, he would pause on the threshold, hesitating as to whether he

ought to ring or not. Steps drew nigh, the door opened, and the

announcement "Madame is gone out," a sense of relief would come upon

him, as if a weight had been lifted from his heart. He met her, however.

On the first occasion there were three other ladies with her; the next

time it was in the afternoon, and Mademoiselle Marthe's writing-master

came on the scene. Besides, the men whom Madame Arnoux received were

not very punctilious about paying visits. For the sake of prudence he

deemed it better not to call again.

But he did not fail to present himself regularly at the office of _L'Art

Industriel_ every Wednesday in order to get an invitation to the

Thursday dinners, and he remained there after all the others, even

longer than Regimbart, up to the last moment, pretending to be looking

at an engraving or to be running his eye through a newspaper. At last

Arnoux would say to him, "Shall you be disengaged to-morrow evening?"

and, before the sentence was finished, he would give an affirmative

answer. Arnoux appeared to have taken a fancy to him. He showed him how

to become a good judge of wines, how to make hot punch, and how to

prepare a woodcock ragoût. Frederick followed his advice with docility,

feeling an attachment to everything connected with Madame Arnoux--her

furniture, her servants, her house, her street.

During these dinners he scarcely uttered a word; he kept gazing at her.

She had a little mole close to her temple. Her head-bands were darker

than the rest of her hair, and were always a little moist at the edges;

from time to time she stroked them with only two fingers. He knew the

shape of each of her nails. He took delight in listening to the rustle

of her silk skirt as she swept past doors; he stealthily inhaled the

perfume that came from her handkerchief; her comb, her gloves, her rings

were for him things of special interest, important as works of art,

almost endowed with life like individuals; all took possession of his

heart and strengthened his passion.

He had not been sufficiently self-contained to conceal it from

Deslauriers. When he came home from Madame Arnoux's, he would wake up

his friend, as if inadvertently, in order to have an opportunity of

talking about her.

Deslauriers, who slept in the little off-room, close to where they had

their water-supply, would give a great yawn. Frederick seated himself on

the side of the bed. At first, he spoke about the dinner; then he

referred to a thousand petty details, in which he saw marks of contempt

or of affection. On one occasion, for instance, she had refused his arm,

in order to take Dittmer's; and Frederick gave vent to his humiliation:

"Ah! how stupid!"

Or else she had called him her "dear friend."

"Then go after her gaily!"

"But I dare not do that," said Frederick.

"Well, then, think no more about her! Good night!"

Deslauriers thereupon turned on his side, and fell asleep. He felt

utterly unable to comprehend this love, which seemed to him the last

weakness of adolescence; and, as his own society was apparently not

enough to content Frederick, he conceived the idea of bringing together,

once a week, those whom they both recognised as friends.

They came on Saturday about nine o'clock. The three Algerine curtains

were carefully drawn. The lamp and four wax-lights were burning. In the

middle of the table the tobacco-pot, filled with pipes, displayed itself

between the beer-bottles, the tea-pot, a flagon of rum, and some fancy

biscuits.

They discussed the immortality of the soul, and drew comparisons between

the different professors.

One evening Hussonnet introduced a tall young man, attired in a

frock-coat, too short in the wrists, and with a look of embarrassment in

his face. It was the young fellow whom they had gone to release from

the guard-house the year before.

As he had not been able to restore the box of lace which he had lost in

the scuffle, his employer had accused him of theft, and threatened to

prosecute him. He was now a clerk in a wagon-office. Hussonnet had come

across him that morning at the corner of the street, and brought him

along, for Dussardier, in a spirit of gratitude, had expressed a wish to

see "the other."

He stretched out towards Frederick the cigar-holder, still full, which

he had religiously preserved, in the hope of being able to give it back.

The young men invited him to pay them a second visit; and he was not

slow in doing so.

They all had sympathies in common. At first, their hatred of the

Government reached the height of an unquestionable dogma. Martinon alone

attempted to defend Louis Philippe. They overwhelmed him with the

commonplaces scattered through the newspapers--the "Bastillization" of

Paris, the September laws, Pritchard, Lord Guizot--so that Martinon held

his tongue for fear of giving offence to somebody. During his seven

years at college he had never incurred the penalty of an imposition, and

at the Law School he knew how to make himself agreeable to the

professors. He usually wore a big frock-coat of the colour of putty,

with india-rubber goloshes; but one evening he presented himself arrayed

like a bridegroom, in a velvet roll-collar waistcoat, a white tie, and a

gold chain.

The astonishment of the other young men was greatly increased when they

learned that he had just come away from M. Dambreuse's house. In fact,

the banker Dambreuse had just bought a portion of an extensive wood

from Martinon senior; and, when the worthy man introduced his son, the

other had invited them both to dinner.

"Was there a good supply of truffles there?" asked Deslauriers. "And did

you take his wife by the waist between the two doors, _sicut decet_?"

Hereupon the conversation turned on women. Pellerin would not admit that

there were beautiful women (he preferred tigers); besides the human

female was an inferior creature in the æsthetic hierarchy.

"What fascinates you is just the very thing that degrades her as an

idea; I mean her breasts, her hair----"

"Nevertheless," urged Frederick, "long black hair and large dark

eyes----"

"Oh! we know all about that," cried Hussonnet. "Enough of Andalusian

beauties on the lawn. Those things are out of date; no thank you! For

the fact is, honour bright! a fast woman is more amusing than the Venus

of Milo. Let us be Gallic, in Heaven's name, and after the Regency

style, if we can!

'Flow, generous wines; ladies, deign to smile!'[2]

[Footnote 2: _Coules, bons vins; femmes, deignez sourire._]

We must pass from the dark to the fair. Is that your opinion, Father

Dussardier?"

Dussardier did not reply. They all pressed him to ascertain what his

tastes were.

"Well," said he, colouring, "for my part, I would like to love the same

one always!"

This was said in such a way that there was a moment of silence, some of

them being surprised at this candour, and others finding in his words,

perhaps, the secret yearning of their souls.

Sénécal placed his glass of beer on the mantelpiece, and declared

dogmatically that, as prostitution was tyrannical and marriage immoral,

it was better to practice abstinence. Deslauriers regarded women as a

source of amusement--nothing more. M. de Cisy looked upon them with the

utmost dread.

Brought up under the eyes of a grandmother who was a devotee, he found

the society of those young fellows as alluring as a place of ill-repute

and as instructive as the Sorbonne. They gave him lessons without stint;

and so much zeal did he exhibit that he even wanted to smoke in spite of

the qualms that upset him every time he made the experiment. Frederick

paid him the greatest attention. He admired the shade of this young

gentleman's cravat, the fur on his overcoat, and especially his boots,

as thin as gloves, and so very neat and fine that they had a look of

insolent superiority. His carriage used to wait for him below in the

street.

One evening, after his departure, when there was a fall of snow, Sénécal

began to complain about his having a coachman. He declaimed against

kid-gloved exquisites and against the Jockey Club. He had more respect

for a workman than for these fine gentlemen.

"For my part, anyhow, I work for my livelihood! I am a poor man!"

"That's quite evident," said Frederick, at length, losing patience.

The tutor conceived a grudge against him for this remark.

But, as Regimbart said he knew Sénécal pretty well, Frederick, wishing

to be civil to a friend of the Arnoux, asked him to come to the

Saturday meetings; and the two patriots were glad to be brought together

in this way.

However, they took opposite views of things.

Sénécal--who had a skull of the angular type--fixed his attention merely

on systems, whereas Regimbart, on the contrary, saw in facts nothing but

facts. The thing that chiefly troubled him was the Rhine frontier. He

claimed to be an authority on the subject of artillery, and got his

clothes made by a tailor of the Polytechnic School.

The first day, when they asked him to take some cakes, he disdainfully

shrugged his shoulders, saying that these might suit women; and on the

next few occasions his manner was not much more gracious. Whenever

speculative ideas had reached a certain elevation, he would mutter: "Oh!

no Utopias, no dreams!" On the subject of Art (though he used to visit

the studios, where he occasionally out of complaisance gave a lesson in

fencing) his opinions were not remarkable for their excellence. He

compared the style of M. Marast to that of Voltaire, and Mademoiselle

Vatnaz to Madame de Staël, on account of an Ode on Poland in which

"there was some spirit." In short, Regimbart bored everyone, and

especially Deslauriers, for the Citizen was a friend of the Arnoux

family. Now the clerk was most anxious to visit those people in the hope

that he might there make the acquaintance of some persons who would be

an advantage to him.

"When are you going to take me there with you?" he would say. Arnoux was

either overburdened with business, or else starting on a journey. Then

it was not worth while, as the dinners were coming to an end.

If he had been called on to risk his life for his friend, Frederick

would have done so. But, as he was desirous of making as good a figure

as possible, and with this view was most careful about his language and

manners, and so attentive to his costume that he always presented

himself at the office of _L'Art Industriel_ irreproachably gloved, he

was afraid that Deslauriers, with his shabby black coat, his

attorney-like exterior, and his swaggering kind of talk, might make

himself disagreeable to Madame Arnoux, and thus compromise him and lower

him in her estimation. The other results would have been bad enough, but

the last one would have annoyed him a thousand times more.

The clerk saw that his friend did not wish to keep his promise, and

Frederick's silence seemed to him an aggravation of the insult. He would

have liked to exercise absolute control over him, to see him developing

in accordance with the ideal of their youth; and his inactivity excited

the clerk's indignation as a breach of duty and a want of loyalty

towards himself. Moreover, Frederick, with his thoughts full of Madame

Arnoux, frequently talked about her husband; and Deslauriers now began

an intolerable course of boredom by repeating the name a hundred times a

day, at the end of each remark, like the parrot-cry of an idiot.

When there was a knock at the door, he would answer, "Come in, Arnoux!"

At the restaurant he asked for a Brie cheese "in imitation of Arnoux,"

and at night, pretending to wake up from a bad dream, he would rouse his

comrade by howling out, "Arnoux! Arnoux!" At last Frederick, worn out,

said to him one day, in a piteous voice:

"Oh! don't bother me about Arnoux!"

"Never!" replied the clerk:

"He always, everywhere, burning or icy cold,

The pictured form of Arnoux----"[3]

[Footnote 3: _Toujours lui! lui partout! ou brulante ou glacée, L'image

de l'Arnoux._]

"Hold your tongue, I tell you!" exclaimed Frederick, raising his fist.

Then less angrily he added:

"You know well this is a painful subject to me."

"Oh! forgive me, old fellow," returned Deslauriers with a very low bow.

"From this time forth we will be considerate towards Mademoiselle's

nerves. Again, I say, forgive me. A thousand pardons!"

And so this little joke came to an end.

But, three weeks later, one evening, Deslauriers said to him:

"Well, I have just seen Madame Arnoux."

"Where, pray?"

"At the Palais, with Balandard, the solicitor. A dark woman, is she not,

of the middle height?"

Frederick made a gesture of assent. He waited for Deslauriers to speak.

At the least expression of admiration he would have been most effusive,

and would have fairly hugged the other. However, Deslauriers remained

silent. At last, unable to contain himself any longer, Frederick, with

assumed indifference, asked him what he thought of her.

Deslauriers considered that "she was not so bad, but still nothing

extraordinary."

"Ha! you think so," said Frederick.

They soon reached the month of August, the time when he was to present

himself for his second examination. According to the prevailing opinion,

the subjects could be made up in a fortnight. Frederick, having full

confidence in his own powers, swallowed up in a trice the first four

books of the Code of Procedure, the first three of the Penal Code, many

bits of the system of criminal investigation, and a part of the Civil

Code, with the annotations of M. Poncelet. The night before, Deslauriers

made him run through the whole course, a process which did not finish

till morning, and, in order to take advantage of even the last quarter

of an hour, continued questioning him while they walked along the

footpath together.

As several examinations were taking place at the same time, there were

many persons in the precincts, and amongst others Hussonnet and Cisy:

young men never failed to come and watch these ordeals when the fortunes

of their comrades were at stake.

Frederick put on the traditional black gown; then, followed by the

throng, with three other students, he entered a spacious apartment, into

which the light penetrated through uncurtained windows, and which was

garnished with benches ranged along the walls. In the centre, leather

chairs were drawn round a table adorned with a green cover. This

separated the candidates from the examiners in their red gowns and

ermine shoulder-knots, the head examiners wearing gold-laced flat caps.

Frederick found himself the last but one in the series--an unfortunate

place. In answer to the first question, as to the difference between a

convention and a contract, he defined the one as if it were the other;

and the professor, who was a fair sort of man, said to him, "Don't be

agitated, Monsieur! Compose yourself!" Then, having asked two easy

questions, which were answered in a doubtful fashion, he passed on at

last to the fourth. This wretched beginning made Frederick lose his

head. Deslauriers, who was facing him amongst the spectators, made a

sign to him to indicate that it was not a hopeless case yet; and at the

second batch of questions, dealing with the criminal law, he came out

tolerably well. But, after the third, with reference to the "mystic

will," the examiner having remained impassive the whole time, his mental

distress redoubled; for Hussonnet brought his hands together as if to

applaud, whilst Deslauriers liberally indulged in shrugs of the

shoulders. Finally, the moment was reached when it was necessary to be

examined on Procedure. The professor, displeased at listening to

theories opposed to his own, asked him in a churlish tone:

"And so this is your view, monsieur? How do you reconcile the principle

of article 1351 of the Civil Code with this application by a third party

to set aside a judgment by default?"

Frederick had a great headache from not having slept the night before. A

ray of sunlight, penetrating through one of the slits in a Venetian

blind, fell on his face. Standing behind the seat, he kept wriggling

about and tugging at his moustache.

"I am still awaiting your answer," the man with the gold-edged cap

observed.

And as Frederick's movements, no doubt, irritated him:

"You won't find it in that moustache of yours!"

This sarcasm made the spectators laugh. The professor, feeling

flattered, adopted a wheedling tone. He put two more questions with

reference to adjournment and summary jurisdiction, then nodded his head

by way of approval. The examination was over. Frederick retired into the

vestibule.

While an usher was taking off his gown, to draw it over some other

person immediately afterwards, his friends gathered around him, and

succeeded in fairly bothering him with their conflicting opinions as to

the result of his examination. Presently the announcement was made in a

sonorous voice at the entrance of the hall: "The third was--put off!"

"Sent packing!" said Hussonnet. "Let us go away!"

In front of the door-keeper's lodge they met Martinon, flushed, excited,

with a smile on his face and the halo of victory around his brow. He had

just passed his final examination without any impediment. All he had now

to do was the thesis. Before a fortnight he would be a licentiate. His

family enjoyed the acquaintance of a Minister; "a beautiful career" was

opening before him.

"All the same, this puts you into a mess," said Deslauriers.

There is nothing so humiliating as to see blockheads succeed in

undertakings in which we fail. Frederick, filled with vexation, replied

that he did not care a straw about the matter. He had higher

pretensions; and as Hussonnet made a show of leaving, Frederick took him

aside, and said to him:

"Not a word about this to them, mind!"

It was easy to keep it secret, since Arnoux was starting the next

morning for Germany.

When he came back in the evening the clerk found his friend singularly

altered: he danced about and whistled; and the other was astonished at

this capricious change of mood. Frederick declared that he did not

intend to go home to his mother, as he meant to spend his holidays

working.

At the news of Arnoux's departure, a feeling of delight had taken

possession of him. He might present himself at the house whenever he

liked without any fear of having his visits broken in upon. The

consciousness of absolute security would make him self-confident. At

last he would not stand aloof, he would not be separated from her!

Something more powerful than an iron chain attached him to Paris; a

voice from the depths of his heart called out to him to remain.

There were certain obstacles in his path. These he got over by writing

to his mother: he first of all admitted that he had failed to pass,

owing to alterations made in the course--a mere mischance--an unfair

thing; besides, all the great advocates (he referred to them by name)

had been rejected at their examinations. But he calculated on presenting

himself again in the month of November. Now, having no time to lose, he

would not go home this year; and he asked, in addition to the quarterly

allowance, for two hundred and fifty francs, to get coached in law by a

private tutor, which would be of great assistance to him; and he threw

around the entire epistle a garland of regrets, condolences, expressions

of endearment, and protestations of filial love.

Madame Moreau, who had been expecting him the following day, was doubly

grieved. She threw a veil over her son's misadventure, and in answer

told him to "come all the same." Frederick would not give way, and the

result was a falling out between them. However, at the end of the week,

he received the amount of the quarter's allowance together with the sum

required for the payment of the private tutor, which helped to pay for

a pair of pearl-grey trousers, a white felt hat, and a gold-headed

switch. When he had procured all these things he thought:

"Perhaps this is only a hairdresser's fancy on my part!"

And a feeling of considerable hesitation took possession of him.

In order to make sure as to whether he ought to call on Madame Arnoux,

he tossed three coins into the air in succession. On each occasion luck

was in his favour. So then Fate must have ordained it. He hailed a cab

and drove to the Rue de Choiseul.

He quickly ascended the staircase and drew the bell-pull, but without

effect. He felt as if he were about to faint.

Then, with fierce energy, he shook the heavy silk tassel. There was a

resounding peal which gradually died away till no further sound was

heard. Frederick got rather frightened.

He pasted his ear to the door--not a breath! He looked in through the

key-hole, and only saw two reed-points on the wall-paper in the midst of

designs of flowers. At last, he was on the point of going away when he

changed his mind. This time, he gave a timid little ring. The door flew

open, and Arnoux himself appeared on the threshold, with his hair all in

disorder, his face crimson, and his features distorted by an expression

of sullen embarrassment.

"Hallo! What the deuce brings you here? Come in!"

He led Frederick, not into the boudoir or into the bedroom, but into the

dining-room, where on the table could be seen a bottle of champagne and

two glasses; and, in an abrupt tone:

"There is something you want to ask me, my dear friend?"

"No! nothing! nothing!" stammered the young man, trying to think of some

excuse for his visit. At length, he said to Arnoux that he had called to

know whether they had heard from him, as Hussonnet had announced that he

had gone to Germany.

"Not at all!" returned Arnoux. "What a feather-headed fellow that is to

take everything in the wrong way!"

In order to conceal his agitation, Frederick kept walking from right to

left in the dining-room. Happening to come into contact with a chair, he

knocked down a parasol which had been laid across it, and the ivory

handle got broken.

"Good heavens!" he exclaimed. "How sorry I am for having broken Madame

Arnoux's parasol!"

At this remark, the picture-dealer raised his head and smiled in a very

peculiar fashion. Frederick, taking advantage of the opportunity thus

offered to talk about her, added shyly:

"Could I not see her?"

No. She had gone to the country to see her mother, who was ill.

He did not venture to ask any questions as to the length of time that

she would be away. He merely enquired what was Madame Arnoux's native

place.

"Chartres. Does this astonish you?"

"Astonish me? Oh, no! Why should it! Not in the least!"

After that, they could find absolutely nothing to talk about. Arnoux,

having made a cigarette for himself, kept walking round the table,

puffing. Frederick, standing near the stove, stared at the walls, the

whatnot, and the floor; and delightful pictures flitted through his

memory, or, rather, before his eyes. Then he left the apartment.

A piece of a newspaper, rolled up into a ball, lay on the floor in the

anteroom. Arnoux snatched it up, and, raising himself on the tips of his

toes, he stuck it into the bell, in order, as he said, that he might be

able to go and finish his interrupted siesta. Then, as he grasped

Frederick's hand:

"Kindly tell the porter that I am not in."

And he shut the door after him with a bang.

Frederick descended the staircase step by step. The ill-success of this

first attempt discouraged him as to the possible results of those that

might follow. Then began three months of absolute boredom. As he had

nothing to do, his melancholy was aggravated by the want of occupation.

He spent whole hours gazing from the top of his balcony at the river as

it flowed between the quays, with their bulwarks of grey stone,

blackened here and there by the seams of the sewers, with a pontoon of

washerwomen moored close to the bank, where some brats were amusing

themselves by making a water-spaniel swim in the slime. His eyes,

turning aside from the stone bridge of Nôtre Dame and the three

suspension bridges, continually directed their glance towards the

Quai-aux-Ormes, resting on a group of old trees, resembling the

linden-trees of the Montereau wharf. The Saint-Jacques tower, the Hôtel

de Ville, Saint-Gervais, Saint-Louis, and Saint-Paul, rose up in front

of him amid a confused mass of roofs; and the genius of the July Column

glittered at the eastern side like a large gold star, whilst at the

other end the dome of the Tuileries showed its outlines against the sky

in one great round mass of blue. Madame Arnoux's house must be on this

side in the rear!

He went back to his bedchamber; then, throwing himself on the sofa, he

abandoned himself to a confused succession of thoughts--plans of work,

schemes for the guidance of his conduct, attempts to divine the future.

At last, in order to shake off broodings all about himself, he went out

into the open air.

He plunged at random into the Latin Quarter, usually so noisy, but

deserted at this particular time, for the students had gone back to join

their families. The huge walls of the colleges, which the silence seemed

to lengthen, wore a still more melancholy aspect. All sorts of peaceful

sounds could be heard--the flapping of wings in cages, the noise made by

the turning of a lathe, or the strokes of a cobbler's hammer; and the

old-clothes men, standing in the middle of the street, looked up at each

house fruitlessly. In the interior of a solitary café the barmaid was

yawning between her two full decanters. The newspapers were left

undisturbed on the tables of reading-rooms. In the ironing

establishments linen quivered under the puffs of tepid wind. From time

to time he stopped to look at the window of a second-hand book-shop; an

omnibus which grazed the footpath as it came rumbling along made him

turn round; and, when he found himself before the Luxembourg, he went no

further.

Occasionally he was attracted towards the boulevards by the hope of

finding there something that might amuse him. After he had passed

through dark alleys, from which his nostrils were greeted by fresh moist

odours, he reached vast, desolate, open spaces, dazzling with light, in

which monuments cast at the side of the pavement notches of black

shadow. But once more the wagons and the shops appeared, and the crowd

had the effect of stunning him, especially on Sunday, when, from the

Bastille to the Madeleine, it kept swaying in one immense flood over the

asphalt, in the midst of a cloud of dust, in an incessant clamour. He

felt disgusted at the meanness of the faces, the silliness of the talk,

and the idiotic self-satisfaction that oozed through these sweating

foreheads. However, the consciousness of being superior to these

individuals mitigated the weariness which he experienced in gazing at

them.

Every day he went to the office of _L'Art Industriel_; and in order to

ascertain when Madame Arnoux would be back, he made elaborate enquiries

about her mother. Arnoux's answer never varied--"the change for the

better was continuing"--his wife, with his little daughter, would be

returning the following week. The longer she delayed in coming back, the

more uneasiness Frederick exhibited, so that Arnoux, touched by so much

affection, brought him five or six times a week to dine at a restaurant.

In the long talks which they had together on these occasions Frederick

discovered that the picture-dealer was not a very intellectual type of

man. Arnoux might, however, take notice of his chilling manner; and now

Frederick deemed it advisable to pay back, in a small measure, his

polite attentions.

So, being anxious to do things on a good scale, the young man sold all

his new clothes to a second-hand clothes-dealer for the sum of eighty

francs, and having increased it with a hundred more francs which he had

left, he called at Arnoux's house to bring him out to dine. Regimbart

happened to be there, and all three of them set forth for Les Trois

Frères Provençaux.

The Citizen began by taking off his surtout, and, knowing that the two

others would defer to his gastronomic tastes, drew up the _menu_. But in

vain did he make his way to the kitchen to speak himself to the _chef_,

go down to the cellar, with every corner of which he was familiar, and

send for the master of the establishment, to whom he gave "a blowing

up." He was not satisfied with the dishes, the wines, or the attendance.

At each new dish, at each fresh bottle, as soon as he had swallowed the

first mouthful, the first draught, he threw down his fork or pushed his

glass some distance away from him; then, leaning on his elbows on the

tablecloth, and stretching out his arms, he declared in a loud tone that

he could no longer dine in Paris! Finally, not knowing what to put into

his mouth, Regimbart ordered kidney-beans dressed with oil, "quite

plain," which, though only a partial success, slightly appeased him.

Then he had a talk with the waiter all about the latter's predecessors

at the "Provençaux":--"What had become of Antoine? And a fellow named

Eugène? And Théodore, the little fellow who always used to attend down

stairs? There was much finer fare in those days, and Burgundy vintages

the like of which they would never see again."

Then there was a discussion as to the value of ground in the suburbs,

Arnoux having speculated in that way, and looked on it as a safe thing.

In the meantime, however, he would lie out of the interest on his money.

As he did not want to sell out at any price, Regimbart would find out

some one to whom he could let the ground; and so these two gentlemen

proceeded at the close of the dessert to make calculations with a lead

pencil.

They went out to get coffee in the smoking-divan on the ground-floor in

the Passage du Saumon. Frederick had to remain on his legs while

interminable games of billiards were being played, drenched in

innumerable glasses of beer; and he lingered on there till midnight

without knowing why, through want of energy, through sheer

senselessness, in the vague expectation that something might happen

which would give a favourable turn to his love.

When, then, would he next see her? Frederick was in a state of despair

about it. But, one evening, towards the close of November, Arnoux said

to him:

"My wife, you know, came back yesterday!"

Next day, at five o'clock, he made his way to her house. He began by

congratulating her on her mother's recovery from such a serious illness.

"Why, no! Who told you that?"

"Arnoux!"

She gave vent to a slight "Ah!" then added that she had grave fears at

first, which, however, had now been dispelled. She was seated close

beside the fire in an upholstered easy-chair. He was on the sofa, with

his hat between his knees; and the conversation was difficult to carry

on, as it was broken off nearly every minute, so he got no chance

of giving utterance to his sentiments. But, when he began to

complain of having to study legal quibbles, she answered, "Oh! I

understand--business!" and she let her face fall, buried suddenly in her

own reflections.

He was eager to know what they were, and even did not bestow a thought

on anything else. The twilight shadows gathered around them.

She rose, having to go out about some shopping; then she reappeared in a

bonnet trimmed with velvet, and a black mantle edged with minever. He

plucked up courage and offered to accompany her.

It was now so dark that one could scarcely see anything. The air was

cold, and had an unpleasant odour, owing to a heavy fog, which partially

blotted out the fronts of the houses. Frederick inhaled it with delight;

for he could feel through the wadding of his coat the form of her arm;

and her hand, cased in a chamois glove with two buttons, her little hand

which he would have liked to cover with kisses, leaned on his sleeve.

Owing to the slipperiness of the pavement, they lost their balance a

little; it seemed to him as if they were both rocked by the wind in the

midst of a cloud.

The glitter of the lamps on the boulevard brought him back to the

realities of existence. The opportunity was a good one, there was no

time to lose. He gave himself as far as the Rue de Richeliéu to declare

his love. But almost at that very moment, in front of a china-shop, she

stopped abruptly and said to him:

"We are at the place. Thanks. On Thursday--is it not?--as usual."

The dinners were now renewed; and the more visits he paid at Madame

Arnoux's, the more his love-sickness increased. The contemplation of

this woman had an enervating effect upon him, like the use of a perfume

that is too strong. It penetrated into the very depths of his nature,

and became almost a kind of habitual sensation, a new mode of existence.

The prostitutes whom he brushed past under the gaslight, the female

ballad-singers breaking into bursts of melody, the ladies rising on

horseback at full gallop, the shopkeepers' wives on foot, the grisettes

at their windows, all women brought her before his mental vision, either

from the effect of their resemblance to her or the violent contrast to

her which they presented. As he walked along by the shops, he gazed at

the cashmeres, the laces, and the jewelled eardrops, imagining how they

would look draped around her figure, sewn in her corsage, or lighting up

her dark hair. In the flower-girls' baskets the bouquets blossomed for

her to choose one as she passed. In the shoemakers' show-windows the

little satin slippers with swan's-down edges seemed to be waiting for

her foot. Every street led towards her house; the hackney-coaches stood

in their places to carry her home the more quickly; Paris was associated

with her person, and the great city, with all its noises, roared around

her like an immense orchestra.

When he went into the Jardin des Plantes the sight of a palm-tree

carried him off into distant countries. They were travelling together on

the backs of dromedaries, under the awnings of elephants, in the cabin

of a yacht amongst the blue archipelagoes, or side by side on mules with

little bells attached to them who went stumbling through the grass

against broken columns. Sometimes he stopped in the Louvre before old

pictures; and, his love embracing her even in vanished centuries, he

substituted her for the personages in the paintings. Wearing a hennin on

her head, she was praying on bended knees before a stained-glass window.

Lady Paramount of Castile or Flanders, she remained seated in a starched

ruff and a body lined with whalebone with big puffs. Then he saw her

descending some wide porphyry staircase in the midst of senators under a

dais of ostriches' feathers in a robe of brocade. At another time he

dreamed of her in yellow silk trousers on the cushions of a harem--and

all that was beautiful, the scintillation of the stars, certain tunes in

music, the turn of a phrase, the outlines of a face, led him to think

about her in an abrupt, unconscious fashion.

As for trying to make her his mistress, he was sure that any such

attempt would be futile.

One evening, Dittmer, on his arrival, kissed her on the forehead;

Lovarias did the same, observing:

"You give me leave--don't you?--as it is a friend's privilege?"

Frederick stammered out:

"It seems to me that we are all friends."

"Not all old friends!" she returned.

This was repelling him beforehand indirectly.

Besides, what was he to do? To tell her that he loved her? No doubt, she

would decline to listen to him or else she would feel indignant and turn

him out of the house. But he preferred to submit to even the most

painful ordeal rather than run the horrible risk of seeing her no more.

He envied pianists for their talents and soldiers for their scars. He

longed for a dangerous attack of sickness, hoping in this way to make

her take an interest in him.

One thing caused astonishment to himself, that he felt in no way jealous

of Arnoux; and he could not picture her in his imagination undressed, so

natural did her modesty appear, and so far did her sex recede into a

mysterious background.

Nevertheless, he dreamed of the happiness of living with her, of

"theeing" and "thouing" her, of passing his hand lingeringly over her

head-bands, or remaining in a kneeling posture on the floor, with both

arms clasped round her waist, so as to drink in her soul through his

eyes. To accomplish this it would be necessary to conquer Fate; and so,

incapable of action, cursing God, and accusing himself of being a

coward, he kept moving restlessly within the confines of his passion

just as a prisoner keeps moving about in his dungeon. The pangs which he

was perpetually enduring were choking him. For hours he would remain

quite motionless, or else he would burst into tears; and one day when he

had not the strength to restrain his emotion, Deslauriers said to him:

"Why, goodness gracious! what's the matter with you?"

Frederick's nerves were unstrung. Deslauriers did not believe a word of

it. At the sight of so much mental anguish, he felt all his old

affection reawakening, and he tried to cheer up his friend. A man like

him to let himself be depressed, what folly! It was all very well while

one was young; but, as one grows older, it is only loss of time.

"You are spoiling my Frederick for me! I want him whom I knew in bygone

days. The same boy as ever! I liked him! Come, smoke a pipe, old chap!

Shake yourself up a little! You drive me mad!"

"It is true," said Frederick, "I am a fool!"

The clerk replied:

"Ah! old troubadour, I know well what's troubling you! A little affair

of the heart? Confess it! Bah! One lost, four found instead! We console

ourselves for virtuous women with the other sort. Would you like me to

introduce you to some women? You have only to come to the Alhambra."

(This was a place for public balls recently opened at the top of the

Champs-Elysées, which had gone down owing to a display of licentiousness

somewhat ruder than is usual in establishments of the kind.)

"That's a place where there seems to be good fun. You can take your

friends, if you like. I can even pass in Regimbart for you."

Frederick did not think fit to ask the Citizen to go. Deslauriers

deprived himself of the pleasure of Sénécal's society. They took only

Hussonnet and Cisy along with Dussardier; and the same hackney-coach set

the group of five down at the entrance of the Alhambra.

Two Moorish galleries extended on the right and on the left, parallel to

one another. The wall of a house opposite occupied the entire backguard;

and the fourth side (that in which the restaurant was) represented a

Gothic cloister with stained-glass windows. A sort of Chinese roof

screened the platform reserved for the musicians. The ground was covered

all over with asphalt; the Venetian lanterns fastened to posts formed,

at regular intervals, crowns of many-coloured flame above the heads of

the dancers. A pedestal here and there supported a stone basin, from

which rose a thin streamlet of water. In the midst of the foliage could

be seen plaster statues, and Hebes and Cupid, painted in oil, and

presenting a very sticky appearance; and the numerous walks, garnished

with sand of a deep yellow, carefully raked, made the garden look much

larger than it was in reality.

Students were walking their mistresses up and down; drapers' clerks

strutted about with canes in their hands; lads fresh from college were

smoking their regalias; old men had their dyed beards smoothed out with

combs. There were English, Russians, men from South America, and three

Orientals in tarbooshes. Lorettes, grisettes, and girls of the town had

come there in the hope of finding a protector, a lover, a gold coin, or

simply for the pleasure of dancing; and their dresses, with tunics of

water-green, cherry-red, or violet, swept along, fluttered between the

ebony-trees and the lilacs. Nearly all the men's clothes were of striped

material; some of them had white trousers, in spite of the coolness of

the evening. The gas was lighted.

Hussonnet was acquainted with a number of the women through his

connection with the fashion-journals and the smaller theatres. He sent

them kisses with the tips of his fingers, and from time to time he

quitted his friends to go and chat with them.

Deslauriers felt jealous of these playful familiarities. He accosted in

a cynical manner a tall, fair-haired girl, in a nankeen costume. After

looking at him with a certain air of sullenness, she said:

"No! I wouldn't trust you, my good fellow!" and turned on her heel.

His next attack was on a stout brunette, who apparently was a little

mad; for she gave a bounce at the very first word he spoke to her,

threatening, if he went any further, to call the police. Deslauriers

made an effort to laugh; then, coming across a little woman sitting by

herself under a gas-lamp, he asked her to be his partner in a quadrille.

The musicians, perched on the platform in the attitude of apes, kept

scraping and blowing away with desperate energy. The conductor, standing

up, kept beating time automatically. The dancers were much crowded and

enjoyed themselves thoroughly. The bonnet-strings, getting loose,

rubbed against the cravats; the boots sank under the petticoats; and all

this bouncing went on to the accompaniment of the music. Deslauriers

hugged the little woman, and, seized with the delirium of the cancan,

whirled about, like a big marionnette, in the midst of the dancers. Cisy

and Deslauriers were still promenading up and down. The young aristocrat

kept ogling the girls, and, in spite of the clerk's exhortations, did

not venture to talk to them, having an idea in his head that in the

resorts of these women there was always "a man hidden in the cupboard

with a pistol who would come out of it and force you to sign a bill of

exchange."

They came back and joined Frederick. Deslauriers had stopped dancing;

and they were all asking themselves how they were to finish up the

evening, when Hussonnet exclaimed:

"Look! Here's the Marquise d'Amaëgui!"

The person referred to was a pale woman with a _retroussé_ nose, mittens

up to her elbows, and big black earrings hanging down her cheeks, like

two dog's ears. Hussonnet said to her:

"We ought to organise a little fête at your house--a sort of Oriental

rout. Try to collect some of your friends here for these French

cavaliers. Well, what is annoying you? Are you going to wait for your

hidalgo?"

The Andalusian hung down her head: being well aware of the by no means

lavish habits of her friend, she was afraid of having to pay for any

refreshments he ordered. When, at length, she let the word "money" slip

from her, Cisy offered five napoleons--all he had in his purse; and so

it was settled that the thing should come off.

But Frederick was absent. He fancied that he had recognised the voice of

Arnoux, and got a glimpse of a woman's hat; and accordingly he hastened

towards an arbour which was not far off.

Mademoiselle Vatnaz was alone there with Arnoux.

"Excuse me! I am in the way?"

"Not in the least!" returned the picture-merchant.

Frederick, from the closing words of their conversation, understood that

Arnoux had come to the Alhambra to talk over a pressing matter of

business with Mademoiselle Vatnaz; and it was evident that he was not

completely reassured, for he said to her, with some uneasiness in his

manner:

"You are quite sure?"

"Perfectly certain! You are loved. Ah! what a man you are!"

And she assumed a pouting look, putting out her big lips, so red that

they seemed tinged with blood. But she had wonderful eyes, of a tawny

hue, with specks of gold in the pupils, full of vivacity, amorousness,

and sensuality. They illuminated, like lamps, the rather yellow tint of

her thin face. Arnoux seemed to enjoy her exhibition of pique. He

stooped over her, saying:

"You are nice--give me a kiss!"

She caught hold of his two ears, and pressed her lips against his

forehead.

At that moment the dancing stopped; and in the conductor's place

appeared a handsome young man, rather fat, with a waxen complexion. He

had long black hair, which he wore in the same fashion as Christ, and a

blue velvet waistcoat embroidered with large gold palm-branches. He

looked as proud as a peacock, and as stupid as a turkey-cock; and,

having bowed to the audience, he began a ditty. A villager was supposed

to be giving an account of his journey to the capital. The singer used

the dialect of Lower Normandy, and played the part of a drunken man. The

refrain--

"Ah! I laughed at you there, I laughed at you there,

In that rascally city of Paris!"[4]

was greeted with enthusiastic stampings of feet. Delmas, "a vocalist who

sang with expression," was too shrewd to let the excitement of his

listeners cool. A guitar was quickly handed to him and he moaned forth a

ballad entitled "The Albanian Girl's Brother."

[Footnote 4: _Ah! j'ai l'y ri, j'ai l'y ri. Dans ce gueusard de Paris!_]

The words recalled to Frederick those which had been sung by the man in

rags between the paddle-boxes of the steamboat. His eyes involuntarily

attached themselves to the hem of the dress spread out before him.

After each couplet there was a long pause, and the blowing of the wind

through the trees resembled the sound of the waves.

Mademoiselle Vatnaz blushed the moment she saw Dussardier. She soon

rose, and stretching out her hand towards him:

"You do not remember me, Monsieur Auguste?"

"How do you know her?" asked Frederick.

"We have been in the same house," he replied.

Cisy pulled him by the sleeve; they went out; and, scarcely had they

disappeared, when Madame Vatnaz began to pronounce a eulogy on his

character. She even went so far as to add that he possessed "the genius

of the heart."

Then they chatted about Delmas, admitting that as a mimic he might be a

success on the stage; and a discussion followed in which Shakespeare,

the Censorship, Style, the People, the receipts of the Porte

Saint-Martin, Alexandre Dumas, Victor Hugo, and Dumersan were all mixed

up together.

Arnoux had known many celebrated actresses; the young men bent forward

their heads to hear what he had to say about these ladies. But his words

were drowned in the noise of the music; and, as soon as the quadrille or

the polka was over, they all squatted round the tables, called the

waiter, and laughed. Bottles of beer and of effervescent lemonade went

off with detonations amid the foliage; women clucked like hens; now and

then, two gentlemen tried to fight; and a thief was arrested. The

dancers, in the rush of a gallop, encroached on the walks. Panting, with

flushed, smiling faces, they filed off in a whirlwind which lifted up

the gowns with the coat-tails. The trombones brayed more loudly; the

rhythmic movement became more rapid. Behind the mediæval cloister could

be heard crackling sounds; squibs went off; artificial suns began

turning round; the gleam of the Bengal fires, like emeralds in colour,

lighted up for the space of a minute the entire garden; and, with the

last rocket, a great sigh escaped from the assembled throng.

It slowly died away. A cloud of gunpowder floated into the air.

Frederick and Deslauriers were walking step by step through the midst of

the crowd, when they happened to see something that made them suddenly

stop: Martinon was in the act of paying some money at the place where

umbrellas were left; and he was accompanying a woman of fifty,

plain-looking, magnificently dressed, and of problematic social rank.

"That sly dog," said Deslauriers, "is not so simple as we imagine. But

where in the world is Cisy?"

Dussardier pointed out to them the smoking-divan, where they perceived

the knightly youth, with a bowl of punch before him, and a pink hat by

his side, to keep him company. Hussonnet, who had been away for the past

few minutes, reappeared at the same moment.

A young girl was leaning on his arm, and addressing him in a loud voice

as "My little cat."

"Oh! no!" said he to her--"not in public! Call me rather 'Vicomte.' That

gives you a cavalier style--Louis XIII. and dainty boots--the sort of

thing I like! Yes, my good friends, one of the old _régime_!--nice,

isn't she?"--and he chucked her by the chin--"Salute these gentlemen!

they are all the sons of peers of France. I keep company with them in

order that they may get an appointment for me as an ambassador."

"How insane you are!" sighed Mademoiselle Vatnaz. She asked Dussardier

to see her as far as her own door.

Arnoux watched them going off; then, turning towards Frederick:

"Did you like the Vatnaz? At any rate, you're not quite frank about

these affairs. I believe you keep your amours hidden."

Frederick, turning pale, swore that he kept nothing hidden.

"Can it be possible you don't know what it is to have a mistress?" said

Arnoux.

Frederick felt a longing to mention a woman's name at random. But the

story might be repeated to her. So he replied that as a matter of fact

he had no mistress.

The picture-dealer reproached him for this.

"This evening you had a good opportunity! Why didn't you do like the

others, each of whom went off with a woman?"

"Well, and what about yourself?" said Frederick, provoked by his

persistency.

"Oh! myself--that's quite a different matter, my lad! I go home to my

own one!"

Then he called a cab, and disappeared.

The two friends walked towards their own destination. An east wind was

blowing. They did not exchange a word. Deslauriers was regretting that

he had not succeeded in making a _shine_ before a certain

newspaper-manager, and Frederick was lost once more in his melancholy

broodings. At length, breaking silence, he said that this public-house

ball appeared to him a stupid affair.

"Whose fault is it? If you had not left us, to join that Arnoux of

yours----"

"Bah! anything I could have done would have been utterly useless!"

But the clerk had theories of his own. All that was necessary in order

to get a thing was to desire it strongly.

"Nevertheless, you yourself, a little while ago----"

"I don't care a straw about that sort of thing!" returned Deslauriers,

cutting short Frederick's allusion. "Am I going to get entangled with

women?"

And he declaimed against their affectations, their silly ways--in short,

he disliked them.

"Don't be acting, then!" said Frederick.

Deslauriers became silent. Then, all at once:

"Will you bet me a hundred francs that I won't _do_ the first woman that

passes?"

"Yes--it's a bet!"

The first who passed was a hideous-looking beggar-woman, and they were

giving up all hope of a chance presenting itself when, in the middle of

the Rue de Rivoli, they saw a tall girl with a little bandbox in her

hand.

Deslauriers accosted her under the arcades. She turned up abruptly by

the Tuileries, and soon diverged into the Place du Carrousel. She

glanced to the right and to the left. She ran after a hackney-coach;

Deslauriers overtook her. He walked by her side, talking to her with

expressive gestures. At length, she accepted his arm, and they went on

together along the quays. Then, when they reached the rising ground in

front of the Châtelet, they kept tramping up and down for at least

twenty minutes, like two sailors keeping watch. But, all of a sudden,

they passed over the Pont-au-Change, through the Flower Market, and

along the Quai Napoléon. Frederick came up behind them. Deslauriers gave

him to understand that he would be in their way, and had only to follow

his own example.

"How much have you got still?"

"Two hundred sous pieces."

"That's enough--good night to you!"

Frederick was seized with the astonishment one feels at seeing a piece

of foolery coming to a successful issue.

"He has the laugh at me," was his reflection. "Suppose I went back

again?"

Perhaps Deslauriers imagined that he was envious of this paltry love!

"As if I had not one a hundred times more rare, more noble, more

absorbing." He felt a sort of angry feeling impelling him onward. He

arrived in front of Madame Arnoux's door.

None of the outer windows belonged to her apartment. Nevertheless, he

remained with his eyes pasted on the front of the house--as if he

fancied he could, by his contemplation, break open the walls. No doubt,

she was now sunk in repose, tranquil as a sleeping flower, with her

beautiful black hair resting on the lace of the pillow, her lips

slightly parted, and one arm under her head. Then Arnoux's head rose

before him, and he rushed away to escape from this vision.

The advice which Deslauriers had given to him came back to his memory.

It only filled him with horror. Then he walked about the streets in a

vagabond fashion.

When a pedestrian approached, he tried to distinguish the face. From

time to time a ray of light passed between his legs, tracing a great

quarter of a circle on the pavement; and in the shadow a man appeared

with his dosser and his lantern. The wind, at certain points, made the

sheet-iron flue of a chimney shake. Distant sounds reached his ears,

mingling with the buzzing in his brain; and it seemed to him that he was

listening to the indistinct flourish of quadrille music. His movements

as he walked on kept up this illusion. He found himself on the Pont de

la Concorde.

Then he recalled that evening in the previous winter, when, as he left

her house for the first time, he was forced to stand still, so rapidly

did his heart beat with the hopes that held it in their clasp. And now

they had all withered!

Dark clouds were drifting across the face of the moon. He gazed at it,

musing on the vastness of space, the wretchedness of life, the

nothingness of everything. The day dawned; his teeth began to chatter,

and, half-asleep, wet with the morning mist, and bathed in tears, he

asked himself, Why should I not make an end of it? All that was

necessary was a single movement. The weight of his forehead dragged him

along--he beheld his own dead body floating in the water. Frederick

stooped down. The parapet was rather wide, and it was through pure

weariness that he did not make the attempt to leap over it.

Then a feeling of dismay swept over him. He reached the boulevards once

more, and sank down upon a seat. He was aroused by some police-officers,

who were convinced that he had been indulging a little too freely.

He resumed his walk. But, as he was exceedingly hungry, and as all the

restaurants were closed, he went to get a "snack" at a tavern by the

fish-markets; after which, thinking it too soon to go in yet, he kept

sauntering about the Hôtel de Ville till a quarter past eight.

Deslauriers had long since got rid of his wench; and he was writing at

the table in the middle of his room. About four o'clock, M. de Cisy came

in.

Thanks to Dussardier, he had enjoyed the society of a lady the night

before; and he had even accompanied her home in the carriage with her

husband to the very threshold of their house, where she had given him an

assignation. He parted with her without even knowing her name.

"And what do you propose that I should do in that way?" said Frederick.

Thereupon the young gentleman began to cudgel his brains to think of a

suitable woman; he mentioned Mademoiselle Vatnaz, the Andalusian, and

all the rest. At length, with much circumlocution, he stated the object

of his visit. Relying on the discretion of his friend, he came to aid

him in taking an important step, after which he might definitely regard

himself as a man; and Frederick showed no reluctance. He told the story

to Deslauriers without relating the facts with reference to himself

personally.

The clerk was of opinion that he was now going on very well. This

respect for his advice increased his good humour. He owed to that

quality his success, on the very first night he met her, with

Mademoiselle Clémence Daviou, embroideress in gold for military outfits,

the sweetest creature that ever lived, as slender as a reed, with large

blue eyes, perpetually staring with wonder. The clerk had taken

advantage of her credulity to such an extent as to make her believe that

he had been decorated. At their private conversations he had his

frock-coat adorned with a red ribbon, but divested himself of it in

public in order, as he put it, not to humiliate his master. However, he

kept her at a distance, allowed himself to be fawned upon, like a pasha,

and, in a laughing sort of way, called her "daughter of the people."

Every time they met, she brought him little bunches of violets.

Frederick would not have cared for a love affair of this sort.

Meanwhile, whenever they set forth arm-in-arm to visit Pinson's or

Barillot's circulating library, he experienced a feeling of singular

depression. Frederick did not realise how much pain he had made

Deslauriers endure for the past year, while brushing his nails before

going out to dine in the Rue de Choiseul!

One evening, when from the commanding position in which his balcony

stood, he had just been watching them as they went out together, he saw

Hussonnet, some distance off, on the Pont d'Arcole. The Bohemian began

calling him by making signals towards him, and, when Frederick had

descended the five flights of stairs:

"Here is the thing--it is next Saturday, the 24th, Madame Arnoux's

feast-day."

"How is that, when her name is Marie?"

"And Angèle also--no matter! They will entertain their guests at their

country-house at Saint-Cloud. I was told to give you due notice about

it. You'll find a vehicle at the magazine-office at three o'clock. So

that makes matters all right! Excuse me for having disturbed you! But I

have such a number of calls to make!"

Frederick had scarcely turned round when his door-keeper placed a letter

in his hand:

"Monsieur and Madame Dambreuse beg of Monsieur F. Moreau to do them the

honour to come and dine with them on Saturday the 24th inst.--R.S.V.P."

"Too late!" he said to himself. Nevertheless, he showed the letter to

Deslauriers, who exclaimed:

"Ha! at last! But you don't look as if you were satisfied. Why?"

After some little hesitation, Frederick said that he had another

invitation for the same day.

"Be kind enough to let me run across to the Rue de Choiseul. I'm not

joking! I'll answer this for you if it puts you about."

And the clerk wrote an acceptance of the invitation in the third person.

Having seen nothing of the world save through the fever of his desires,

he pictured it to himself as an artificial creation discharging its

functions by virtue of mathematical laws. A dinner in the city, an

accidental meeting with a man in office, a smile from a pretty woman,

might, by a series of actions deducing themselves from one another, have

gigantic results. Certain Parisian drawing-rooms were like those

machines which take a material in the rough and render it a hundred

times more valuable. He believed in courtesans advising diplomatists, in

wealthy marriages brought about by intrigues, in the cleverness of

convicts, in the capacity of strong men for getting the better of

fortune. In short, he considered it so useful to visit the Dambreuses,

and talked about it so plausibly, that Frederick was at a loss to know

what was the best course to take.

The least he ought to do, as it was Madame Arnoux's feast-day, was to

make her a present. He naturally thought of a parasol, in order to make

reparation for his awkwardness. Now he came across a shot-silk parasol

with a little carved ivory handle, which had come all the way from

China. But the price of it was a hundred and seventy-five francs, and he

had not a sou, having in fact to live on the credit of his next

quarter's allowance. However, he wished to get it; he was determined to

have it; and, in spite of his repugnance to doing so, he had recourse to

Deslauriers.

Deslauriers answered Frederick's first question by saying that he had no

money.

"I want some," said Frederick--"I want some very badly!"

As the other made the same excuse over again, he flew into a passion.

"You might find it to your advantage some time----"

"What do you mean by that?"

"Oh! nothing."

The clerk understood. He took the sum required out of his reserve-fund,

and when he had counted out the money, coin by coin:

"I am not asking you for a receipt, as I see you have a lot of expense!"

Frederick threw himself on his friend's neck with a thousand

affectionate protestations. Deslauriers received this display of emotion

frigidly. Then, next morning, noticing the parasol on the top of the

piano:

"Ah! it was for that!"

"I will send it, perhaps," said Frederick, with an air of carelessness.

Good fortune was on his side, for that evening he got a note with a

black border from Madame Dambreuse announcing to him that she had lost

an uncle, and excusing herself for having to defer till a later period

the pleasure of making his acquaintance. At two o'clock, he reached the

office of the art journal. Instead of waiting for him in order to drive

him in his carriage, Arnoux had left the city the night before, unable

to resist his desire to get some fresh air.

Every year it was his custom, as soon as the leaves were budding forth,

to start early in the morning and to remain away several days, making

long journeys across the fields, drinking milk at the farm-houses,

romping with the village girls, asking questions about the harvest, and

carrying back home with him stalks of salad in his pocket-handkerchief.

At length, in order to realise a long-cherished dream of his, he had

bought a country-house.

While Frederick was talking to the picture-dealer's clerk, Mademoiselle

Vatnaz suddenly made her appearance, and was disappointed at not seeing

Arnoux. He would, perhaps, be remaining away two days longer. The clerk

advised her "to go there"--she could not go there; to write a

letter--she was afraid that the letter might get lost. Frederick offered

to be the bearer of it himself. She rapidly scribbled off a letter, and

implored of him to let nobody see him delivering it.

Forty minutes afterwards, he found himself at Saint-Cloud. The house,

which was about a hundred paces farther away than the bridge, stood

half-way up the hill. The garden-walls were hidden by two rows of

linden-trees, and a wide lawn descended to the bank of the river. The

railed entrance before the door was open, and Frederick went in.

Arnoux, stretched on the grass, was playing with a litter of kittens.

This amusement appeared to absorb him completely. Mademoiselle Vatnaz's

letter drew him out of his sleepy idleness.

"The deuce! the deuce!--this is a bore! She is right, though; I must

go."

Then, having stuck the missive into his pocket, he showed the young man

through the grounds with manifest delight. He pointed out

everything--the stable, the cart-house, the kitchen. The drawing-room

was at the right, on the side facing Paris, and looked out on a floored

arbour, covered over with clematis. But presently a few harmonious notes

burst forth above their heads: Madame Arnoux, fancying that there was

nobody near, was singing to amuse herself. She executed quavers,

trills, arpeggios. There were long notes which seemed to remain

suspended in the air; others fell in a rushing shower like the spray of

a waterfall; and her voice passing out through the Venetian blind, cut

its way through the deep silence and rose towards the blue sky. She

ceased all at once, when M. and Madame Oudry, two neighbours, presented

themselves.

Then she appeared herself at the top of the steps in front of the house;

and, as she descended, he caught a glimpse of her foot. She wore little

open shoes of reddish-brown leather, with three straps crossing each

other so as to draw just above her stockings a wirework of gold.

Those who had been invited arrived. With the exception of Maître

Lefaucheur, an advocate, they were the same guests who came to the

Thursday dinners. Each of them had brought some present--Dittmer a

Syrian scarf, Rosenwald a scrap-book of ballads, Burieu a water-colour

painting, Sombary one of his own caricatures, and Pellerin a

charcoal-drawing, representing a kind of dance of death, a hideous

fantasy, the execution of which was rather poor. Hussonnet dispensed

with the formality of a present.

Frederick was waiting to offer his, after the others.

She thanked him very much for it. Thereupon, he said:

"Why, 'tis almost a debt. I have been so much annoyed----"

"At what, pray?" she returned. "I don't understand."

"Come! dinner is waiting!" said Arnoux, catching hold of his arm; then

in a whisper: "You are not very knowing, certainly!"

Nothing could well be prettier than the dining-room, painted in

water-green. At one end, a nymph of stone was dipping her toe in a basin

formed like a shell. Through the open windows the entire garden could be

seen with the long lawn flanked by an old Scotch fir, three-quarters

stripped bare; groups of flowers swelled it out in unequal plots; and at

the other side of the river extended in a wide semi-circle the Bois de

Boulogne, Neuilly, Sèvres, and Meudon. Before the railed gate in front a

canoe with sail outspread was tacking about.

They chatted first about the view in front of them, then about scenery

in general; and they were beginning to plunge into discussions when

Arnoux, at half-past nine o'clock, ordered the horse to be put to the

carriage.

"Would you like me to go back with you?" said Madame Arnoux.

"Why, certainly!" and, making her a graceful bow: "You know well,

madame, that it is impossible to live without you!"

Everyone congratulated her on having so good a husband.

"Ah! it is because I am not the only one," she replied quietly, pointing

towards her little daughter.

Then, the conversation having turned once more on painting, there was

some talk about a Ruysdaél, for which Arnoux expected a big sum, and

Pellerin asked him if it were true that the celebrated Saul Mathias from

London had come over during the past month to make him an offer of

twenty-three thousand francs for it.

"'Tis a positive fact!" and turning towards Frederick: "That was the

very same gentleman I brought with me a few days ago to the Alhambra,

much against my will, I assure you, for these English are by no means

amusing companions."

Frederick, who suspected that Mademoiselle Vatnaz's letter contained

some reference to an intrigue, was amazed at the facility with which my

lord Arnoux found a way of passing it off as a perfectly honourable

transaction; but his new lie, which was quite needless, made the young

man open his eyes in speechless astonishment.

The picture-dealer added, with an air of simplicity:

"What's the name, by-the-by, of that young fellow, your friend?"

"Deslauriers," said Frederick quickly.

And, in order to repair the injustice which he felt he had done to his

comrade, he praised him as one who possessed remarkable ability.

"Ah! indeed? But he doesn't look such a fine fellow as the other--the

clerk in the wagon-office."

Frederick bestowed a mental imprecation on Dussardier. She would now be

taking it for granted that he associated with the common herd.

Then they began to talk about the ornamentation of the capital--the new

districts of the city--and the worthy Oudry happened to refer to M.

Dambreuse as one of the big speculators.

Frederick, taking advantage of the opportunity to make a good figure,

said he was acquainted with that gentleman. But Pellerin launched into a

harangue against shopkeepers--he saw no difference between them, whether

they were sellers of candles or of money. Then Rosenwald and Burieu

talked about old china; Arnoux chatted with Madame Oudry about

gardening; Sombary, a comical character of the old school, amused

himself by chaffing her husband, referring to him sometimes as "Odry,"

as if he were the actor of that name, and remarking that he must be

descended from Oudry, the dog-painter, seeing that the bump of the

animals was visible on his forehead. He even wanted to feel M. Oudry's

skull; but the latter excused himself on account of his wig; and the

dessert ended with loud bursts of laughter.

When they had taken their coffee, while they smoked, under the

linden-trees, and strolled about the garden for some time, they went out

for a walk along the river.

The party stopped in front of a fishmonger's shop, where a man was

washing eels. Mademoiselle Marthe wanted to look at them. He emptied the

box in which he had them out on the grass; and the little girl threw

herself on her knees in order to catch them, laughed with delight, and

then began to scream with terror. They all got spoiled, and Arnoux paid

for them.

He next took it into his head to go out for a sail in the cutter.

One side of the horizon was beginning to assume a pale aspect, while on

the other side a wide strip of orange colour showed itself in the sky,

deepening into purple at the summits of the hills, which were steeped in

shadow. Madame Arnoux seated herself on a big stone with this glittering

splendour at her back. The other ladies sauntered about here and there.

Hussonnet, at the lower end of the river's bank, went making ducks and

drakes over the water.

Arnoux presently returned, followed by a weather-beaten long boat, into

which, in spite of the most prudent remonstrances, he packed his

guests. The boat got upset, and they had to go ashore again.

By this time wax-tapers were burning in the drawing-room, all hung with

chintz, and with branched candlesticks of crystal fixed close to the

walls. Mère Oudry was sleeping comfortably in an armchair, and the

others were listening to M. Lefaucheux expatiating on the glories of the

Bar. Madame Arnoux was sitting by herself near the window. Frederick

came over to her.

They chatted about the remarks which were being made in their vicinity.

She admired oratory; he preferred the renown gained by authors. But, she

ventured to suggest, it must give a man greater pleasure to move crowds

directly by addressing them in person, face to face, than it does to

infuse into their souls by his pen all the sentiments that animate his

own. Such triumphs as these did not tempt Frederick much, as he had no

ambition.

Then he broached the subject of sentimental adventures. She spoke

pityingly of the havoc wrought by passion, but expressed indignation at

hypocritical vileness, and this rectitude of spirit harmonised so well

with the regular beauty of her face that it seemed indeed as if her

physical attractions were the outcome of her moral nature.

She smiled, every now and then, letting her eyes rest on him for a

minute. Then he felt her glances penetrating his soul like those great

rays of sunlight which descend into the depths of the water. He loved

her without mental reservation, without any hope of his love being

returned, unconditionally; and in those silent transports, which were

like outbursts of gratitude, he would fain have covered her forehead

with a rain of kisses. However, an inspiration from within carried him

beyond himself--he felt moved by a longing for self-sacrifice, an

imperative impulse towards immediate self-devotion, and all the stronger

from the fact that he could not gratify it.

He did not leave along with the rest. Neither did Hussonnet. They were

to go back in the carriage; and the vehicle was waiting just in front of

the steps when Arnoux rushed down and hurried into the garden to gather

some flowers there. Then the bouquet having been tied round with a

thread, as the stems fell down unevenly, he searched in his pocket,

which was full of papers, took out a piece at random, wrapped them up,

completed his handiwork with the aid of a strong pin, and then offered

it to his wife with a certain amount of tenderness.

"Look here, my darling! Excuse me for having forgotten you!"

But she uttered a little scream: the pin, having been awkwardly fixed,

had cut her, and she hastened up to her room. They waited nearly a

quarter of an hour for her. At last, she reappeared, carried off Marthe,

and threw herself into the carriage.

"And your bouquet?" said Arnoux.

"No! no--it is not worth while!" Frederick was running off to fetch it

for her; she called out to him:

"I don't want it!"

But he speedily brought it to her, saying that he had just put it into

an envelope again, as he had found the flowers lying on the floor. She

thrust them behind the leathern apron of the carriage close to the seat,

and off they started.

Frederick, seated by her side, noticed that she was trembling

frightfully. Then, when they had passed the bridge, as Arnoux was

turning to the left:

"Why, no! you are making a mistake!--that way, to the right!"

She seemed irritated; everything annoyed her. At length, Marthe having

closed her eyes, Madame Arnoux drew forth the bouquet, and flung it out

through the carriage-door, then caught Frederick's arm, making a sign to

him with the other hand to say nothing about it.

After this, she pressed her handkerchief against her lips, and sat quite

motionless.

The two others, on the dickey, kept talking about printing and about

subscribers. Arnoux, who was driving recklessly, lost his way in the

middle of the Bois de Boulogne. Then they plunged into narrow paths. The

horse proceeded along at a walking pace; the branches of the trees

grazed the hood. Frederick could see nothing of Madame Arnoux save her

two eyes in the shade. Marthe lay stretched across her lap while he

supported the child's head.

"She is tiring you!" said her mother.

He replied:

"No! Oh, no!"

Whirlwinds of dust rose up slowly. They passed through Auteuil. All the

houses were closed up; a gas-lamp here and there lighted up the angle of

a wall; then once more they were surrounded by darkness. At one time he

noticed that she was shedding tears.

Was this remorse or passion? What in the world was it? This grief, of

whose exact nature he was ignorant, interested him like a personal

matter. There was now a new bond between them, as if, in a sense, they

were accomplices; and he said to her in the most caressing voice he

could assume:

"You are ill?"

"Yes, a little," she returned.

The carriage rolled on, and the honeysuckles and the syringas trailed

over the garden fences, sending forth puffs of enervating odour into the

night air. Her gown fell around her feet in numerous folds. It seemed to

him as if he were in communication with her entire person through the

medium of this child's body which lay stretched between them. He stooped

over the little girl, and spreading out her pretty brown tresses, kissed

her softly on the forehead.

"You are good!" said Madame Arnoux.

"Why?"

"Because you are fond of children."

"Not all!"

He said no more, but he let his left hand hang down her side wide open,

fancying that she would follow his example perhaps, and that he would

find her palm touching his. Then he felt ashamed and withdrew it. They

soon reached the paved street. The carriage went on more quickly; the

number of gas-lights vastly increased--it was Paris. Hussonnet, in front

of the lumber-room, jumped down from his seat. Frederick waited till

they were in the courtyard before alighting; then he lay in ambush at

the corner of the Rue de Choiseul, and saw Arnoux slowly making his way

back to the boulevards.

Next morning he began working as hard as ever he could.

He saw himself in an Assize Court, on a winter's evening, at the close

of the advocates' speeches, when the jurymen are looking pale, and when

the panting audience make the partitions of the prætorium creak; and

after having being four hours speaking, he was recapitulating all his

proofs, feeling with every phrase, with every word, with every gesture,

the chopper of the guillotine, which was suspended behind him, rising

up; then in the tribune of the Chamber, an orator who bears on his lips

the safety of an entire people, drowning his opponents under his figures

of rhetoric, crushing them under a repartee, with thunders and musical

intonations in his voice, ironical, pathetic, fiery, sublime. She would

be there somewhere in the midst of the others, hiding beneath her veil

her enthusiastic tears. After that they would meet again, and he would

be unaffected by discouragements, calumnies, and insults, if she would

only say, "Ah, that is beautiful!" while drawing her light hand across

his brow.

These images flashed, like beacon-lights, on the horizon of his life.

His intellect, thereby excited, became more active and more vigorous. He

buried himself in study till the month of August, and was successful at

his final examination.

Deslauriers, who had found it so troublesome to coach him once more for

the second examination at the close of December, and for the third in

February, was astonished at his ardour. Then the great expectations of

former days returned. In ten years it was probable that Frederick would

be deputy; in fifteen a minister. Why not? With his patrimony, which

would soon come into his hands, he might, at first, start a newspaper;

this would be the opening step in his career; after that they would see

what the future would bring. As for himself, he was still ambitious of

obtaining a chair in the Law School; and he sustained his thesis for

the degree of Doctor in such a remarkable fashion that it won for him

the compliments of the professors.

Three days afterwards, Frederick took his own degree. Before leaving for

his holidays, he conceived the idea of getting up a picnic to bring to a

close their Saturday reunions.

He displayed the utmost gaiety on the occasion. Madame Arnoux was now

with her mother at Chartres. But he would soon come across her again,

and would end by being her lover.

Deslauriers, admitted the same day to the young advocates' pleading

rehearsals at Orsay, had made a speech which was greatly applauded.

Although he was sober, he drank a little more wine than was good for

him, and said to Dussardier at dessert:

"You are an honest fellow!--and, when I'm a rich man, I'll make you my

manager."

All were in a state of delight. Cisy was not going to finish his

law-course. Martinon intended to remain during the period before his

admission to the Bar in the provinces, where he would be nominated a

deputy-magistrate. Pellerin was devoting himself to the production of a

large picture representing "The Genius of the Revolution." Hussonnet

was, in the following week, about to read for the Director of Public

Amusements the scheme of a play, and had no doubt as to its success:

"As for the framework of the drama, they may leave that to me! As for

the passions, I have knocked about enough to understand them thoroughly;

and as for witticisms, they're entirely in my line!"

He gave a spring, fell on his two hands, and thus moved for some time

around the table with his legs in the air. This performance, worthy of

a street-urchin, did not get rid of Sénécal's frowns. He had just been

dismissed from the boarding-school, in which he had been a teacher, for

having given a whipping to an aristocrat's son. His straitened

circumstances had got worse in consequence: he laid the blame of this on

the inequalities of society, and cursed the wealthy. He poured out his

grievances into the sympathetic ears of Regimbart, who had become every

day more and more disillusioned, saddened, and disgusted. The Citizen

had now turned his attention towards questions arising out of the

Budget, and blamed the Court party for the loss of millions in Algeria.

As he could not sleep without having paid a visit to the Alexandre

smoking-divan, he disappeared at eleven o'clock. The rest went away some

time afterwards; and Frederick, as he was parting with Hussonnet,

learned that Madame Arnoux was to have come back the night before.

He accordingly went to the coach-office to change his time for starting

to the next day; and, at about six o'clock in the evening, presented

himself at her house. Her return, the door keeper said, had been put off

for a week. Frederick dined alone, and then lounged about the

boulevards.

Rosy clouds, scarf-like in form, stretched beyond the roofs; the

shop-tents were beginning to be taken away; water-carts were letting a

shower of spray fall over the dusty pavement; and an unexpected coolness

was mingled with emanations from cafés, as one got a glimpse through

their open doors, between some silver plate and gilt ware, of flowers in

sheaves, which were reflected in the large sheets of glass. The crowd

moved on at a leisurely pace. Groups of men were chatting in the middle

of the footpath; and women passed along with an indolent expression in

their eyes and that camelia tint in their complexions which intense heat

imparts to feminine flesh. Something immeasurable in its vastness seemed

to pour itself out and enclose the houses. Never had Paris looked so

beautiful. He saw nothing before him in the future but an interminable

series of years all full of love.

He stopped in front of the theatre of the Porte Saint-Martin to look at

the bill; and, for want of something to occupy him, paid for a seat and

went in.

An old-fashioned dramatic version of a fairy-tale was the piece on the

stage. There was a very small audience; and through the skylights of the

top gallery the vault of heaven seemed cut up into little blue squares,

whilst the stage lamps above the orchestra formed a single line of

yellow illuminations. The scene represented a slave-market at Pekin,

with hand-bells, tomtoms, sweeping robes, sharp-pointed caps, and

clownish jokes. Then, as soon as the curtain fell, he wandered into the

foyer all alone and gazed out with admiration at a large green landau

which stood on the boulevard outside, before the front steps of the

theatre, yoked to two white horses, while a coachman with short breeches

held the reins.

He had just got back to his seat when, in the balcony, a lady and a

gentleman entered the first box in front of the stage. The husband had a

pale face with a narrow strip of grey beard round it, the rosette of a

Government official, and that frigid look which is supposed to

characterise diplomatists.

His wife, who was at least twenty years younger, and who was neither

tall nor under-sized, neither ugly nor pretty, wore her fair hair in

corkscrew curls in the English fashion, and displayed a long-bodiced

dress and a large black lace fan. To make people so fashionable as these

come to the theatre at such a season one would imagine either that there

was some accidental cause, or that they had got tired of spending the

evening in one another's society. The lady kept nibbling at her fan,

while the gentleman yawned. Frederick could not recall to mind where he

had seen that face.

In the next interval between the acts, while passing through one of the

lobbies, he came face to face with both of them. As he bowed in an

undecided manner, M. Dambreuse, at once recognising him, came up and

apologised for having treated him with unpardonable neglect. It was an

allusion to the numerous visiting-cards he had sent in accordance with

the clerk's advice. However, he confused the periods, supposing that

Frederick was in the second year of his law-course. Then he said he

envied the young man for the opportunity of going into the country. He

sadly needed a little rest himself, but business kept him in Paris.

Madame Dambreuse, leaning on his arm, nodded her head slightly, and the

agreeable sprightliness of her face contrasted with its gloomy

expression a short time before.

"One finds charming diversions in it, nevertheless," she said, after her

husband's last remark. "What a stupid play that was--was it not,

Monsieur?" And all three of them remained there chatting about theatres

and new pieces.

Frederick, accustomed to the grimaces of provincial dames, had not seen

in any woman such ease of manner combined with that simplicity which is

the essence of refinement, and in which ingenuous souls trace the

expression of instantaneous sympathy.

They would expect to see him as soon as he returned. M. Dambreuse told

him to give his kind remembrances to Père Roque.

Frederick, when he reached his lodgings, did not fail to inform

Deslauriers of their hospitable invitation.

"Grand!" was the clerk's reply; "and don't let your mamma get round you!

Come back without delay!"

On the day after his arrival, as soon as they had finished breakfast,

Madame Moreau brought her son out into the garden.

She said she was happy to see him in a profession, for they were not as

rich as people imagined. The land brought in little; the people who

farmed it paid badly. She had even been compelled to sell her carriage.

Finally, she placed their situation in its true colours before him.

During the first embarrassments which followed the death of her late

husband, M. Roque, a man of great cunning, had made her loans of money

which had been renewed, and left long unpaid, in spite of her desire to

clear them off. He had suddenly made a demand for immediate payment, and

she had gone beyond the strict terms of the agreement by giving up to

him, at a contemptible figure, the farm of Presles. Ten years later, her

capital disappeared through the failure of a banker at Melun. Through a

horror which she had of mortgages, and to keep up appearances, which

might be necessary in view of her son's future, she had, when Père Roque

presented himself again, listened to him once more. But now she was free

from debt. In short, there was left them an income of about ten thousand

francs, of which two thousand three hundred belonged to him--his entire

patrimony.

"It isn't possible!" exclaimed Frederick.

She nodded her head, as if to declare that it was perfectly possible.

But his uncle would leave him something?

That was by no means certain!

And they took a turn around the garden without exchanging a word. At

last she pressed him to her heart, and in a voice choked with rising

tears:

"Ah! my poor boy! I have had to give up my dreams!"

He seated himself on a bench in the shadow of the large acacia.

Her advice was that he should become a clerk to M. Prouharam, solicitor,

who would assign over his office to him; if he increased its value, he

might sell it again and find a good practice.

Frederick was no longer listening to her. He was gazing automatically

across the hedge into the other garden opposite.

A little girl of about twelve with red hair happened to be there all

alone. She had made earrings for herself with the berries of the

service-tree. Her bodice, made of grey linen-cloth, allowed her

shoulders, slightly gilded by the sun, to be seen. Her short white

petticoat was spotted with the stains made by sweets; and there was, so

to speak, the grace of a young wild animal about her entire person, at

the same time, nervous and thin. Apparently, the presence of a stranger

astonished her, for she had stopped abruptly with her watering-pot in

her hand darting glances at him with her large bright eyes, which were

of a limpid greenish-blue colour.

"That is M. Roque's daughter," said Madame Moreau. "He has just married

his servant and legitimised the child that he had by her."